sual manner, began the same kind of chant as
before, his companions making regular responses. We observed that
after every response their parts became gradually shorter, till,
toward the close, Kaireekeea's consisted of only two or three words,
while the rest answered by the word Orono.

"When this offering was concluded, which lasted a quarter of an hour,
the natives sat down fronting us, and began to cut up the baked hog,
to peel the vegetables and break the cocoanuts; whilst others employed
themselves in brewing the awa, which is done by chewing it in the
same manner as at the Friendly Islands. Kaireekeea then took part of
the kernel of a cocoanut, which he chewed, and wrapping it in a piece
of cloth, rubbed with it the Captain's face, head, hands, arms and
shoulders. The awa was then handed around, and after we had tasted it
Koah and Pareea began to pull the flesh of the hog in pieces and put
it into our mouths. I had no great objection to being fed by Pareea,
who was very cleanly in his person, but Captain Cook, who was served
by Koah, recollecting the putrid hog, could not swallow a morsel;
and his reluctance, as may be supposed, was not diminished when the
old man, according to his own mode of civility had chewed it for him.

"When this ceremony was finished, which Captain Cook put an end to
as soon as he decently could, we quitted the Moral."

Evidently the whole purpose of Captain Cook in permitting this
performance, was to flatter and gratify the natives and make himself
strong to command them. The Captain himself was sickened, and got away
as quickly as he could without giving offense. This was not the only
case in which the native priests presented the navigator as a superior
being. Perhaps the view the old sailor took of the style of ceremony
was as there were so many gods, one more or less did not matter. Cook
never attached importance to the freaks of superstition, except so
far as it might be made useful in keeping the bloody and beastly
savages in check. Bearing upon this point we quote W.D. Alexander's
"Brief History of the Hawaiian People," pages 33-34:

"Infanticide was fearfully prevalent, and there were few of the older
women at the date of the abolition of idolatry who had not been guilty
of it. It was the opinion of those best informed that two-thirds of
all the children born were destroyed in infancy by their parents. They
were generally buried alive, in many cases in the very houses occupied