The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead_ Volume 2 (of 3) James George Frazer 2743 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Belief in Immortality and
the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of
3)

Author: James George Frazer

Release date: August 24, 2010 [eBook #33524]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33524

Credits: Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was made using scans of public domain works from the
University of Michigan Digital Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELIEF IN
IMMORTALITY AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD, VOLUME 2 (OF
3) ***

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
VOL. II

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

THE
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD
BY

Sir JAMES GEORGE FRAZER, F.R.S., F.B.A.
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
HON. D.C.L., OXFORD; HON. LITT.D., CAMBRIDGE AND DURHAM; HON. LL.D.,
GLASGOW; DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA OF THE UNIVERSITIES OF PARIS AND
STRASBOURG

VOL. II
THE BELIEF AMONG THE POLYNESIANS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1922

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE
The first volume of this work, which comprised the Gifford Lectures given
by me at St. Andrews in the years 1911 and 1912, dealt with the belief in
immortality and the worship of the dead, as these are found among the
aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea, and
Melanesia. In the present volume I take up the subject at the point at which
I broke off, and describe the corresponding belief and worship among the
Polynesians, a people related to their neighbours the Melanesians by
language, if not by blood. The first chapter formed the theme of two
lectures delivered at the Royal Institution in 1916; the other chapters have
been written for lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1921 and 1922.
But in the book the lecture form has been discarded, and the treatment of
the subject is somewhat fuller than comports with the limits imposed by
oral delivery.
Should circumstances allow me to continue the work, I propose in the next
volume to treat of the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead
among the Micronesians and Indonesians.
J. G. FRAZER.
No. 1 Brick Court, Temple,
London, 19th July 1922.

CONTENTS
PAGES
Preface v

Table of Contents vii-ix

CHAP.
I.The Belief in Immortality among the Maoris 1-51
§ 1. The Polynesians 1-5
§ 2. The Maoris of New Zealand 5-10
§ 3. The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of the
10-19
Living
§ 4. The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of the
19-37
Dead
§ 5. Taboo among the Maoris 37-50
§ 6. Conclusion 51

II.The Belief in Immortality among the Tongans 52-147
§ 1. The Tonga or Friendly Islands 52-57
§ 2. The Tonga Islanders, their Character, Mode of Life, and
57-63
Government
§ 3. The Tongan Religion: its General Principles 64-68
§ 4. The Primary or Non-human Gods 68-73
§ 5. The Temples of the Gods 73-77
§ 6. Priests and their Inspiration 77-79
§ 7. The Worship of the Gods, Prayers, and Sacrifices 79-84
§ 8. The Doctrine of the Soul and its Destiny after Death 84-91
§ 9. The Souls of the Dead as Gods 91-98
§ 10. Temples and Tombs: Megalithic Monuments 99-132

132-
§ 11. Rites of Burial and Mourning
146
146-
§ 12. The Ethical Influence of Tongan Religion
147

148-
III.The Belief in Immortality among the Samoans 218
148-
§ 1. The Samoan Islands
156
156-
§ 2. The Samoan Islanders, their character
163
163-
§ 3. Houses, Agriculture, and Industries
169
169-
§ 4. Rights of Property
171
171-
§ 5. Government, Social Ranks, Respect for Chiefs
181
181-
§ 6. Religion: Gods of Families, Villages, and Districts
192
192-
§ 7. Priests and Temples
200
§ 8. Origin of the Samoan Gods of Families, Villages, and 200-
Districts: Relation to Totemism 202
202-
§ 9. The High Gods of Samoa
205
§ 10. The Samoan Belief concerning the Human Soul: 205-
Funeral Customs 213
213-
§ 11. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death
218

The Belief in Immortality among the Hervey 219-
IV. 245
Islanders
219-
§ 1. The Hervey or Cook Islands
220

220-
§ 2. The Islanders and their Mode of Life
223
223-
§ 3. Social Life: the Sacred Kings
225
225-
§ 4. Religion, the Gods, Traces of Totemism
229
229-
§ 5. The Doctrine of the Human Soul
231
231-
§ 6. Death and Funeral Rites
237
238-
§ 7. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death
245

