sort
to force to extort the boon from him. In the struggle which ensued
Mahoike lost an arm and a leg, and to save his remaining limbs he
consented to give fire to the victorious Maui. At the same time he
offered to rub it on Maui's leg; but Maui was too cunning to agree to
that, for he knew that in that case the fire which he took to earth
would not be sacred. Finally, Mahoike rubbed the fire on Maui's head,
and said to him, "Go back to the place you came from and touch with your
forehead all the trees except the _keika_: all the trees will yield you
fire."[78]

[78] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 223 _sq._ For the names of the
Marquesan deities, among whom Tiki appears to have been the most
famous, and for some myths concerning them, see Mathias G----,
_op. cit._ pp. 40 _sqq._; Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 221 _sqq._;
Amable, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xix. (1847)
pp. 23 _sq._; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 27 _sqq._

In the Marquesas there was a class of men called _tauas_, who were
supposed to possess an hereditary gift of inspiration and to become
deities after their death. They could cause a god to dwell within them.
Often at night they might be heard conversing with the divinity in their
bodies, the deity crying out in a shrill voice, while the man answered
him in his own ordinary voice. Sometimes they would make a rustling
noise with their fingers in the leaves, and say that they had been
miraculously taken through the thatch of the house and brought back
again by the door. In their fits of inspiration they became convulsed
and glared fiercely with their eyes; then, with their hands quivering
violently, they would run about, while they prophesied death to their
enemies in squeaky tones, or demanded human victims for the god by whom
they were possessed. With the function of prophecy they combined the
office of physician or rather of exorciser. For every internal disorder
was believed to be inflicted by some god, who had taken possession of
the sufferer's person; and the _tauas_, or high priests, as we may call
them, were called in to heal the patient by ridding him of the divinity
who had entered into him. This they commonly did by feeling for the
mischievous deity till they found him, when they smothered him between
the palms of their hands.[79] Sometimes the good physician would
converse with the spirit whom he had thus caught between his hands, and
would elicit from him in