lin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 265 _sq._

Some of these dancing-places appear to have been much larger than those
seen by Stewart. According to Langsdorff they were sometimes not less
than a hundred fathoms in length, and the great smooth pavement
consisted of blocks of stone, several feet broad, laid so neatly and so
close together that you might have imagined it to be the work of
European master-masons.[49] Radiguet describes one such dancing-place as
a rectangular area eighty metres (about two hundred and sixty feet) long
by thirty metres (about one hundred feet) broad, and surrounded by a
terrace paved with stone, on which the spectators were seated.[50]

[49] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 138.

[50] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 195.

The festivals (_koikas_) celebrated at these places were either
periodical or occasional. Among the periodical perhaps the most
important was that held at the ingathering of the bread-fruit harvest in
February and March. Among the occasional were those held after a
successful fishing, at the ratification of peace, and after the death
of a priest or chief, who had been raised to the rank of a deity. A
messenger decked in all the native finery repaired to the surrounding
villages inviting the inhabitants to attend the festival. Immense
numbers of hogs were killed and huge troughs filled with bread-fruit
were provided by the hosts for the banquet. The festivals were attended
not only by the people of the particular valley in which they were held,
but by the inhabitants of other valleys and even of other islands; for
so long as a festival lasted, a special taboo forbade the natives to
harm the strangers in their midst. A general truce was observed; members
of hostile tribes came to share the pleasures of the festival with the
foes whom they had recently fought, and whom they would fight again in a
few days.[51] Yet such visitors were careful to observe certain
precautions: they never came unarmed, and they always kept together on
one side of the festival ground, in order that they might rally the more
easily for mutual defence, if they should be suddenly attacked.[52]

[51] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 236 _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _op.
cit._ i. 318; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp.
264 _sq._; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 69 _sqq._; Radiguet,
_op. cit._ pp. 192 _sq._

[52] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 138.

The performers who sang and danced at these