SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
15 
little flags, it was accounted infamous to kill or strike 
him*. 
There is every reason to believe that Cook was mistaken 
when, on his first visit to Atooi or Tauii, he thought the 
inhabitants man-eaters: there is not the least trace of so 
barbarous a custom, even at the time of the human sacrifice. 
Like many other nations, the Sandwich Islanders have 
made their feastings part of religious ceremonies, and have 
considered some articles of food as peculiarly acceptable 
to the gods, and as too precious to be consumed by the 
lower classes of people. The hog and some species of fish 
were here the sacred animals, only to be eaten by men and 
offered to the divinities. Women were not allowed to taste 
of them nor of the plantain, nor even to enter the apart¬ 
ment where men ate, nor to touch their messes. A boy, 
as soon as he was born, enjoyed all these privileges, while 
his mother continued in these matters a slave; and yet, by 
a strange anomaly, women ranked with men in all matters 
of power and government, exercised the rights of chiefs, and 
governed districts or islands in perfect equality, enjoying 
perhaps superior rank in council. As to the kinds of food 
used by these people, the only domestic animals they had, 
when Cook discovered them, were the hog, dog, and common 
* See the six cities of refuge among the Jews, Numb. xxxv. v. 6 . 
