TATAUING PROHIBITED. 214 
the latter, at the same time, firmly declaring their 
determination to enforce the laws which they had 
promulgated. 
Among other prohibitions, that of tatauing, or 
staining the body, was included. ‘The simple act 
of marking the skin was not a breach of the peace, 
but it was intimately connected with their former 
idolatry, always attended with the practice of 
abominable vices, and was on this account pro- 
hibited. In the month of July, it was discovered 
that a number, about forty-six young persons, had 
been marking themselves. The principal chiefs 
said, that formerly the disobedience of so nume- 
-rous a party to any order of the chiefs, would have 
been considered equivalent to a declaration of war, 
and they should have sent armed men after them 
at once, and either have slain or banished the 
delinquents;, but now, as they had laws, they 
wished to know whether it would be right that 
they should all be tried, and, if found guilty, have 
the sentence annexed to the crime pronounced 
against them. 
We told the chiefs it would not be wrong, and 
the next morning attended the trial. It was con- 
ducted with the greatest candour and forbearance 
on the part of the magistrates and accusers, and 
an equal degree of submission on the part of the 
offenders, though it appeared they had supposed 
that from their numbers, and the circumstance of 
one or two young chiefs of distinction being among 
them, the government would not have noticed 
their conduct. They were sentenced to build a 
certain quantity of stone-work on the margin of 
the sea. 
In a day or two afterwards, it was discovered 
that Taaroarii, the king’s son, a youth about 
