312 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
them to a state of the greatest destitution, and 
often leads to the perpetration of the most revolt¬ 
ing and unnatural crime of murdering and feeding 
upon each other. 
We have frequently met with the natives of the 
Marquesas in other islands of the Pacific. Three 
of them attended a public service which I held in 
Byron’s Bay, on the island of Hawaii, in 1823. 
When the assembly dispersed, they expressed 
their approbation of what they had heard. I asked 
them from what island they came: they said, 
Fatuiva, or La Magdalena, and that there were 
seven white men and two negroes living in their 
island, but they told them nothing concerning 
Jehovah or Jesus Christ. I asked them if they 
thought their countrymen would receive and pro¬ 
tect Missionaries. “ Yes/’ they answered, “ we 
are sure they would.” “But you kill and eat white 
people: Missionaries would not be safe among you/’ 
After a moment’s pause, they exclaimed, “ Oh no ! 
Oh no ! you would not injure us, and should never 
be injured by us.” In the Sandwich Islands I have 
often had a number of Marquesans residing near 
me, and visiting my house daily, for the purpose of 
teaching me their language, and receiving instruc¬ 
tion in reading and writing; and though, when I 
have questioned them on the practice of eating 
one another, they have generally denied it, they 
have allowed its existence among other tribes; 
and I have often been disposed to attribute such 
denial, in reference to themselves, to a sense of 
shame, arising from the detestation in which can¬ 
nibalism is held by those among whom they were 
residing, rather than to their actual exemption from 
it. The testimony of the natives of Tahiti, and of 
foreigners who have resided among them, of the 
