The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead

Society

ast, and fall into two groups, an eastern and a western, which, on account of the prevailing wind, are known respectively as the Windward and Leeward Islands. The Windward or eastern group includes Eimeo or Mo?rea in the west, Maitea in the east, and Tahiti, the principal island of the whole archipelago, in the centre. In the Leeward or western group the chief islands are Huahine,

very fertile land between their last slopes and the beach. Between the ridges lie deep and beautiful valleys, watered by winding streams and teeming with luxuriant vegetation. The rocks of which the islands consist are all igneous, chiefly trachyte, dolerite, basalt, and lava. They are considered by geologists to present

hed by the white-crested waves of the Pacific breaking in foam on the coral reefs or dashing in spray on the beach. The scene is especially striking when beheld for the first time from the sea at sunrise on a fine morning. Then the happy combination of land and water, of precipices and plains, of umbrageous trees drooping their pendent boughs over the sea, and distant mountains shown in sublime outline and richest hues, all blended in the harmony of nature, produces in the beholder sensations of admiration and delight. The inland scenery is of a different character, but not less impressive. There the prospect is occasionally extensive, but more frequently circumscribed. There is, however, a startling boldness in the towering piles of basalt, often heaped in picturesque confusion near the source or margin of some crystal stream t

nders and the

ans. The men have beards, which they used to wear in a variety of fashions, always, however, plucking out the greater part. The shape of the face is comely, and the facial angle is often as perpendicular as in Europeans. The cheek-bones are not high; the nose is either straight or aquiline, often accompanied by a fulness about the nostrils; it is seldom flat, though it was formerly the practice of mothers and nurses to press the nostrils of the female children, a broad flat nose being by many regarded as a beauty. The mouth in general is well formed, though the lips are sometimes large and protuber

tivated by the natives, and they also grow the sweet potato as an article of food, though to a less extent than the other two roots; in quality the sweet potato of Tahiti is far inferior to that of the Sandwich Islands. The sea affords a great variety of fish and shell-fish, which the native

ry dwelling contained little or no furniture except a few small blocks of wood, hollowed out on the upper surface so as to form head-rests or pillows. The houses served chiefly as dormitories and as shelters in rain: the people took their meals in the open air. Chiefs, however, often owned houses of much larger dimensions, which were built and maintained for them at the common expense of the district. Some of these chiefly dwellings were two hundred feet long, thirty feet broad, and twenty feet high under the ridge; one of them, belonging to the king, measured three hundred and seventy feet in length. We read o

ray, with coral sand, as a filer or polisher. This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and with these they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber. The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is a kind of basaltes, of a blackish or grey colour, not very hard, but of considerable toughness: they are of different sizes; some, that are intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but

ny we have in Europe; it was produced by a mixture of the juices of two vegetables, the fruit of a species of fig and the leaves of the Cordia sebastina or etou tree. The patterns were in this bright scarlet on a yellow ground; formerly they were altogether devoid of uniformity or regularity, yet exhibited a considerable degree of taste. The bales of bark-cloth were sometimes as much as two hundred yards long by four yards wide; the whole bale was in a single piece, being composed of narrow strips joined together by being beaten with grooved mallets. A chief's wealth was sometimes estimated by the number of bales which he possessed; the more valuable sort, covered with matting or cloth of an inferior sort, were generally hung from the roof of his house. The manufacture of cloth was chiefly in the hands of women; indeed it was one of their most usual employments. Even women of hi

ing nets, hooks, and harpoons made of cane and pointed with hard wood. In every expedient for taking fish they are said to have been exceedingly ingenious.[11] They made bows and arrows,

ody of the people and the strength of the nation, as well as of the army. The petty farmers owned from twenty to a hundred acres. Some of the great landowners possessed many hundreds of acres, and being surrounded by retainers they constituted the aristocracy of the country and imposed a restraint upon the king, who, without their co-opera

interwoven with religion; the king sometimes personated the god and received the homage and prayers of the worshippers; at other times he officiated as high-priest and transmitted the vows and petitions of the people to the superior deities. The genealogy of th

ough to continue to use them, not only he but all his relations were immediately put to death; and the same severity was exercised on any who should dare to apply the sacred name to an animal. Thus in process of time the original names of most common objects in the language underwent considerable alterations. No one might touch the body of the king or queen; nay, any person who should so much as stand over them, or pass his hand over their heads, was liable to pay for the sacrilege with the forfeiture of his life. The very ground on which th

th the gods. The red feathers were taken from the images of the gods and interwoven with feathers of other colours. A human victim was sacrificed when they began to make the girdle, and another was sa

r-god Oro, whose principal image was there worshipped. There, too, was the residence of the kings of the island, "who, beside the prerogatives of royalty, enjoyed divine honours, and were in fact living idols among the dead ones, being deified at the time of their accession to political supremacy here. In the latter character, we presume, it was, that these sovereigns (who always took the name of Tamatoa) were wont to receive presents from the kings and chiefs of adjacent and di

und the island with the flag of the infant monarch: in every district he unfurled the banner and proclaimed the accession of the youthful sovereign. The insignia of royalty and the homage of the people were at once transferred from the father to the child: the royal domains and other sources of revenue were appropriated to the maintenance of the household of the infant ruler; and the father paid him all the marks of reverence and submission which he had hitherto exacted

ion of the Soc

0] "No people in the world, in ancient or modern times, appear to have been more superstitious than the South Sea Islanders, or to have been more entirely under the influence of dread from imaginary demons, or supernatural beings. They had not only their major, but their minor demons, or spirits, and all the minute ramifications of idolatry."[21] "Religious rites were connected with almost every act of their lives. An ubu or prayer was offered before they ate their food, when they tilled their ground, planted their gardens, bu

ahiti, discarded their two old divinities and adopted in their place Oraa, the god of the island of Bolabola (Borabora), apparently because the people of Bolabola had lately been victorious in war; and as, after this change of deity, they themselves proved very successful in their operations against their

eval darkness (Po). Among them all the first place in time and dignity was generally assigned to Taaroa, who appears in other parts of Polynesia as Tanaroa, Tangaroa, Tagaloa, and so on. By some he was spoken of as the progenitor of the other gods and as the creator of the heavens, the earth, and sea, as well as of men, beasts, birds, and fishes; but others were of opinion that the land or the world had existed before the gods. Oro, the great nationa

at Opoa; long strings of these relics might be seen hanging about the sacred edifice.[30] In the small island of Tahaa, off Raiatea, there was a temple (marae) dedicated to Oro and his two daughters. It belonged to the king and "was upheld for the convenience of finding a pretext to get rid, from time to time, of obnoxious persons, of both sexes; the men slain by assassination, or in war, being presented