The Belief in Immortality among the Society 246-
V. 327
Islanders
246-
§ 1. The Society Islands
248
248-
§ 2. The Islanders and their Mode of Life
256
256-
§ 3. The Religion of the Society Islanders
278
278-
§ 4. The Temples and Images of the Gods
291
291-
§ 5. The Sacrifices, Priests, and Sacred Recorders
296
297-
§ 6. The Doctrine of the Human Soul
299
299-
§ 7. Disease, Death, and Mourning
308
308-
§ 8. The Disposal of the Dead
313
313-
§ 9. The Fate of the Soul after Death
321
322-
§ 10. The Worship of the Dead
327

328-
VI.The Belief in Immortality among the Marquesans 374
328-
§ 1. The Marquesas Islands
331
331-
§ 2. Physical Appearance of the Natives
333
333-
§ 3. Food, Weapons, Tools, Houses, Canoes, Fishing
337
337-
§ 4. Polyandry, Adoption, Exchange of Names
339
339-
§ 5. Amusements, Dancing-places, Banqueting-halls
344
344-
§ 6. Social Ranks, Taboo
347
348-
§ 7. Religion and Mythology
352
352-
§ 8. The Soul, Death, and Funeral Customs
363
363-
§ 9. Fate of the Soul after Death
374

375-
VII.The Belief in Immortality among the Hawaiians 431
375-
§ 1. The Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands
377
377-
§ 2. The Natives and their Mode of Life
380
380-
§ 3. Houses, Mechanical Arts
383
383-
§ 4. Government, Social Ranks, Taboo
390
390-
§ 5. Religion, the Gods
404

404-
§ 6. Priests, Sorcerers, Diviners
406
406-
§ 7. Temples, Images, Human Sacrifices
414
414-
§ 8. Festivals
416
417-
§ 9. Death and Funeral Rites
427
427-
§ 10. Fate of the Soul after Death
431

433-
Index 447

CHAPTER I
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MAORIS

§ 1. The Polynesians

The Polynesians are the tall brown race of men who inhabit the widely
scattered islands of the Pacific, from Hawaii on the north to New Zealand
on the south, and from Tonga on the west to Easter Island on the east.[1]
Down to the eighteenth century they remained practically unknown to
Europe; the first navigator to bring back comparatively full and accurate
information concerning them was our great English explorer, Captain James
Cook. Thus at the date of their discovery the natives were quite unaffected
by European influence: of our civilisation they knew nothing: of
Christianity, though it had existed in the world for nearly eighteen hundred
years, they had never heard: they were totally ignorant of the metals, and
had made so little progress in the arts of life that in most of the islands
pottery was unknown,[2] and even so simple an invention as that of bows
and arrows for use in war had not been thought of.[3] Hence their condition
was of great interest to students of the early history of man, since it
presented to their observation the spectacle of a barbaric culture evolved
from an immemorial past in complete independence of those material,
intellectual, and moral forces which have moulded the character of modern
European nations. The lateness of their discovery may also be reckoned a
fortunate circumstance for us as well as for them, since it fell at a time
when scientific curiosity was fully awakened among us, and when scientific
methods were sufficiently understood to allow us to study with profit a state
of society which differed so widely from our own, and which in an earlier
and less enlightened age might have been contemplated only with aversion
and disgust.
The question of the origin of the Polynesian race is still unsettled, but the
balance both of evidence and of probability seems to incline in favour of the
view that the people are descended from one of the yellow Mongoloid races

