He built large
heiaus, amongst others the one at Kawaihae, at the dedication of
which to his favourite war god eleven human sacrifices were offered.
To the end he remained devoted to the state religion, and the last
instances of capital punishment for breaking tabu, a thraldom deeply
interwoven with the religious system, occurred in the last year of
his reign, when one man was put to death for putting on a chief's
girdle, another for eating of a tabooed dish, and a third for
leaving a house under tabu, and entering one which was not so.
His last prayers were to his great red-feathered god Kukailimoku,
and priests bringing idols crowded round him in his dying agony.
His last words were "Move on in my good way and"-- In the death-
room the high chiefs consulted, and one, to testify his great grief,
proposed to eat the body raw, but was overruled by the majority. So
the flesh was separated from the bones, and they were tied up in
tapa, and concealed so effectually that they have never since been
found. A holocaust of three hundred dogs gave splendour to his
obsequies. "These are our gods whom I worship," he had said to
Kotzebue, while showing him one of the temples. "Whether I do right
or wrong I do not know, but I follow my faith, which cannot be
wicked, as it commands me never to do wrong.
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