166 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 
A few tattered shreds, round the neck of one that 
stood on the left hand side of the door, rotted by 
the rain, and bleached by the sun, were all that 
remained of numerous and gaudy garments, with 
which their votaries had formerly arrayed them. 
A large pile of broken calabashes and cocoa-nut 
shells lay in the centre, and a considerable heap 
of dried, and partly rotten, wreaths of flowers, 
branches of shrubs and bushes, and fragments of 
tapa, (the accumulated offerings of former days,) 
formed an unsightly mound immediately before 
each of the images. The horrid stare of these 
idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, 
and the heaps of rotting offerings before them, 
seemed to us no improper emblems of the system 
they were designed to support; distinguished alike 
by its cruelty, folly, and wretchedness. 
We endeavoured to gain admission to the inside 
of the house, but were told it was tabu rqa , 
(strictly prohibited,) and that nothing but a direct 
order from the king, or Karaimoku, could open 
the door. However, by pushing one of the boards, 
across the door-way a little on one side, we looked 
in, and saw many large images, some of wood, very 
much carved, others of red feathers, with distended 
mouths, large rows of sharks’ teeth, and pearl-shell 
eyes. We also saw several bundles, apparently of 
human bones, cleaned, carefully tied up with cine! 
made of cocoa-nut fibres, and placed in different 
parts of the house, together with some rich shawls 
and other valuable articles, probably worn by those 
to whom the bones belonged, as the wearing ap¬ 
parel and other personal property of the chiefs is 
generally buried with them. 
Adjoining the Hare o Keave , to the southward 
we found a pahu tabu (sacred enclosure) of con- 
