he touched his eyes, the dispute was settled. It
was as if he had said, "May I be cursed with blindness if it is not
true what I say." Or the doubter would say to his opponent, "Who will
eat you? Say the name of your god." He whose word was doubted would
then name the household god of his family, as much as to say, "May god
So-and-so destroy me, if what I have said is not true." Or the person
whose word was doubted might adopt the more expressive course still of
taking a stick and digging a hole in the ground, which was as if he
said, "May I be buried immediately if what I say is not true." But
there was another and more extensive class of curses, which were also
feared, and formed a powerful check on stealing, especially from
plantations and fruit-trees, viz. the silent hieroglyphic taboo, or
tapui (tapooe), as they call it. Of this there was a great variety,
and the following are specimens:--

1. _The sea-pike taboo._--If a man wished that a sea-pike might run
into the body of the person who attempted to steal, say, his
bread-fruits, he would plait some cocoa-nut leaflets in the form of a
sea-pike, and suspend it from one or more of the trees which he
wished to protect. Any ordinary thief would be terrified to touch a
tree from which this was suspended, he would expect that the next time
he went to the sea, a fish of the said description would dart up and
mortally wound him.

2. _The white shark taboo_ was another object of terror to a thief.
This was done by plaiting a cocoa-nut leaf in the form of a shark,
adding fins, etc., and this they suspended from the tree. It was
tantamount to an expressed imprecation, that the thief might be
devoured by the white shark the next time he went to fish.

3. _The cross-stick taboo._--This was a piece of any sort of stick
suspended horizontally from the tree. It expressed the wish of the
owner of the tree, that any thief touching it might have a disease
running right across his body, and remaining fixed there till he died.

4. _The ulcer taboo._--This was made by burying in the ground some
pieces of clam-shell, and erecting at the spot three or four reeds,
tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. This was
to express the wish and prayer of the owner that any thief might be
laid down with ulcerous sores all over his body. If a thief
transgressed, and had any subsequent swellings or sores, he confessed,
sent a present to the owner of the land, and he, in retur