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Human Offerings

It is apparent from the history of various island groups that the Polynesians, like other early peoples, believed in sympathetic magic. As an offering of the first fruits would insure or increase the fertility of crops, so an offering of a person killed in war would promote success in future military campaigns. In New Zealand, where stress was laid on the first object killed or secured, as in the first fish or the first bird, so in war importance was laid on the first person killed in battle. The New Zealanders seem to have adhered to an early pattern of offering a part of the victim on the spot where the first person fell. There was no time to wait for a more elaborate ritual on temple ground. The priest of the party that slew the first man in battle immediately removed the victim's heart and held it aloft as an offering to the war god of his tribe. He also cut off a lock of hair, which was placed on the tribal shrine when the war party returned home. The first slain in battle was termed the "first fish" (mataika), which indicates that to a seafaring people the memory remains of fish being an early form of offering to the gods.

In Mangaia, the body of an enemy slain in battle was offered on the temple of the victors. In the growth of ritual that took place, a victim was se-page 25lected from a conquered tribe and killed as a special offering for the temple installation of the leader of the victorious forces who became dictator over the island. The human offering was also termed the "fish" (ika). It was held that the human offering to the god Rongo would insure a peaceful rule with plenteous seasons of food. The offering was not eaten but was cast into, the bushes behind the temple as food for Papa, who was paradoxically the mother of the gods.

Human offerings were common on the other island groups except on some of the atolls and in the west. Where cannibalism prevailed, they were eaten by the priests. In the Society Islands, where the eating of human flesh was not indulged in, a form of symbolic eating took place. The high priest handed an eye of the victim to the high chief, who passed it across his mouth and returned it to the priest. A human offering was the greatest of all offerings and was used only on important occasions. There is no doubt that at times the system was abused by chiefs and priests who indicated as an offering some person they wanted to have removed. On the other hand, in some ceremonies in the Society Islands a young banana plant was substituted for the human offering and was referred to as the "long banana man." The human offering was also termed a "fish." Hence it is evident page 26that, just as the young banana plant could on occasion be substituted for a human being, so the human being was originally a substitute for an offering of fish. The plant retained the term "man," and man retained the term "fish."

I have referred throughout to the human victim as an offering rather than a sacrifice. A sacrifice should involve a certain amount of acquiescence on the part of the person who formed the offering. The persons offered were unwilling victims of the despotism of chiefs and priests. When families from whom victims were likely to be selected learned of an impending ceremony that demanded a human offering, they hid themselves in the mountains and forests until the ceremony was over. Instances occurred in Mangaia, however, in which chiefs and priests offered themselves voluntarily as human sacrifices in order that the tribes to which they belonged might attain victory in an impending war. The sacrifice was made known to their tribal priests in order that they might make the spiritual offering to the gods. The self-appointed victim then exposed himself to death at the hands of the enemy. The killing completed the sacrifice and insured victory in the minds of the tribe for whom the sacrifice was made. Greater love hath no man than this, that he give up his life for his tribe.

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