of South-Eastern Asia, who gradually spread eastward over the Indian
Archipelago and intermingling to some extent with the black aboriginal
inhabitants of the islands formed the lighter-tinted brown race which we
call the Polynesian.[4] A strong argument in favour of this theory is drawn
from the Polynesian language, which belongs essentially to the same family
of speech as the Melanesian and Malay languages spoken by the peoples
who occupy the islands that intervene between Polynesia and the south-
eastern extremity of the Asiatic continent.[5] The black Melanesian race
occupies the south-eastern portion of New Guinea and the chain of islands
which stretches in a great curve round the north-eastern coasts of New
Guinea and Australia. The brown Malays, with the kindred Indonesians and
a small admixture of negritoes, inhabit the islands westward from New
Guinea to the Malay Peninsula.[6] Of the two kindred languages, the
Polynesian and the Melanesian, the older in point of structure appears
unquestionably to be the Melanesian; for it is richer both in sounds and in
grammatical forms than the Polynesian, which may accordingly be regarded
as its later and simplified descendant.[7]
But whereas the three peoples, the Polynesians, the Melanesians, and the
Malays speak languages belonging to the same family, their physical types
are so different that it seems impossible to look on the brown straight-haired
Polynesians and Malays as pure descendants of the swarthy frizzly-haired
Melanesians. Accordingly in the present state of our knowledge, or rather
ignorance, the most reasonable hypothesis would appear to be that the
Melanesians, who occupy a central position in the great ocean, between the
Polynesians on the east and the Malays on the west, represent the original
inhabitants of the islands, while the Polynesians and Malays represent
successive swarms of emigrants, who hived off from the Asiatic continent,
and making their way eastward over the islands partially displaced and
partially blent with the aborigines, modifying their own physical type in the
process and exchanging their original language for that of the islanders,
which, through their inability to assimilate it, they acquired only in corrupt
or degenerate forms.[8] Yet a serious difficulty meets us on this hypothesis.
For both the Polynesians and the Malays, as we know them, stand at a
decidedly higher level of culture, socially and intellectually, than the
Melanesians, and it is hard to understand why with this advantage they
should have fallen into a position of linguistic subordination to them, for as

a rule it is the higher race which imposes its language on its inferiors, not
the lower race which succeeds in foisting its speech on its superiors.
But these are intricate questions which await future investigation. I cannot
enter into them now, but must confine myself to my immediate subject, the
beliefs of the Polynesians concerning the human soul and the life after
death.
In spite of their diffusion over a multitude of islands separated from each
other by hundreds and even thousands of miles of ocean, the Polynesians
are on the whole a remarkably homogeneous race in physical type,
language, and forms of society and religion. The differences of language
between them are inconsiderable, amounting to little more than some well-
marked dialectical variations: all dwell in settled homes and subsist partly
by fishing partly by the fruits of the earth, tilling the soil and gathering
coconuts and bread-fruit from the trees:[9] all are bold and expert mariners,
making long voyages in large well-built canoes: all possess a copious and
comparatively well developed mythology; and all at the time of their
discovery enjoyed, or perhaps we should rather say suffered from, a
singular institution, half social, half religious, which may be summed up in
the single Polynesian word taboo. Hence it would no doubt be possible to
give a general account of the belief in human immortality which would hold
good in outline for all the different branches of the Polynesian race; but
such an account would necessarily be somewhat meagre, inexact in detail,
and liable to many exceptions. Accordingly I shall not attempt it, but shall
describe the creed of each group of islanders separately. As the beliefs of
the various islanders on this momentous topic are characterised by a general
similarity, the method I have adopted will no doubt involve a certain
sameness and repetition, but for the serious student of comparative religion
I hope that these disadvantages may be more than outweighed by the
greater accuracy and fulness of detail which this mode of treating the
subject renders possible.
The principal groups of islands included in Polynesia are New Zealand, the
Friendly or Tonga Islands, the Samoan or Navigators Islands, the Hervey or
Cook Islands, the Society Islands, including Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands,
and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands.[10] All of them, except New Zealand,
are within the tropics; and all of them, except Hawaii, lie to the south of the

equator. I shall deal with them in the order I have mentioned, beginning
with New Zealand.

§ 2. The Maoris of New Zealand

The Maoris of New Zealand are not aborigines of the islands which they
inhabit: they possess long and apparently in the main trustworthy traditions
of their migration to New Zealand many generations ago. The
circumstances which led to the migration, the names of the canoes in which
it was accomplished, the names and genealogies of the chiefs who
conducted it, are all recorded, having been handed on by word of mouth
from generation to generation, till they were finally written down from the
lips of the natives by English enquirers.[11] The place from which the
Maoris came is unanimously designated as Hawaiki, an island or group of
islands lying far to the north or north-east of New Zealand. Among English
scholars there is some difference of opinion whether Hawaiki is to be
identified with Hawaii, that is, the Sandwich Islands, or with Savaii, one of
the Samoan or Navigators Islands, since Hawaii and Savaii are both
dialectical variations of the New Zealander's pronunciation of Hawaiki.[12]
Though Hawaii is more than twice as far as Savaii from New Zealand,
being separated from it by almost the whole breadth of the tropics and a
great stretch of ocean besides, some good authorities have inclined to
regard it as the original home of the Maoris, but the balance of opinion
appears now to preponderate in favour of the view that Savaii was the
centre from which the Polynesians dispersed all over the Pacific.[13]
However, the question is one that hardly admits of a positive answer.
The Maoris are not a pure-blooded Polynesian race. Among them even at
the present day two distinct racial types may be distinguished, one of them
the comparatively fair Polynesian type with straight nose and good features,
the other the swarthy, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, frizzly-haired Melanesian
type. They have a tradition that on their arrival in New Zealand they found
the country in the possession of a dark-skinned folk of repulsive
appearance, tall, spare, and spindle-shanked, with flat faces, overhanging
brows, and noses of which little but the upturned nostrils could in some
cases be discerned. These savages wore little clothing and built no good
houses, nothing but rude shelters against the inclemency of the weather.

