Human sacrifices were also offered on the breaking out of war. Mr. Williams remarks that a correct idea of the extent to which this system is carried may be obtained from a relation of the circumstances under which the last Tahitian victim fell, immediately prior to the introduction of Christianity. Pomare, king of Tahiti, was on the point of fighting a battle which would assure his supremacy or deprive him of his dominions. It became to him, therefore, a matter of the highest concern to propitiate the gods by the most valuable offerings he could command. For this purpose, rolls of native cloth, pigs, fish, and immense quantities of other food were presented at the maraes; but the gods (or their priests) would not be satisfied; a human victim was demanded. Pomare, therefore, sent two of his messengers to the house of the victim, whom he had marked for the occasion. On reaching the place they inquired of the wife where her husband was, and she, in her innocence, gave the required explanation. "Well," they continued, "we are thirsty; give us some cocoa-nut water." She had no nuts in the house, she replied, but they were at liberty to climb the trees, and take as many as they desired. They then requested her to lend them the _O_,--a piece of ironwood, about four feet long and an inch and a half in diameter, with which the natives open the cocoa-nut. She cheerfully consented, little suspecting that she was placing in their murderous hands the instrument which, in a few moments, was to inflict a fatal blow on her husband's head. Upon receiving the _O_, the men left the house, and went in search of their victim; and the woman, her suspicions being excited, followed them shortly afterwards, reaching the scene just in time to see the blow inflicted, and her husband fall.
She rushed forward to take a last embrace, but was immediately seized and bound hand and foot, while her husband's body was placed in a long basket made of cocoa-nut leaves, and carried from her sight. The sacrificers were always exceedingly careful to prevent the wife, or daughter, or any female relative from touching the corpse; for so polluting were females considered, that a victim would have been desecrated by a woman's touch or breath, to such a degree as to have rendered it unfit for an offering to the gods.