describe how, in a long native house where they lodged for the night, they saw the Areois men and women dancing and singing till near midnight: so great were their numbers that they made the house appear like a village.[34] Sometimes, apparently, the performances took place in front of the house, the musicians, singers, and reciters occupying a sort of stage, while the actors or dancers performed on a place marked out for them on the ground or on the floor.[35] The subject of their songs or recitations was often a legend of the gods, or of some distinguished member of the Society, which was chanted or recited by the performers in chorus seated in a circle on the ground, while the leader stood in the centre and introduced the recitation w

ive advancement that any were promoted to the higher dignities. It was imagined that those who became Areois were prompted or inspired by the gods to take this step. A candidate for admission, therefore, repaired to one of the public exhibitions in that apparent state of frenzy which is commonly supposed to indicate divine inspiration. His face was dyed scarlet; his hair was perfumed and adorned with flowers, and he wore a girdle of yellow plantain leaves. Thus arrayed, he rushed through the crowd assembled round the house in which the actors or dancers were performing, and, leaping into the circle, joined with seeming frantic wildness in the dance or pantomime. I

sprinkled on him, and he had been raised to the order or rank in which he died. By this act they supposed that the sacred influence was restored to Oro, by whom it had been imparted. The body was then buried, like that of a common man, within the precincts of the temple, in which the mortal remains of chiefs were interred.[43] But if for any reason the corpse were buried in unconsecrated ground, the ghost would appear to a survivor next day and remonstrate with him, saying, "Yo

and, the naturalist George Forster, who accompanied Captain Cook, observes: "We have been told a wanton tale of promiscuous embraces, where every woman is common to every man: but when we enquired for a confirmation of this story from the natives, we were soon convinced that it must, like many others, be considered as the groundless invention of a traveller's gay fancy."[50] Again, Ellis observes that, "although addicted to every kind of licentiousness themselves, each Areoi had his own wife, who was also a member of the Society; and so

, being deemed by this act to have appropriated each other, are ejected from the community, and forfeit all claim to the privileges and pleasures of Arreoy for the future; the woman from that time being distinguished by the term whannow-now, 'bearer of children,' which is here a term of reproach."[54] The pretext a

formances.[56] But the labour and drudgery of dancing and performing for the amusement of the spectators devolved chiefly on the lowest members of the Society, who were the principal actors in all their shows, while the higher orders, though they plaster

a fleet to the shore with drums beating, flutes playing, and streamers floating on the wind, was a picturesque sight, and as the canoes neared the land the dancers might be seen jigging it on stages erec

them convenient tools of fraud and oppression, they were not received with equal enthusiasm by the farmers, who had to furnish them with provisions, and who durst not refuse them anything, however unreasonable and extortionate their demands. For the Areois lived on the fat of the land. When they alighted, like a swarm of locusts, on a rich district, they would send out their henchmen to scour the neighbourhood and plunder the miserable inhabitants; and when they moved on to their next halting-place, the garden

fter death their spirits were believed to pass without difficulty to that paradise o

nfirmed by the close relation in which the Society stood to the national god Oro. Not only is Oro said to have founded the Society, but before a troop of Areois set out on their peregrinations they were obliged to kill many pigs in sacrifice to him and to offer large quantities of plantains, bananas, and other fruits on his altars. Moreover, temporary shrines were erected in their canoes for the worship of Oro's two divine brothers, Orot

onal idol of Raiatea, Tahiti, Eimeo, and some of the other islands," and he was said to be a son of the creator Taaroa, who at first dwelt alone up aloft, but who afterwards, with the help of his daughter Hina, created the heavens, the earth, and the sea.[66] By European writers Oro has been variously interpreted as a god of the

mong the Baronga of South-Eastern Africa the supposed relation of twins to the sky is very clearly marked. They call the mother of twins by a name which means "Heaven" (Tilo), and consistently they style the twins themselves "Children of Heaven" (Bana ba Tilo).[72] The mother is even said to have "made Heaven," to have "carried Heaven," and to have "ascended to Heaven."[73] The connexion which is believed to exist between her and the twins on the one side and the sky on the other is brought out plainly in the customs which the Baronga observe for the purpose of procuring rain in time of drought. Thus they will take a mother of twins, put her in a hole, and pour on her water which they have drawn from all the wells, till the hole is half full, and the water comes up to her breast. This is thought to make the rain fall.[74] Or again, in order to get rain, the women will strip themselves naked except for a girdle and head-dress of grass, and thus attired will go in procession, headed by a mother of twins, and pour water on the graves of twins. And if the body of a twin has been buried in dry ground, they will dig it up and bury it again near a river; for the grave of a twin, in their opinion, should always be wet. Thus they hope to draw down rain on the thirsty ground.[75] Again, when a thunderstorm is raging and lightning threatens to strike a village, the Baronga will say to a twin, "Help us! you are a Child of Heaven! You can therefore

ia keep pigeons in their villages, and in erecting a pigeon-cote they take care that the first stakes "are driven in by a woman who has borne twins, in order, they say, that the pigeons may multiply."[80] Some Bantu tribes of this region ascribe a similar virtue to both the father and the mother of twins. They think that such parents exert

ed by the parents of twins among the Baganda indicates in the plainest manner a belief that they were endowed with a fertilising virtue which extended, not only to the crops and the cattle, but also to human beings. Thus the parents of twins were supposed to make people fruitful by sprinkling them with a mixture of water and clay from pots, of which each of the parents had one. Again, some time after the birth the parents used to make a round of visits to relations and friends, taking the twins with them. At every house they danced, the father wearing a crown made from a certain creeper, and the mother wearing a girdle of the same material. At these dances offerings were made to the twins. These dances were most popular "because the people believed that thereby they obtained a special blessing from the god Mukasa, who favoured the parents of twins, and through them dispensed blessing wherever they went." The persons whom the twins and their parents honoured with a visit "thought that, n

ved that, if the customary rites were not performed at the birth of twins, the parents of the twins would be crippled. Curiously enough, the drums, to the music of which the parents dance, may not be beaten by any one without special reason; and no one else may dance to their music except such as have slain either a man or a leopard. Among these people the birth of twins is the occasion of very great rejoicing. They say that "the roa

tent, they are analogous to the pig which an Areoi used to offer to the god at the ceremony of his consecration; for, though sometimes the animal was killed, at other times it was liberated, and, being regarded as sacred or belonging to the god to whom it had been offered, was allowed to range the district uncontrolled till it died.[87] Among the Baluba, a tribe of the Belgian Congo, there is great joy at the birth of twins, and special ceremonies are observed on the occasion. The twins are invariably named Kyunga and Kahya, after the spirits of two ancient kings, and to these spirits the twins are consecrated. After being washed and decorated they are placed side by side in a winnowing-basket and carried by the women of the family in procession through the village, headed by the proud father. Dancing and singing they go to the ash-heap of the village. There they all rub themselves with ashes and perform another dance. After that, still led by the father of the twins, they go to the houses of the chief people, and in front of each house the father dances, while the women beat time with their hands. Wherever the procession halts, the householder is expected to come and admire the twins, to compliment the father, and to deposit a small present in the winnowing-basket.[88] Among the Herero of South