They were ignorant and treacherous, and the Maoris regarded them with
dislike and contempt; but their women looked with favour on the handsome
Maori men, and a mixture of the two races was the result. This tradition
both explains and is confirmed by the two different racial types which still
exist side by side or blent together among the Maoris. It seems, therefore,
highly probable that before the advent of the Maoris the North Island of
New Zealand was occupied by a people of inferior culture belonging to the
Melanesian stock, who may themselves have had a strain of Polynesian
blood in their veins and some Polynesian words in their language. This at
least is suggested by some features in the Maori traditions about them. For
these savages told the Maoris that they were the descendants of the crews of
three fishing canoes which had been driven to sea from their own land in
past times, and that their original home was a much warmer country than
New Zealand. All these various indications may perhaps be reconciled by
supposing that the dark predecessors of the Maoris in New Zealand were a
Melanesian people, who had accidentally drifted from Fiji, the inhabitants
of which have long been in contact with their Polynesian neighbours on the
east, the Tongans.[14] They received from the Maoris the name of Maruiwi,
[15]
and were perhaps of the same stock as the Moriori of the Chatham
Islands; for two skulls of the Moriori type have been found in an old deposit
at Wanganui, near the south end of the North Island of New Zealand.[16]
At the time of their discovery the Maoris had attained to a fair level of
barbaric culture. They lived in comfortable houses ornamented with carved
work and with scrolls painted in red and white on the posts and beams.
Their villages were fortified with earthworks, palisades, and trenches, and
surrounded by large gardens planted with sweet potatoes, taro, and melons.
[17]
"They excel in tillage," says Captain Cook, as might naturally be
expected, where the person that sows is to eat the produce, and where there
is so little besides that can be eaten: when we first came to Tegadoo, a
district between Poverty Bay and East Cape, their crops were just covered,
and not yet begun to sprout; the mould was as smooth as in a garden, and
every root had its small hillock, ranged in a regular quincunx, by lines,
which with the pegs were still remaining in the field.[18] They understood
the arts of irrigating their gardens[19] and of manuring them so as to render
the soil light and porous and therefore better suited for the growth of the
sweet potato, their favourite food. For this purpose they used sand, and in

the Waikatoo district, where the root was formerly much cultivated, deep
excavations, like the gravel pits of England, may still be seen, from which
the natives extracted sand to fertilise their gardens.[20] Moreover, they
cultivated various species of native flax and used the fibre for the
manufacture of garments, first scraping it and drying it in the sun, then
steeping it in water, and afterwards beating it with wooden mallets. Thus
prepared the flax was dyed black or reddish brown and woven into cloth
with broad borders of neat and varied patterns. The stronger and coarser
fibres were made into string, lines, and cordage of all sorts.[21] The Maoris
also built large and magnificently adorned canoes,[22] in which they made
long voyages; for example, they invaded and conquered the Chatham
Islands, which lie to the eastward across the open sea about five hundred
miles distant from the nearest coast of New Zealand.[23] In hunting they had
little opportunity to shine, for the simple reason that in their country there
were no beasts to hunt except rats;[24] even birds they could not shoot,
because they had no bows and arrows to shoot them with,[25] but they made
some amends by catching them in ingeniously constructed snares.[26] They
caught fish both with nets, some of which were of enormous size, and with
hooks made of bone or shell.[27] They displayed great skill and infinite
patience in fashioning, sharpening, and polishing their stone implements
and weapons.[28] In council they were orators, and in the battlefield warriors
whose courage has merited the respect, and whose military skill has won
the admiration of the British troops opposed to them.[29] In short, the
Maoris were and are one of the most highly gifted among the many
uncivilised peoples which the English race, in its expansion over the world,
has met and subdued. It is therefore of peculiar interest to learn what
conceptions they had formed of man's spiritual nature and his relations to
the higher powers.

