2. The euphemism of saying ika instead of sacrificed victim (hanging from a tree) is not so far-fetched as it may seem, because fishes (the great ones of course) and men were regarded as equal in rank. In Churchill 2 there is a hilarious description of what ika really means, from which the following is only the beginning:

... I'a is the general name for fishes,' Pratt notes in his Samoan dictionary, 'except the bonito and shellfish (mollusca and crustacea).' We may forgive the inaccuracy of the biology in our gratitude for the former note. The bonito is not a fish, the bonito is a gentleman, and not for worlds would Samoa offend against his state. The Samoan in his 'upu fa'aaloalo has his own Basakrama, the language of courtesy to be used to them of high degree, to chiefs and bonitos ...

In Henry one can read more sinister information:

"Across the bows connecting each double canoe was a floor, covering the chambers containing idols, drums, trumpet shells, and other treasures for the gods and people of Ra'itea; and upon the floor were placed in a row sacrifices from abroad, which consisted of human victims brought for that purpose and just slain, and great fishes newly caught from fishing grounds of the neighboring islands. They were placed upon the floor, parallel with the canoe, alternatively a man and a cavalli fish, a man and a shark, a man and a turtle, and finally a man closed in the line.

Behind this grim spectacle stood two or three priests in sacerdotal attire, which consisted of a plain loin girdle, a shoulder cape reaching down to the waist and tipped with fringe, wide or narrow according to their grades, and a circular cap fitting closely to the head - all made of finely braided purau bark bleached white. Seated at the paddles were the navigators and warrior chiefs in gay girdles and capes of tapa and helmets of various shapes, and wise men in plain girdles, capes, and turbans of brown or white tapa. 

As this terribly earnest procession arrived, the canoes were quietly drawn up along the shore, and the guests were met at the receiving marae by an imposing procession of the dignitaries and warriors of the land grandly attired, and also unarmed, headed by the king, the two primates, Paoa-uri and Paoa-tea, and the priests of the realm, who greeted them in low, solemn tones. 

Then everybody alike set to work silently disposing of the sacrifices just arrived, combined with others of the same mixed kind prepared by the inhabitants of the land. They strung them through the heads with sennit, and act called tu'i-aha, and then suspended them upon the boughs of the trees of the seaside and inwards, the fish diversifying the ghastly spectacle of the human bodies, a decoration called ra'a nu'u a 'Oro-mata-'oa (sacredness of the host of Warrior-of-long-face)."