e god,
took the highest place, while the chiefs sat outside the circle, as an
expression of humility calculated to please the god.

As soon as they are all seated the priest is considered as
inspired, the god being supposed to exist within him from that
moment. He remains for a considerable time in silence with his
hands clasped before him, his eyes are cast down and he rests
perfectly still. During the time the victuals are being shared
out and the kava preparing, the matabooles sometimes begin to
consult him; sometimes he answers, and at other times not;
in either case he remains with his eyes cast down. Frequently he
will not utter a word till the repast is finished and the kava
too. When he speaks he generally begins in a low and very
altered tone of voice, which gradually rises to nearly its
natural pitch, though sometimes a little above it. All that he
says is supposed to be the declaration of the god, and he
accordingly speaks in the first person, as if he were the god.
All this is done generally without any apparent inward emotion
or outward agitation; but, on some occasions, his countenance
becomes fierce, and as it were inflamed, and his whole frame
agitated with inward feeling; he is seized with an universal
trembling, the perspiration breaks out on his forehead, and his
lips turning black are convulsed; at length tears start in
floods from his eyes, his breast heaves with great emotion, and
his utterance is choked. These symptoms gradually subside.
Before this paroxysm comes on, and after it is over, he often
eats as much as four hungry men under other circumstances could
devour. The fit being now gone off, he remains for some time
calm and then takes up a club that is placed by him for the
purpose, turns it over and regards it attentively; he then looks
up earnestly, now to the right, now to the left, and now again
at the club; afterwards he looks up again and about him in like
manner, and then again fixes his eyes on the club, and so on for
several times. At length he suddenly raises the club, and, after
a moment's pause, strikes the ground or the adjacent part of the
house with considerable force, immediately the god leaves him,
and he rises up and retires to the back of the ring among the
people (vol. i. pp. 100, 101).

The phenomena thus described, in language which, to any one who is
familiar