§ 3. The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of the Living

Like most other peoples, whether savage or civilised, the Maoris explained
the mystery of life in man by the presence of an invisible spirit or soul,
which animates his body during life and quits it at death to survive the
separation for a longer or shorter time either in this world or another. But
like many others who have sought to fathom this profound subject, the

Maoris would seem to have experienced some difficulty in ascertaining the
precise nature of the human soul. When the natural man, on the strength of
his native faculties, essays to explore these dark abysses and to put his
vague thoughts into words, he commonly compares his soul either to his
breath or to his shadow and his reflection, and not content with a simple
comparison he is led, by a natural confusion of thought, to identify more or
less closely the imperceptible entity which he calls his soul with one or both
of these perceptible objects. To this general rule the Maori is apparently no
exception. He has two words which he specially uses to designate the
human spirit or soul: one is wairua, the other is hau.[30] Of these words,
wairua, the more usual name, is said to mean also a shadow, an
unsubstantial image, a reflection, as of a person's face from a polished
surface;[31] and we may surmise that these were the original and proper
meanings of the term. Similarly hau, which is described as "the vital
essence or life principle" in man,[32] appears primarily to mean "wind,"[33]
from which we may infer that in its application to man it denotes properly
the breath. The idea of the soul as a breath appears in the explanation which
was given to Dumont d'Urville of the Maori form of salutation by rubbing
noses together. The French traveller was told that the real intention of this
salute was to mingle the breath and thereby the souls of the persons who
gave each other this token of friendship. But as his informant was not a
Maori but a certain Mr. Kendall, the truth of the explanation remains
doubtful, though the Frenchman believed that he obtained confirmation of it
from his own observation and the testimony of a native.[34] On the other
hand the comparison of the soul to a shadow comes out in the answer given
by a Maori to an Englishman who had asked him why his people did not
prevent their souls from passing away to the nether world. The Maori
replied by pointing to the Englishman's shadow on the wall and asking him
whether he could catch it.[35]
Thus far the Maori conception of the soul does not perhaps differ very
materially from the popular notion of it current among ourselves. But we
come now to a marked difference between the Maori idea of the soul and
our own. For whereas the European commonly believes his soul to be fixed
during life immovably in his body, and only to depart from it once for all at
death, the soul of the Maori is under no such narrow restrictions, but is free
to quit its bodily mansion at pleasure and to return to it without prejudice to

the life and health of its owner. For example, the Maori explains a dream by
supposing that the soul of the sleeper has left his body behind and rambled
away to places more or less distant, where it converses with the spirits of
other people, whether alive or dead. Hence no well-bred Maori would
waken a sleeper suddenly by shaking him or calling out to him in a loud
voice. If he must rouse him, he will do it gradually, speaking to him at first
in low tones and then raising his voice by degrees, in order to give the
truant soul fair warning and allow it to return at leisure.[36] Believing in the
power of the soul to wander far away and converse with other spiritual
beings in sleep, the Maoris naturally paid great attention to dreams, which
they fancied were often sent them by the gods to warn them of coming
events. All dreams were supposed to have their special significance, and the
Maoris had framed a fanciful system for interpreting them. Sometimes, as
with ourselves, the interpretation went by contraries. For example, if a man
dreamed that he saw a sick relative at the point of death, it was a sign that
the patient would soon recover; but if, on the contrary, the sufferer appeared
in perfect health, it was an omen of his approaching end. When a priest was
in doubt as to the intentions of the higher powers, he usually waited for his
god to reveal his will in a dream, and accepted the vagaries of his
slumbering fancy as an infallible intimation of the divine pleasure. Spells
were commonly recited in order to annul the effect of ill-omened dreams.
[37]