Baganda concerning the birth of twins renders the supposition probable. At least on this hypothesis we can readily understand the round of visits which the parents, or one of them, pay to the surrounding towns or villages, and the presents which are made to them. If they indee

bably accorded to them as a natural and proper remuneration for the inestimable services which their mere presence was believed to render to the crops. The sexual excesses, in which they appear to have indulged, would also be intelligible, if it was imagined that, on the principle of sympathetic magic, such indulgences actually promoted the multiplication and growth of plants and animals. But th

t.[93] For it happened that Maui was hard at work, building a temple, when he perceived that the day was declining and that the night would overtake him before he had accomplished his task; so hastily twining some ropes of coco-nut fibre, he laid hold of the sun's rays and tethered them by the ropes to a tree, so that the sun could not stir till Maui had finished the task he was at.[94] Further, Maui is said to have invented the mode of kindling fire by rubbing the point of one stick in the groove of another,[95] which was the way in which the Society Islanders regularly made fire.[96] Maui was also supposed to be the cause of earthquakes.[97] In Tahiti a curious image of Maui was seen and described by Captain Cook. "It was the figure of a man, constructed of basket-work, rudely made, but not ill-designed; it was somethin

d to be employed by the marine gods as their minister of vengeance. It was only the large blue shark which was believed to act in this capacity; and it is said that these voracious creatures always spared a shipwrecked priest, even when they devoured his companions; nay, they would recognise a priest on board any canoe, come at his call, and retire at his bidding. A priest of one of these shark gods told Mr. Ellis that he or his father had been carried on the back of a shark from Raiatea to Huahine, a distance of twenty miles. Other gods were thought to preside over the fisheries, and to direct the shoals of fish to the coasts. Their aid was invoked by fishermen before they launched their canoes and while they were busy at sea. But these marine deities were not supposed by the people to be of equal antiquity with the great primordial gods, born of the Night (atua fauau po).[100] Again, the

departed relatives, who were also worshipped and ranked among the deities.[104] To these we shall return presently; meantime it may not be out of place to give some notice of t

les and Image

flat stones, and two sides of it were enclosed by a high stone wall, while the front was protected by a low fence, and within rose in steps or terraces a solid pyramidical structure built of stone, which usually formed one of the narrow sides of the area, either at the western or at the eastern end. These pyramids, which were always truncated so as to form a narrow platform or ridge on their upper surface, were the most striking and characteristic feature of the morais; i

of the pyramid was built not of coral, but of what Captain Cook called rock, by which he probably meant a volcanic stone. These foundation stones were also squared; one of them measured four feet seven inches by two feet four inches. "Such a structure," says Captain Cook, "raised without the assistance of iron tools to shape the stones, or mortar to join them, struck us with astonishment: it seemed to be as compact and firm as it could have been made by any workman in Europe, except that the steps which range along its greatest length are not perfectly strait, but sink in a kind of hollow in the middle, so that the whole surface, from end to end, is not a right line, but a curve." All the stones, both rock and coral, must have been brought from a distance, for there was no quarry in the neighbourhood. The squaring of these blocks with stone tools must, as Captain Cook observes, have been a work of incredible labour; but the polishing of them could have been e

upper step or story was similarly faced with coral, but was not more than three feet high. The interior of both stories was filled with earth. In the centre of the principal front stood the god's bed, a stone platform twenty-four feet long by thirteen feet wide, but only eighteen inches high. The style and masonry of this pyramid, as well as its dimensions, appear to have been very inferior to those of

thus compelled to finish their tasks (burthensome as they often were, in heaving blocks from the sea, dragging them ashore, and heaping them one upon another) without eating, which would have desecrated the intended sanctuary. To restrain the gnawings of hunger they bound girdles

grew within the sacred enclosure were sacred. They comprised particularly the tall cypress-like casuarina and the broader-leaved and more exuberant callophyllum, thespesia, and cardia. Their interlacing boughs formed a thick umbrageous covert, which often excluded the rays of the sun; and the contrast between the bright glare of a tropical day outside and the sombre gloom in the depths of the grove, combined with the sight of the gnarled trunks and twi

human dead. On this combination of functions I have already adduced some evidence;[114] but as the point

o places of worship".[115] Again, after describing how a dead body used to be placed in the temporary house or shed (tupapow) and left there to decay for five moons, Captain Cook tells us that "what remains of the body is taken down from the bier, and the bones, having been scraped and washed very clean, are buried, according to the rank

ed, is that where the supreme chief of the whole island is always buried, and is appropriated to his family, and some of the principal people. It differs little from the common ones, except in extent. Its principal part is a large oblong pile of stones, lying loosely upo

own great chiefs who fell in battle were treated in a different manner. Captain Cook was informed that the bodies of the late king and two chiefs, who were slain in battle, were brought to the morai at Attahooroo. There the priests cut out the bowels of the corpses before the great altar, and the bodies were afterwards buri

yramid," constructed in terraces or steps, and measuring about twenty yards in length at the base. "This the native said was a burying-place and

e father of the gods here; but the whole ground adjacent was marked with the vestiges of smaller maraes-private places for worship and family interment-while this was the capital of the island and the headquarters of royalty and idolatry."[120] A little later, speaking of the same sacred place, the missionaries observe, "The first marae that we visited was the sepulchral one of the kings of Huahine, for many generations. It was an ob

s and malicious violation.[122] However, the first missionaries say of the islanders that "they bury none in the morai, but those offered in sacrifice, or slain in battle, or the children of chiefs which have been strangled at the birth-an act of atrocious inhumanity too common."[123] According to Moerenhout, the marais (morais) belonging to private families were often used as cemeteries; but in the public marais none but

f the two types of sanctuary presented a close similarity. The islanders themselves, it appears, do not always clearly distinguish them at the present day.[130] And the single distinction on which Baessler insisted, that the dead were buried in the ahu but not in the marae, seems not to hold good universally, even on Baessler's own showing. For he admits that, "if ever a chief was buried in his own marae, it must have been in most exceptional cases, but probably statements to that effect rest only on a confusion of the marae with the ahu; such a practice would also run counter to the habits of the natives, who sought the most secret places for their dead, and certainly concealed the heads in caves difficult of access and unknown to others. On the other hand, the maraes of humbler families may more frequently, if not as a rule, have served as places of burial."[131] And even in regard to the holiest marae, dedicated to the great god Oro, in the island of Raiatea,[132] Baessler himself cites a tradition, apparently well authenticated, that a great number of warriors slain in battle were buried in it.[133] The argument that the people buried their dead, or at all events their skulls, only in remote caves among the mountains seems untenable; for according to the evidence of earlier writers the practice of concealing the bones or the skulls of the dead in caves was generally, if not always, a pre

