e been
confined to Tahiti, but to have prevailed in the other islands of the
Society Archipelago. We hear particularly of the divinity of the kings
of Raiatea. In that island a place called Opoa is said to have been the
metropolis of idolatry for all the South Pacific Islands within a
compass of five hundred miles. Hither, from every shore, human victims,
already slain, were sent to be offered on the altar of the war-god Oro,
whose principal image was there worshipped. There, too, was the
residence of the kings of the island, "who, beside the prerogatives of
royalty, enjoyed divine honours, and were in fact living idols among the
dead ones, being deified at the time of their accession to political
supremacy here. In the latter character, we presume, it was, that these
sovereigns (who always took the name of Tamatoa) were wont to receive
presents from the kings and chiefs of adjacent and distant islands,
whose gods were all considered tributary to the Oro of Raiatea, and
their princes owing homage to its monarch, who was Oro's hereditary
high-priest, as well as an independent divinity himself."[17] Of one
particular monarch of this line, Tamatoa by name, we read that he "had
been enrolled among the gods," and that "as one of the divinities of his
subjects, therefore, the king was worshipped, consulted as an oracle,
and had sacrifices and prayers offered to him."[18]

[17] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_,
i. 529 _sq._

[18] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 524.

In the succession to the throne the law of primogeniture prevailed, and
in accordance with a singular usage, which was invariably observed, the
king regularly abdicated on the birth of his first son and became a
subject of his infant offspring. The child was at once proclaimed the
sovereign of the people: the royal title was conferred on him; and his
own father was the first to do him homage by saluting his feet and
declaring him king. The public herald was despatched round the island
with the flag of the infant monarch: in every district he unfurled the
banner and proclaimed the accession of the youthful sovereign. The
insignia of royalty and the homage of the people were at once
transferred from the father to the child: the royal domains and other
sources of revenue were appropriated to the maintenance of the household
of the infant ruler; and the father paid him all the marks of reverence
and submission which he had hi