PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. 277 
offered by the party assailed, to secure protection 
from the gods, and punishment on their enemies. 
Another human sacrifice was now taken, called 
the Maui faatere, and was equivalent to the public 
declaration of war, and such it was also considered 
by the opposing party. In 1808, when the late 
Pomare heard that Taute, his former chief 
minister, and the most celebrated warrior in the 
nation, had joined the rebel chiefs, and that the 
Maui faatere had been offered, and the sanction 
of the gods thus implored, he was so affected that 
he wept; and it was in vain that one of his 
orators, in alluding to this event subsequently, 
exclaimed, Who is Taute ? He is a man, and 
not a god, his head reaches not to the skies. 
Who is Taute ? The king's spirits and courage 
never revived. 
If it was a naval expedition, canoes were now 
collected and equipped, and the weapons put in 
order, the spears and clubs cleaned with a boar’s 
tusk, pointed with bones of the sting-ray, and 
having been carefully polished, the handle of every 
weapon was covered with the resinous gum of the v 
bread-fruit, that it might adhere to the warrior’s 
hand, and render his grasp firm. 
When the implements of destruction were ready, 
and this seldom occupied many days, another hu¬ 
man sacrifice was offered, called the haea mati -— 
the tearing of the mati in the presence of the gods, 
as the fibres of mati were tom at the temple, before 
being twisted into cord for the sacred net. This 
was immediately before the expedition started; 
and if accepted, Oro generally inspired one of his 
prophets, who declared that the fleet or army 
should be victorious. On all these occasions, 
human sacrifices, covered with their own blood, 