land from the defilement which it had incurred through the devastations of the foe, who had, perhaps, demolished the temples, destroyed or mutilated the idols, and burned with fire the curiously carved pieces of wood which marked the sacred places of interment and represented the spirits of the dead (tiis). Before the rite of purification was performed the temples were rebuilt, new altars reared, new images placed within the sacred precincts, and new wooden effigies set up near the graves. At the close of the rites in the new temples, the worshippers repaired to the seashore, where the chief priest offered a short prayer and the people dr

tread upon, for she might not step on the ground or the pavement.[141] Similarly at marriage bride and bridegroom visited the family temple (marae, morai), where the skulls of their ancestors were brought out and placed before them; but a large white cloth had to be spread out on the pavement for the bride to walk upon. Sometimes at these marriage rites the female relatives cut their faces and brows with shark's teeth, caught the flowing blood on cloth, and deposited the cloth, sprinkled with the mingled blood of the mothers of the married pair, at the feet of the bride.[142] At other times the mother of the bride gashed her own person cruelly with a shark's tooth, and having filled a coco-nut basin with the blood which flowed from her wounds, she presented it to t

d. It is enclosed by a wall of gigantic coral blocks standing side by side to a height of about six feet seven inches. The blocks have been hewn from the inner reef; the outer surfaces were smoothed, the inner left rough. One of the blocks stands over eleven feet high, without reckoning the part concealed by the soil; it is twelve

orshippers and owners that they might absorb some of the supernatural powers of the greater divinity before being removed to the places where they were to commence deities on their own account.[149] With a similar intention it was customary to fill the inside of the hollow images with red feathers in order that the plumes might be impregnated with the divine influence and might afterwards diffuse it for the benefit of the owner of the feathers, who had placed them in the image for that purpose. The red feathers, plucked from a small bird which is found in many of the islands, thus became an ordinary medium for communicating and extending supernatural powers, not only in the Society Islands, but throughout Polynesia. The beautiful long tail-feathers of the tropic or man-of-war bird were used for the same purpose. The gods were supposed to be very fon

ces, Priests, an

uet for the priests and other sacred persons, who were privileged to eat of the sacrifices. The portions appropriated to the gods were placed on the altar and left there till they decayed. In the public temples the great altars were wooden stages, some eight or ten feet high, supported on a number of wooden posts, which were sometimes curiously carved and polished. But ther

family to which he belonged was regarded as taboo or devoted to the altar, and when another victim was wanted, he was more frequently taken from that family than from any other. Similarly, a district which had once furnished victims was thenceforth devoted. Hence, at the approach of ceremonies which were usually accompanied by human sacrifices, the members of certain families and the inhabitants of certain districts used to flee to the mountains and hide in caves till the ceremony was over. But the doomed man was seldom apprised of his fate beforehand. A sudden blow with a club or a stone on the nape of the neck was the usual way of despatching him

They professed to possess extraordinary powers, such as to promote conception or to effect abortion, to cause or to heal disease, to pray the evil spirit into food, and even to kill men outright. Hence they were greatly feared.[155] Of the little knowledge that existed in the islands the priests are reported to have possessed the largest share, but it consisted chiefly in an acquaintance with the names and ranks of the various subordinate deities (atuas); however, according to Captain Cook, they excelled the rest of the people in their knowledge of navigation and astronomy: indeed, the very name for priest (tahowa) signified nothing more than a man of knowledge.[156] In the island of Huahine the priest

; the eyes of the seer were thrown into various contortions, now staring wide, now half-shut and sinking into stupor, while at other times the whole frame was convulsed and appeared to have undergone a sudden and surprising change. The voice sank to a low pitch, and grew squeaky and broken; but at times it would suddenly rise to an astonishing height. The words uttered by the possessed man were regarded as oracular, and nothing that he asked for the god or for himself in this state was ever refused him. Of all this the priest himself affected to be entirely unaware, but a colleague was regularly at hand to record the divine message and the divine requirements, which were often very large. When the deity took his departure from the priest, he did so with such convulsions and violence as to leave the man lying motio

possessed by a deity, and that, under the excitement which such an imagination was calculated to produce, he honestly mistook his own thick-coming fancies for a revelation from the gods. A chief, who had formerly been a prophet of the god Oro, assured the missionaries "that although he sometimes feigned his fits of inspiration, to deceive the credulous multitude, yet, at other times, they came upon him involuntarily and irresistibly. Something seemed to rush through his whole frame, and overpower his spirit, in a manner which he could not describe. Then he frothed at the mouth, gnashed his teeth, and distorted his limbs with such violence that it required five or six strong men to hold him. At these times h

practise continually the recitation of the prayers, legends, and traditions of which they were the depositories. To aid them in their task they made use of bundles of little sticks of different sizes, one of which they drew from a bundle at the conclusion of each prayer. It was their duty on solemn occasions to recite these liturgies or sacred poems while they paced slowly by night round the temples (morais) and other holy places; hence they went by the name of harepo, which means "Walkers by night." We are told that if at these times they made a mistake in a single word or hesitated for a moment, they stopped and returned home; and if the subject of their prayers chanced to be some enterprise in which they desired to enlist

ctrine of t

wooden images which are placed round the burying-places, and which are called by the same name, tee."[165] When they were asked in what part of the body the soul resides, they always answered that it was seated in the belly or in the bowels (I roto té obou). They would not admit that the br

ve souls, which at death, or upon being consumed or broken, ascend to the divinity, with whom they first mix, and afterwards pass into the mansion allotted to each."[168] Their word for soul was varoua, according to

ay, hārre pō, gone to night."[170] But they also believed that a man's soul or spirit could be conjured out of his body by magic art or demoniacal agency. Thus, when people had been robbed, they would sometimes call in the help of a priest to ascertain the thief. In such a case the priest, after offering prayers to his demon, would direct them to dig a hole in the floor of the house and to fill it with water; then, taking a young plantain in his hand, he would stand over the hole and pray to the god, whom he invoked, and who, if he were pro

s in his life for his knowledge of the ancient traditions, was at the point of death, it was customary for his son and successor to place his mouth over the mouth of the dying man, as if to inhale the parting soul at the moment of quitting the body; for

e, Death, a

uction by means of an offering. They explained death in like manner: according to them, it was invariably caused by the direct influence of the gods.[175] They acknowledged, indeed, that they possessed poisons which, taken with food, produced convulsions and death, but these

