were contented with their own individual schemes and imprecations to
frighten thieves and prevent stealing. When a man went to his
plantation and saw that some cocoa-nuts, or a bunch of bananas, had
been stolen, he would stand and shout at the top of his voice two or
three times, "May fire blast the eyes of the person who has stolen my
bananas! May fire burn down his eyes and the eyes of his god too!"
This rang throughout the adjacent plantations, and made the thief
tremble. They dreaded such uttered imprecations. Others cursed more
privately when a thing was stolen, and called in the aid of a priest.
In common disputes also, affecting the veracity of each other, it was
customary for the one to say to the other, "Touch your eyes, if what
you say is true." If 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