244 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
capable of reducing mankind, even under circum¬ 
stances highly favourable to the culture of virtue, 
purity, and happiness. 
In these pastimes, in their accompanying abomi¬ 
nations, and the often-repeated practices of the 
most unrelenting, murderous cruelty, these wan¬ 
dering Areois passed their lives, esteemed by the 
people as a superior order of beings, closely allied 
to the gods, and deriving from them direct sanction, 
not only for their abominations, but even for their 
heartless murders. Free from labour or care, they 
roved from island to island, supported by the chiefs 
and the priests; and often feasted on plunder 
from the gardens of the industrious husbandman, 
while his own family was not unfrequently deprived 
thereby, for a time, of the means of subsistence. 
Such was their life of luxurious and licentious indo¬ 
lence and crime. And such was the character of 
their delusive system of superstition, that, for 
them, too, was reserved the Elysium which their 
fabulous mythology taught them to believe was 
provided, in a future state of existence, for those so 
preeminently favoured by the gods. 
A number of singular ceremonies were, on this 
account, performed at the death of an Areoi. The 
otohaa, or general lamentation, was continued for 
two or three days. During this time the body 
remained at the place of its decease, surrounded 
by the relatives and friends of the departed. It 
was then taken by the Areois to the grand temple, 
where the bones of the kings were deposited. Soon 
after the body had been brought within the pre¬ 
cincts of the marae, the priest of Oro came, and, 
standing over the corpse, offered a long prayer to 
his god. This prayer, and the ceremonies con¬ 
nected therewith, were designed to divest the body 