ar of the souls of dead infants, who, angered at their mother for their too early death, took their revenge by sending sickness on the surviving members of the family. Hence when a woman was ill-treated by her husband, she would often threaten to insult the ghost of a dead baby; and this threat, with the deplorable consequences which it was calculated to entail, seldom failed to bring th

e the minor deities, whom the sorcerer employed to accomplish his nefarious ends. For this purpose he put the hair or other personal refuse of the victim in a bag along with the images and symbols of the petty divinities, and buried the bag and its contents in a hole which he had dug in the ground. There he left it until, applying his ear to the h

as, deities], and their favour to be secured by prayers and offerings. Every sickness and untoward accident they esteem as the hand of judgment for some offence committed; and therefore, if they have injured any person, they send their peace-offering, and make the matter up: and if sick, send for the priest to offer up prayers and sacrifices to pacify the

the spirits of the dead often waited to catch it at the moment when it issued from the body. Sometimes the dying man would fancy that he saw the

e person had died. If he had been cursed by the gods, the spirit would appear with a flame, fire being the agent employed in the incantations of the sorcerers, who had presumably drawn down the curse upon the deceased. If some enemy had bribed the gods to kill him, the spirit would come with a red feather, as a sign that evil spirits had entered into his food. After a short time the

same time they uttered the most deafening and agonising cries; and what with their frantic gestures, the distortion of their countenances, their torn and dishevelled hair, and the mingled tears and blood that trickled down their bodies, they presented altogether a horrible spectacle. This self-inflicted cruelty was practised chiefly by women, but not by them alone; for the men on these occasions committed the like enormities, and not only cut themselves, but came armed with clubs and other deadly weapons, which they sometimes plied freely on the bodies of other people. These dismal scenes began with the nearest relatives of the deceased, but they were not confined to them. No sooner did the tidings spread, and the sound of wailing was heard throughout the neighbourhood, than friends and kinsfolk flocked to the spot and joined in the demonstrations of real or affected sorrow. The pageant of woe reached its climax when the deceased was a king or a principal chief. It was then, above all, that the tenants and retainers came armed with bludgeons and stones, with which they fought each other till some of them were wounded or slain; while others operated on themselves by tearing

would dry it in the sun and present it to the bereaved family, who kept it as a token of the estimation in which the departed had been held.[188] Some of the younger mourners used also to cut off their hair and throw it under the bier with the other offerings.[189] When the deceased was a child, the parents, in addition to other tokens of grief, used to cut their hair short on one part of their heads, leavi

ity, and jealousy commonly ascribed to ghosts, is in all probability correct. Yet it deserves to be noticed that the custom of voluntarily hacking the body with shark's teeth to the effusion of blood was singularly enough practised by the Society Islanders on occasions of joy as well as of sorrow. When a husband or a son returned to his family after a season of absence or exposure to danger, his arrival was greeted, not only with the cordial welcome and the warm embrace, but with

their past wickedness or to reproach them with the neglect of some ceremony, for which the ghosts were compelled to suffer. Thus the people imagined that they lived in a world of spirits, which surrounded them night and day, watching every action of their lives and ready to revenge the sm

to the region of Night (po), should be deposited in that hole, that they should not attach in any degree to the survivors, and that the anger of the god might be appeased. The priest next addressed the corpse, usually saying, "With you let the guilt now remain." The pillar or post of the corpse, as it was called, was then planted in the hole, earth was thrown over the guilt of the departed, and the hole filled up. After that, the priest proceeded to the side of the corpse, and taking some small slips of plantain leaf-stalk he fixed two or three of them under each arm, placed a few on the breast, and then, addressing the dead body, said, "There are your family, there is your child, there is your wife, the

thin yet strong board curved like a crescent, from which hung a sort of network of small pieces of brilliant mother-of-pearl, finely polished and strung together on threads. The depth of this network varied according to the taste or means of the family, but it was generally nine inches or a foot, and might consist of ten to fifteen or twenty perfectly straight and parallel rows. The labour of making this mother-of-pearl pendant must have been immense; for many hundred pieces of the shell had to be cut, ground down to the requisite thinness, polished and perforated, without the use of iron tools, before a single line could be fixed upon the head-dress. Fringed with feathers, the pendant formed a kind of ornamental breastpla

except for a girdle, armed with cudgels, their faces and bodies painted black, red, and white with charcoal and coloured earths. In this impressive style the mummers marched through the district, the people everywhere fleeing in terror at the sight of them, and even deserting the houses at their approach. For whenever the leader caught sight of any one, he ran at him, and if he overtook the fugitive, belaboured him with his sharp-toothed club, to the grievous mauling of the unfortunate wretch; while, not to be behind their leader, the assistants plied their bludgeons on the bodies of all and sundry who chanced to fall into their hands. At such times safety was only to be found in the king's temple, which served on this as on other occasions as a sort of sanctuary or place of refuge. Having thus scoured the country, the mummers marched several times round the platform where the body was exposed, after which t

f bread-fruit and leaves of the edible fern under the arms of the corpse, and as they did so, they prayed, saying, "You go to the Po [Night, the World of

Disposal

econd day after the decease. During the short intervening period the body, resting on a bed of fragrant green leaves, was placed on a sort of bier covered with white cloth and decorated with wreaths and garlands of sweet-smelling flowers. Round it sat the relatives, giving vent to their grief in loud and continued lamentations, and often cutting their temples, faces, and breas

d in their history, when the bodies of the dead were allowed to remain in the houses in which they lived, and which were still occupied by the survivors. A kind of stage or altar was erected in the dwelling, and

the body to the rays of the sun. The body was usually clothed or covered with cloth, and for a long time it was carefully rubbed with aromatic oils once a day. The size of these charnel-houses varied with the rank of the persons whose bodies they contained; the better sort were enclosed by railings. Those which were allotted to people of t

both at the house and on its passage to the shore. Further, he took up water in his hands and sprinkled it towards the corpse, but not upon it. These prayers and sprinklings he repeated several times, and between the repetitions the body was carried back some forty or fifty yards from the sea, o

ng remains and was pleased by such marks of attention. Hence during the exposure of the body in the temporary house the mourners would sometimes renew their lamentations there, and, wounding themselves with shark's teeth, wipe off the blood on a cloth, and deposit the bloody rag beside the mummy as a proof of their affection. In this state the desiccated body was preserved for many months till the flesh had completely decayed; Ellis was of opinion that the best-preserved of these mummies could not be kept for more than twelve months. The bones were then scraped, washed, and buried within the precincts of the family temple (morai), if the deceased was a chief; but if he was a commoner, they were interred outside of the holy ground. However, the skull was not buried with the bones; it was carefully wrapt in fine cloth and kept in a box by the family, it might be for several generations. Sometimes the box containing the skull was deposited at the temple, but often it was hung from the roof of the house.[206] At marriage the skulls of ancestors were sometimes brought out and set before the bride and bridegroom in order, apparently, to place the newly wedded pair under the guardianship of the ancestral spirits who had once animated these relics of mortality.[207] In time of war victorious enemies would sometimes despoil the temples of the vanquished and carry off the bones of famous men interred in them; these they would then subject to the utmost indignity by c

