POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 293 
supposed his disease inflicted in consequence of 
the prayers of some malicious enemy, or the vin¬ 
dictive displeasure of the gods of his country ; 
hence he had consulted the sorcerers, expended 
on them his property, and attended to all their 
injunctions, if by any means his life might be 
spared. 
The popular superstitions of the islanders lead 
them to imagine, that an individual, who possesses 
the means of employing a sorcerer, may afflict with 
painful disease, and even occasion the death of, 
any person against whom he may indulge feelings 
of hatred or revenge. They also believe that the 
sorcerers, by certain incantations, can discover the 
author or cause of the disease, and refer it back 
to the party with whom it originated. So preva¬ 
lent are these notions, that the people generally 
believe every individual, who does not meet his 
death by some act of violence, is destroyed by 
the immediate power of an unpropitious deity, by 
poison, or the incantations of the sorcerers em¬ 
ployed by some cruel enemy. This belief gives 
the sorcerers great influence among the middling 
and lower orders; and in times of protracted sick¬ 
ness, their aid is almost invariably sought by all 
who can procure a dog and a fowl for the sacrifice, 
and a piece or two of tapa as a fee for the priest. 
A dog and a fowl are all that are necessary for the 
ceremony; but the offerings to the god, and the 
fees to the priest, are regulated according to the 
wealth or rank of the individual on whose behalf 
the aid of sorcery is employed. 
The ceremonies performed are various; but the 
most general is the kuni ahi , broiling fire, a kind 
of anaand , or sorcery, used to discover the person 
whose incantation has induced the illness of the 
