Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/132

104 person got a part of either, they would have the power to pray him to death. While I remained here I saw many instances of this strange practice. The common people think that it is in the power of the chief priests to pray them to death at pleasure. When on shore I had a small shaving pot and a carving knife stolen; I went to a priest, made him a present of a file, and told him what I had lost, upon which he came to the house, and sent a cryer round the village, proclaiming, that if the articles stolen were not produced before night, all the parties concerned in the theft should be prayed to death. Next morning we found the knife and pot outside of the eating-house door; and I never again lost any thing while I remained on the island. This plan of terrifying these purloiners is an excellent one to prevent theft, and in fact to govern them, as superstition prevails so strongly among them, as to be the only basis on which to build certain laws. The chiefs make use of a root, called ava, which is preparing by chewing it well and spitting it into a calabash; and, when they have a sufficient quantity collected, they strainit through the fibres of the cocoa-nut. It is taken daily in small quantities for about a month, and has the effect of intoxicating. When a man first commences taking it, he begins to break out in scales about the head, and it makes the eyes very sore and red, then the neck and breasts, working downwards, till it approaches the feet, when the dose is reduced. At this time the body is covered all over with a white scruff, or scale, resembling the