t of the crime for which the deceased had died was supposed to attach in some degree to such as touched his mortal remains. The embalmers did not feed themselves, lest the food, defiled by the touch of their polluted han

tion which they had incurred by contact with the corpse; and they cast into the sea the garments they had worn while they were engaged in the work. Having bathed, they gathered a few pieces of coral from the bottom of the sea, and returning with them

grave and not to inflict it upon other people, when he revisited them as a ghost. They also threw a plantain i

e of the Sou

abited them,[219] or to have been called by a different name (unus)[220]. Specimens of these images were seen by George Forster in Tahiti. He says that round about the marai (morai) of Aheatua, at that time King of Tiarroboo, "were placed perpendicularly, or nearly so, fifteen slender pieces of wood, some about eighteen feet long, in which six or eight diminutive human figures of a rude unnatural shape were carved, standing above each other, male or female promiscuously, yet so that the uppermost was always a male. All these figures faced the sea, and perfectly resembled some which are carved on the sterns of their canoes, and which they call e-tee."[221] To the same effect George Forster's father, J.

d spirit with a kind of serrated shell at different times, after which they ate and digested it. If the soul underwent this process of being eaten and digested three separate times, it became a deified or imperishable spirit and might visit the world and inspire living folk.[225] According to one account, the soul was cooked whole in an earth-oven, as pigs are baked on earth, and was then placed in a basket of coco-nut leaves before being served up to the god whom the deceased had worshipped in life. "By this cannibal divinity he was now eaten up; after which, through some inexplicable process, the dead and devoured man emanated from the body of the god, and became immortal."[226] In the island of Raiatea the great god Oro was supposed to use a scallop-shell "to scrape the flesh from the bones of newly deceased bodies, previous to their being converted into pure spirits by being devoured by him, and afterwards transformed by passing through the laboratory of his cannibal stomach."[227] This process of being devoured by a god was not conceived of as a

but apparently to no purpose, since they were accounted invulnerable in this invisible state. Again, when the soul of a dead wife arrived in the spirit land, it was known to the soul of her dead husband, if he had gone before, and the two renewed their acquaintance in a spacious house, called tourooa, where the souls o

island. This cavern, perhaps the crater of a volcano, was said to communicate, by subterranean passages, with a cave on the coast, the opening of which is so small that a child of two years could hardly creep into it. Here an evil spirit (varu iino) was said to lurk and, pouncing out on careless passers-by, to drag them into the darkest recesses of his den and devour them. After the conversion of the natives to Christianity the missionaries were shown the spot. Near it were the ruins of a temple of

rted into a hat-stand after death made interest with the priest to save them from such a degradation. So when a king who had been great and powerful in life saw his end approaching, he would send to the priests the most costly presents, such as four or five of the largest and fattest hogs, as many of the best canoes, and any rare and valuable European article which he happened to possess. In return the priests prayed for him daily at the temples till he died; and afterwards his dead body was brought to one of these sacred edifices and kept upright the

ded by trees, the tops of which appear curiously flat. On this verdant platform the spirits of the newly departed were said to dance and feast together until, at a subse

of superior attractions being occupied by the souls of chiefs and other principal people, while another of an inferior sort sufficed to lodge the souls of the lower orders. For they did not suppose that their good or bad actions in this life affected in the least their lot in the life hereafter, or that the deities took account of any such distinction. Thus their religion e

country was described as most lovely and enchanting in appearance, adorned with flowers of every shape and hue, and perfumed with odours of every fragrance. The air was pure and salubrious. Every sort of delight was to be enjoyed there; while rich viands and delicious fruits were supplied in abundance for the celebration of sumptuous festivals. Handsome youths and women thronged the place. But these honours and pleasures were only for the privileged orders-the chiefs and the members of the society of the Areois-for only they could afford to pay the heavy charges which the priests exacted for a passport to paradise; common folk seldom or never dreamed of attempting

e sun, where they feasted with the god Maouwe or O-Mauwee (Maui) on bread-fru

proached by night one of the charnel-houses in which dead bodies were exposed, they were startled "in the same manner that many of our ignorant and superstitious people are with the apprehension of ghosts, and at the sight of a churchyard." Again, the souls of the departed were sometimes thought to communicate with their friends in dreams and to announce to them things that should afterwards come to pass, thus enabling t

se to the sea, the road which skirts their base is a place of fear to the natives. For in these precipices are caves full of skulls, and the ghosts who reside in the caverns are reported sometimes to weary of their own society and to come down to the road for company, where in a sportive vein they play all sorts of tricks on passers-by. Not so long ago three Tahitians were riding home at dusk from Papeete, where they

y his father on his deathbed, and the son had kept the secret faithfully ever since. In vain did a traveller seek to persuade the old man to guide him to the cave; in vain did the chief himself beg of him to reveal the grotto which concealed the mouldering relics of his forefathers. The guardian was obdurate; he believed that the world was not wide enough to hold two men who knew the holy place. He assur

Worship

guardian spirit: he is supposed to be one of their departed relatives, who, for his superior excellences, has been exalted into an eatooa (atua). They suppose this spirit can inflict sickness or remove it, and preserve them from a malignant deity who also bears the name tee, and is always employed in mischief."[247] "Every family has its tee, or guardian spirit, whom they set up, and worship at the morai."[248] "They regard the spirits of their ancestors, male and female, as exalted into eatooas (atuas) and their

sons, with this difference between them, that whereas the one had been good and beneficent in his life, the other had been bad and maleficent; for it is a common belief that the dead retain in the other world the character and disposition which they manifested on

devilry than of deity. At least this conclusion seems forced on us by the account which William Ellis, perhaps our best

on of an enemy, or the injury of some person whom they were hired to destroy. They were considered a different order of beings from the gods, a kind of intermediate class between them and the human race, though in their prayers all the attributes of the gods

ined by all classes. They were supposed to be exceedingly irritable and cruel, avenging with death the slightest insult or neglect, and were kept within the precincts of the temple. In the marae of Tane at Maeva, the ruins of their abode were still standing when I last visited the place. It was a house built upon a number of large strong poles, which raised the floor ten or twelve feet from the ground. They were thus elevated, to keep them out of the way of men, as it was imagined they were constantly strangling, or otherwise destroying, the chiefs and people. To prevent this, they were also treated with great respect; men were appointe

ny inches.[253] But while these malignant and irritable spirits-the souls of dead fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children-resided generally either in their little images or in their skulls, they were not strictly confined to these material vehicles; they resorted occasionally

