Pacific, where
it is said to be a cultivated plant. See S. Percy Smith,
_Hawaiki, the Original Home of the Maori_ (Christchurch, etc.,
New Zealand, 1910), p. 146. To wear a wreath of the leaves round
the neck, and to sit with the head bowed down, constituted the
strongest possible expression of humility and entreaty. See E.
E. V. Collocot, "Notes on Tongan Religion," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, xxx. (1921) p. 159.

[68] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 163 _sq._

Another case of sacrilege, which occurred in Mariner's time, was
attended with more tragic consequences. He tells us that consecrated
places might not be the scene of war, and that it would be highly
sacrilegious to attack an enemy or to spill his blood within their
confines. On one occasion, while Mariner was in the islands, four men,
pursued by their enemies, fled for refuge to a consecrated enclosure,
where they would have been perfectly safe. One of them was in the act of
scrambling over the reed fence, and had got a leg over it, when he was
overtaken by a foe, who struck him such a furious blow on the head that
he fell dead within the hallowed ground. Conscience-stricken, the slayer
fled to his canoe, followed by his men; and on arriving at the fortress
where the king was stationed he made a clean breast of his crime,
alleging in excuse that it had been committed in hot blood when he had
lost all self-command. The king immediately ordered kava to be taken to
the priest of his own tutelary god, that the divinity might be consulted
as to what atonement was proper to be made for so heinous a sacrilege.
Under the double inspiration of kava and the deity, the priest made
answer that it was necessary a child should be strangled to appease the
anger of the gods. The chiefs then held a consultation and determined to
sacrifice the child of a high chief named Toobo Toa. The child was about
two years old and had been born to him by a female attendant. On such
occasions the child of a male chief by a female attendant was always
chosen for the victim first, because, as a child of a chief, he was a
worthier victim, and second, because, as a child of a female attendant,
he was not himself a chief; for nobility being traced in the female line
only those children were reckoned chiefs whose mothers were
chieftainesses; the rank of the father, whether noble or not, did not
affect the rank of his offspring. On this occasion the father