need only be checked by a care that he is countenanced by ancient precedents. Persons of small importance borrow the shade of the system, and endeavour by its aid to place their yam beds and plantain plots within a sacred prohibition.” Ellis continues in the same tone of banter. “The tabu seasons were either common or strict. During a common tabu the men were only required to abstain from their usual avocations and attend at the temple, when the prayers were offered every morning and evening; but during the season of strict tabu, every fire and light on the island must be extinguished, no canoe must be launched on the water, no person must bathe; and except those whose attendance was required at the temple, no individual must be seen out of doors; no dog must bark, no pig must grunt, no cock must crow, or the tabu would be broken and fail to accomplish the object designed. On these occasions they tied up the mouths of the dogs and pigs, and put the fowls under a calabash or fastened a piece of cloth over their eyes. All the common people prostrated themselves with their faces touching the ground before the sacred chiefs when they walked out, particularly during tabu; and neither the king nor the priests were allowed to touch anything; even their food was put into their mouths by another person. The tabu was imposed either by proclamation, when the crier or herald of the priests went round, generally in the evening, requiring every light to be extinguished, the path by the sea to be left for the king, the paths inland to be left for the gods, etc. The people, however, were generally prepared, having had previous warning, though this was not always the case. Sometimes it was laid on by fixing certain marks, called _unu unu_, the purport of which was well understood, on things tabued. When the fish of a certain part are tabued, a small pole is fixed in the rocks on the coast in the centre of the place, to which is tied a bunch of bamboo leaves on a piece of white cloth. A cocoa-nut leaf is tied to the stem of the tree when the fruit is tabued. The hogs which were tabued, having been devoted to the gods, had a piece of cinnet woven through a perforation in one of their ears. The females in particular must have felt the degrading and humiliating effects of the tabu in its full force. From its birth the child, if a female, was not allowed a particle of food that had been kept in the father’s dish or cooked at his fire; and the little boy, after being weaned, was fed with his father’s food, and as soon as he was able sat down to meals with his father, while his mother was not only obliged to take her meals in the outhouse, but was interdicted from tasting the kind of which he ate.”