through it passed into the body of the man at whom the enchanter aimed his elfish darts. The wretched sufferer experienced the acutest agonies; his distortions were frightful to witness; his eyes seemed starting from his head; he foamed at the mouth; he lay writhing in anguish on the ground; in short, to adopt the native expression, he was torn by the evil spirit. Yet his case was not hopeless; the demon could be mollified by a bribe, or defeated by the intervention of a more powerful demon. Hence, when any one was believed to be suffering from the incantations of a sorcerer, if he or his friends were rich en

st, on receipt of the requisite offerings, caught the spirit of the god in a snare and infused it into the infant, thus ensuring the future proficiency of the infant in the arts of theft and robbery.[257] Yet, in spite of these claims to divinity, there are some grounds for thinking that Hiro was himself originally no better than a thief and a robber. He is said to have been a native of Raiate

ne women and children were also present, though they were not allowed to enter the sacred enclosure. The celebration was regarded as a kind of annual acknowledgment made to the gods. Prayers were offered at the temple, and a sumptuous banquet formed part of the festival. At the close of the festival every one returned to his home, or to his family temple (marae), there to offer special prayers for the spirits of departed relatives, that they might be liberated from the po, or state of Night, and mi

elieved to be capable of inspiring men and revealing to them the futur

TNO

Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans, ii. 151 sqq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 510. As to Wallis's discovery of the islands see J. Hawkeswor

E. Meinicke, op. cit. ii. 152 sq.; A. v. H[ügel],

yage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, pp. 321 sqq.; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, Journal of Voyages and Travels (London, 1831), i. 58 sq., 108 sqq., 136 sqq., 206 sq., 234 sq., 3

. cit. i. 79 sqq.; C. E. Meinicke, op. cit. ii

. 36 sqq., 70 sqq.; J. A. Moerenhout, Voyages aux ?les du Grand Oce

; W. Ellis, op. cit. i. 170 sqq.; J. A. Moerenhout, op. cit. ii. 8

on, op. cit

k, Voyages

son, op. c

rld (London, 1777), i. 276 sq.; J. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 389-392; W.

k, Voyages,

. Ellis, op. cit. i. 217-220; J. A

iii. 94-98. Compare J.

is, op. cit

sq.; J. Wilson, op. cit. p. 329

lation of a king was this. The king advanced into the sea and bathed there. Thither he was followed by the priest of Oro bearing a branch plucked from a sacred tree that grew within the precincts of the temple. While the king was bathing, the p

ennet, Journal of Voyage

and Bennet, o

lson, op. cit. pp. 180 sq., 327, 330, 333; J. Turnbull, Voyage round the World

i. 321; compare J. A. Mo

lis, op. c

lis, op. c

. Forster, Observations made during a Voy

k, Voyages,

Polynesian Rese

uthern Pacific Ocean, pp. 343 sqq.; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, Journal of Voyages and Travels, i. 523 (as to Taaroa); J. A. Moerenhout, Voyages aux ?les du Grand Ocean, i. 416 sqq., 436 sqq., 442 sq. As to Taaoroa

on, op. cit.

nd G. Bennet, op.

and G. Bennet,

ard, from which hung fifteen human jaw-bones, apparently fresh; not one of them wanted a tooth. He was told that they "had been carried away as troph

and G. Bennet,

World, ii. 128-135; J. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 56, 57, 59, 65 sq., 153, 154, 174, 194 sq., 209, 331, 335; J. Turnbull, Voyage round the World (L

is, op. cit

lson, op.

renhout, op. c

lis, op. c

and G. Bennet, o

5; G. Forster, op. cit. ii. 130; J

44; J. Turnbull, op. cit. p. 364;

sq.; W. Ellis, op. cit. i. 238;

i. 239 sq.; J. A. Moeren

i. 241 sq.; J. A. Moeren

is, op. cit

and G. Bennet, o

ster, op. c

and G. Bennet,

lson, op.

k, Voyages,

, Voyage round t

ster, op. c

lis, op. c

lis, op. c

when a chief was an Areoi, his first-born son was spared, but all the rest were sacrificed; but immediately afterwards he adds, with apparent inconsistency, that "the first (by which he seems to mean the principal)

Cook,

op. cit. i. 2

s, op. cit.

s, op. cit.

ervations, p. 412; G. F

o the latter writer there were traditions of as many as a hundred and fifty canoes sailing at

and G. Bennet, o

eir hand on their breast and say 'Harre, give,' whenever they covet any thing, and none dares deny them. They never work; live by plunder; yet are highly respected, as none but persons of rank are admitted among them

lson, op.

245 sq., 397; J. A. Moere

lis, op. c

bove,

s, op. cit.

well-known Polynesian hero Maui, who can hardly have been the sun (see below, p. 286 note5); and Moerenhout's statement as to the annual period of mourning observed by the Areois in the Marquesas Islands is not, so far as I know, confirmed by any other writer, and must, therefore, be regarded as open to doubt. His statement and his interpretation of Oro and Mahoui were accepted by Dr. Rivers, who made them the basis of his far-reaching theory of a secret worship of the sun introduced into the Pacific by immigrants from a far northern country, who also built the megalithic monuments of Polynesia and Micronesia. See W. H. R. Rivers, "Sun-cult and Megaliths in Polynesia," American Anthropologist, xvii. July-September 1915, pp

n, 1903), pp. 1 sqq. id., The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (Cambridge

ems to mean create" (op. cit. i. 230). With regard to Hina (Heena), interpreted as the moon, or the goddess of the moon, see J. R. Forster, Observations, p. 549; G. Forster, Voyage, ii. 152; J. A. Moerenhout, op. cit.. i. 428 sq., 458, 472; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 69. s.v. "Hina," "Hina is by far the best known of all P

ced by Dr. Rendel Harris in his learned works

I., The Magic Art and the Ev

, 1898), p. 412; id., Life of a South Afr

ife of a South Afri

ife of a South Afri

a, pp. 417 sq.; id., Life of

fe of a South Africa

of West Africa, similarly regard the last-born of twins as the elder of the two. See Jos. Henry, Les Bambara (Münster i.

nster i. W., 1912), p. 593. Compare H. A. Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, ii. 400, note1, who reports t

bove,

The Great Plateau of Northern Ni

he Heart of Bantuland

avage Childhood (Lo

Northern Bantu (Camb

, xxxii. (1902) pp. 32-34, 80; id., The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 64-72. These two accounts to some extent supple

Ewe-St?mme (Berlin

ais-Kirundi (Bois-le-Duc, 1903), pp. 324 sq.; H

Polynesian Rese

aluba (Brussels,

Herero (Gütersloh,

le, ein Negerstamm in Liberi

and G. Bennet,

renhout, op. c

lson, op.

