Many Polynesians were cannibals: some of them dreadful cannibals. Their eating of human flesh was often connected with their religion. They had many gods, whom they represented by idols. The Hawaiian war god is an example. His idol was an image four or five feet high; the upper part was of wickerwork covered with red feathers; the hideous face was supplied with a great mouth with triple rows of dog’s or shark’s teeth; the eyes were of shell, and upon the head was a helmet crested with long tresses of human hair. XXXI. CONCLUSION. We have spoken of many Strange Peoples. We have gone around the world in our search. But after all we have examined but a small part. Remember that there are fifty-one peoples at least in the Philippines alone. We have not examined the Australians, or the unfortunate Tasmanians, or the many tribes of Siberia, or the sixty native populations of India. We have omitted great nations like the southeast Asians,—Siamese, Burmese, Annamese. In fact there are many times more Strange Peoples in the world whom we have _not_ examined, than whom we have. But we have examined enough, I hope, to learn that they are interesting and deserve our acquaintance and our sympathy. There are few unknown peoples left. Travellers have gone to almost all parts of the world. The spots which represent absolutely unexplored regions on our maps are now neither large nor numerous. There are many peoples about whom we know little, but there are not many who are actually unknown. Those that may be discovered hereafter will be interesting, but they are not likely to be very different from those now known. Many of the Strange Peoples are becoming less “strange” every year. Old customs and peculiar practices are dying out in every part of the world. Travellers, missionaries, and merchants from white men’s lands are taking our ideas, our tools, our weapons, our dress, our learning, our religion, and our vices to the remotest parts of the world. Some of the Strange Peoples here described have already lost most of their old customs. The Polynesians and Fijians have little of the old life which we have described. Many American Indian tribes have changed less. Some populations have still changed little. But a tribe must indeed be remote and difficult of access to actually escape our touch absolutely. Usually the change is _not_ improvement. Other people more quickly adopt our vices than our virtues. Many tribes have become drunken, diseased, and depraved through the white man’s influence. It is rare, indeed, that a lower people gains in happiness or virtue by contact with “higher civilization.”