“When this offering was concluded, which lasted a quarter of an hour, the natives sat down fronting us, and began to cut up the baked hog, to peel the vegetables and break the cocoanuts; whilst others employed themselves in brewing the awa, which is done by chewing it in the same manner as at the Friendly Islands.  Kaireekeea then took part of the kernel of a cocoanut, which he chewed, and wrapping it in a piece of cloth, rubbed with it the Captain’s face, head, hands, arms and shoulders.  The awa was then handed around, and after we had tasted it Koah and Pareea began to pull the flesh of the hog in pieces and put it into our mouths.  I had no great objection to being fed by Pareea, who was very cleanly in his person, but Captain Cook, who was served by Koah, recollecting the putrid hog, could not swallow a morsel; and his reluctance, as may be supposed, was not diminished when the old man, according to his own mode of civility had chewed it for him.

“When this ceremony was finished, which Captain Cook put an end to as soon as he decently could, we quitted the Moral.”

Evidently the whole purpose of Captain Cook in permitting this performance, was to flatter and gratify the natives and make himself strong to command them.  The Captain himself was sickened, and got away as quickly as he could without giving offense.  This was not the only case in which the native priests presented the navigator as a superior being.  Perhaps the view the old sailor took of the style of ceremony was as there were so many gods, one more or less did not matter.  Cook never attached importance to the freaks of superstition, except so far as it might be made useful in keeping the bloody and beastly savages in check.  Bearing upon this point we quote W.D.  Alexander’s “Brief History of the Hawaiian People,” pages 33-34: 

“Infanticide was fearfully prevalent, and there were few of the older women at the date of the abolition of idolatry who had not been guilty of it.  It was the opinion of those best informed that two-thirds of all the children born were destroyed in infancy by their parents.  They were generally buried alive, in many cases in the very houses occupied by their unnatural parents.  On all the islands the number of males was much greater than that of females, in consequence of the girls being more frequently destroyed than the boys.  The principal reason given for it was laziness—­unwillingness to take the trouble of rearing children.  It was a very common practice for parents to give away their children to any persons who were willing to adopt them.

“No regular parental discipline was maintained, and the children were too often left to follow their own inclinations and to become familiar with the lowest vices.

“Neglect of the helpless.  Among the common people old age was despised.  The sick and those who had become helpless from age were sometimes abandoned to die or put to death.  Insane people were also sometimes stoned to death.”