et, op. cit. ii. 40 sq.; W.

and G. Bennet,

Voyage round the World, p. 349; Wallis, in R. Kerr's General History and Collection of

orster, Voyage round the World, ii. 151. These

k, Voyages,

As to the inferior gods, see also J

is, op. cit.

king's fisher, to which they pay a peculiar regard, and concerning which they have some superstitious notions with respect to good and bad fortune, as we have of the swallow and robin-redbreas

s, op. cit. i

ynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 30 sq., s.v. "atua." Captain Cook and the first missionaries s

i. 324 sq.; J. A. Moere

cit. i. 267 sq., 271, 280 sqq., 549, ii. 13 sq.; J. A. Moerenhout, op. cit. i. 466-470; A. Baessler, Neue Südsee-Bilder, pp. 111 sqq.; S. and K. Routledge, "Notes on some Archaeological Remains in the Society and Austral Islands," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, li. (1921) 438 sqq. According to J. R. Forster (l.c.), th

ich existed at the end of the nineteenth century (pp. 111-148). The ruins of two maraes in the island of Moorea are described by Mr.

measurements confirm, while slightly exceeding, those of Captain Cook. They speak, however, of ten steps instead of eleven,

and G. Bennet, op

and G. Bennet,

llis, op.

and G. Bennet,

lis, op. ci

lson, op. c

ove, pp.

ook, Voyag

ook, op. c

ook, Voyag

ok, Voyages

, Voyage round t

and G. Bennet,

and G. Bennet,

. cit. i. 405. See

lson, op. c

oerenhout, op

e Südsee-Bilder, pp. 1

sler, op. cit

essler, op.

sler, op. cit

sler, op. cit

essler, op.

essler, op.

sler, op. cit

r, op. cit. pp.

e below,

lynesian hero, one of whose most famous exploits was catching the sun in a snare and compelling him to move more slowly (E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 234 sqq., s.v. "Maui"; see above, p. 275); but this story, far from favouring the identification of Maui with the sun, seems fatal to it. According to J. R. Forster, the great god Taroa (Taaroa) was thought to have created the sun and to dwell in it (Observations, p. 540); but even if this statement is correct, it hardly implies a worship of the sun. With regard to the moon, the same writer tells us (l.c.) that it was supposed to be procreated by a goddes

another account, the sun and moon in eclipse were supposed t

oerenhout, op

lis, op. ci

nhout, op. cit. i. 469. Elsewhere (vi. 149) Captain Cook mentions that the baring of the body on the approach to a te

it. i. 469 sq.; A. Baessler,

erenhout, op.

lis, op. ci

and G. Bennet,

and G. Bennet, op

ilder, pp. 124, 141; D. Tyerman

essler, op.

essler, op.

r of the aito or casuarina tree, and the stone images were mostly rude uncarved angular columns of basalt, of various sizes, though some were

llis, op.

i. 338 sq.; J. A. Moerenh

erenhout, op.

lis, op. ci

ges, iii. 168 sqq. vi. 28-41; J. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 350

ter, Observations made during a Voyage round the World

lson, op. c

ook, Voyag

and G. Bennet,

son, op. cit

is, op. cit.

lis, op. ci

and G. Bennet,

and G. Bennet, op

and G. Bennet,

erenhout, op.

Forster, Observations made during a Voyage round the World, pp. 534

oerenhout, op

er, op. cit. i

ook, op. c

oerenhout, op

r "the shades," the primaeval darkness from which all forms of life were evolved, and to which the s

Polynesian Resea

is not easy to ascertain. They appear, however, to have imagined the shape or form resem

ook, op. c

oerenhout, op

i. 395; J. A. Moerenhout,

lis, op. ci

ee abov

erenhout, op.

cit. i. 539-541. Compare W

oerenhout, op

lson, op. c

lson, op. c

llis, op.

lis, op. ci

i. 407-409; J. Wilson, op. cit. p. 35

erenhout, op.

J. R. Forster, Observations made du

llis, op.

R. Forster, Observations made durin

son, op. cit

ok, Voyages

t. i. 410; J. Wilson,

re in the Old Tes

llis, op.

. 401-403. Compare J. A. M

are J. Cook, Voyages, i. 135 sq., 138, 2

description of the garb, see id., ii. 71-75; J. R. Forster, O

s, the mummers were supposed to be inspired by the spirit of the deceased; according to Moerenhout, they were not inspired by, but merely represented, the ghost. The difference between spiritual representat

Bennet, Journal of Voy

lis, op. ci

erenhout, op.

llis, op.

llis, op.

J. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 84, 212 sq.; W. Ellis, o

pare J. R. Forster, Observations made

ons made during a Voyage round the World, pp. 561 sq.; J. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 212 sq., 36

survivors "considered the spirits of the proprietors

llis, op.

üdsee-Bilder (Berlin, 190

lson, op. c

llis, op.

lson, op. c

e above,

llis, op.

lson, op. c

, Voyages, i.

lson, op. c

g a Voyage round the World, pp. 552, 553; G.

rster and G. F

, or curiously carved pieces of wood marking the sacred

op. cit. i. 461, "Les images des Tiis étaient placées aux ext

n the top of which were various figures of birds and men: on one in particular there was the representation of a cock, which was painted red and yellow, to imitate the feathers of that animal, and rude images of men were, in some of them, plac

Forster, op.

on, op. cit. p. 346; J. A. Moerenhout, op. cit.

. i. 396 sq.; J. A. Moe

Journal of Voyages and Travels

and G. Bennet, op

ook, Voyag

son, op. cit

ok, Voyages

, pp. 87 sq., 2

and G. Bennet, op

and G. Bennet, op

and G. Bennet,

oerenhout, op

150; J. R. Forster, Observations made

i. 397. Compare J. A. Moe

e above,

. 245 sq., 397; J. A. Moer

of Missionary Enterprises in

ring a Voyage round the World, p. 553; G.

above, p

ook, Voyag

er, Neue Südsee

ssler, op. c

ssler, op. c

lson, op. c

lson, op. c

e general name for deity, in all its

Wilson,

an what the Greek or Roman mythologists would have called Genii, or Dii minorum gentium: one of them, called Orometooa, is of a malignant disposition, resides chiefly near the Marais and Toopapous (places of burial) and in or near the boxes, or little chests, including the heads of their deceased friends, each of which, on that account, is called Te-wharre no te Orometooa, the house of the evil genius Orometooa, The people at Taheitee are of opinion, that if their priests invoke this evil

Polynesian Resea

llis, op.

llis, op.

is, op. cit.

s, op. cit. i

f Missionary Enterprises in th

254 sq. As to Hiro, the god of thieves, se

hes, i. 351 sq. Compare J. A. Moer