rd gods that lashed the sea into
storms and wrecked canoes. War gods of wood were carried in battle,
among them the fierce-looking image of Kalaipahoa, born in the van of
the army of Kamehameha, and made at a cost of many lives from one of
the trees poisoned by that goddess. Its fragments were divided among
his people after the king's death. Apropos of this figure, a gamester
had lost everything except a pig, which he did not dare to stake,
as it had been claimed for a sacrifice by a priest with a porkly
appetite. At the command of a deity, however, who appeared in his
dreams, he disregarded the taboo and wagered the pig next day. Being
successful in his play, he in thankfulness offered half of his gains
to the deity. This god appeared on a second night and told him that if
the king would make an idol of a certain wood growing near she would
breathe power into it, and would make the gambler her priest. So the
king ordered a tree to be cut. As the chips flew into the faces of
the choppers they fell dead. Others, covering their bodies with cloth
and their faces with leaves, managed to hew off a piece as large as
a child's body, and from this the statue was carved with daggers,
held at arm's-length; and Kalaipahoa means Dagger-cut. Another god
of the great king was Kaili, which was of wood with a head-dress of
yellow feathers. This image uttered yells of encouragement that could
be heard above the din of conflict.

Statues of the gods were kept in walled enclosures, sometimes four
or five acres in extent, within which stood the temples and altars of
sacrifice, and there the people read the fates, as did the Greek and
Roman soothsayers, in the shapes of clouds and the forms and colors of
entrails of birds or of pigs killed on the altars. Human sacrifices
were offered on important occasions, but always of men,--never of
women or children. If no criminals or prisoners were available,
the first gardener or fisherman was captured, knocked on the head,
and his body left to decay on the altar. Oil and holy water were
used to anoint the altar and sacred objects, and when a temple was
newly finished its altar was piled with the dead. There is a striking
universality among people in the brutal stage of development in this
practice of pacifying their deities by murder. When a king or high
priest offered a sacrifice of a foeman the butcher gouged the left eye
from the body and gave it to his superior, who pretended to eat it. If
a vi