But the departure of the soul from the body in life was not always
voluntary; it might take place under the compulsion of a hostile sorcerer or
magician. In a Maori legend called The curse of Manaia we read that "the
priests next dug a long pit, termed the pit of wrath, into which by their
enchantments they might bring the spirits of their enemies, and hang them
and destroy them there; and when they had dug the pit, muttering the
necessary incantations, they took large shells in their hands to scrape the
spirits of their enemies into the pit with, whilst they muttered enchantments;
and when they had done this, they scraped the earth into the pit again to
cover them up, and beat down the earth with their hands, and crossed the pit
with enchanted cloths, and wove baskets of flax-leaves to hold the spirits of
the foes which they had thus destroyed, and each of these acts they
accompanied with the proper spells."[38]

This mode of undoing an enemy by extracting and killing his soul was not
with the Maoris a mere legendary fiction; it was practised in real life by
their wizards. For we are told that when a priest desired to slay a person by
witchcraft, he would often dig a hole in the ground, and standing over it
with a cord in his hand would let one end of the cord hang down into the
hole. He then recited an incantation which compelled the soul of the
doomed man to swarm down the cord into the pit, whereupon another
potent spell chanted by the magician speedily put an end to the poor soul
for good and all.[39]
It seems obvious that spells of this sort may be used with great advantage in
war, for if you can only contrive to kill the souls of your foes, their mere
bodies will probably give you little or no trouble. Nor did this practical
application of the magic art escape the sagacity of the Maoris. When they
marched to attack an enemy's stronghold, it was an ancient custom to halt
and kindle a fire, over which the priest recited certain spells to cause the
souls of his adversaries to be drawn into the fire and there to perish
miserably in the flames. In theory the idea was admirable, but unfortunately
it did not always work out in practice. For magic is a game at which two
can play, and it sometimes happened that the spells of the besieged proved
more powerful than those of the besiegers and enabled the garrison to defy
all the attempts of the enemy to filch their souls from their bodies.[40] But
even when the assailants were obliged to retire discomfited, they did not
always lose heart, the resources of the magic art were not yet exhausted. On
their return home the priest, nothing daunted by a temporary discomfiture,
might betake himself again to his spells, and by crooning his incantations
over a garment or a weapon belonging to one of his party, might dash in
pieces the arms of the enemy and cause their souls to perish. Thus by his
ghostly skill would he snatch victory from defeat, and humble the pride of
the insolent foe in the very moment of his imaginary triumph.[41] One way
in which he effected his purpose was to take a bag or basket containing
some sacred food, hold it to the fire, and then opening the bag point the
mouth of it in the direction of the enemy. The simple recitation of a spell
then sufficed to draw the souls of the adversaries into the bag, after which
nothing was easier for him than to destroy them utterly by means of the
appropriate incantation.[42]

But valuable as are these applications of magic to practical life, the art, like
every good thing, is liable to abuse; and even where it is employed with the
best intentions, the forces which it controls are so powerful that in spite of
all precautions an accident will sometimes happen. For example, in sickness
the patient often had recourse to a priest, who would lead him down to the
nearest water, whether a pool or a stream, and there perform the magical
rites necessary for the relief of his particular malady. While the wizard was
engaged in this beneficent task, all the people in the village kept strictly
indoors, lest their souls should wander forth to the water-side and there
colliding, if I may be allowed the expression, with the mystic forces of the
priest's spells be damaged or even annihilated by the collision.[43] In such a
case the fatal consequences were the result of a pure accident, but
sometimes they were intentional. For this fell purpose a malignant wizard
would dig a hole, invoke the spirit of the man against whom he had a
grudge, and when the spirit appeared over the hole in the form of a light, he
would curse it, and the man whose soul was cursed would be sure to die,
sooner or later; nothing could save him. The Uriwera, who dwelt dispersed
among the forests and lonely hills of a wild mountainous region in the
North Island, were reputed to be the greatest warlocks in all New Zealand.
When they descended from their mountains to the coast, the lowlanders
scarcely dared refuse them anything for fear of incurring their displeasure.
It is said that in their magical rites they made a special use of the spittle of
their destined victims; hence all visitors to their country were careful to
conceal their spittle lest they should give these wicked folk a handle against
them.[44] Another mode in which a Maori wizard could obtain power over a
man's soul was by working magic on the footprints of his intended victim.
The thing was done in this way. Suppose you are walking and leave your
footprints behind you on the ground. I come behind you, take up the earth
from your footprints, and deposit it on the sacred whata puaroa, that is, a
post or pillar set up in the holy place of a village and charged in a
mysterious manner with the vitality both of the people and of the land.
Having laid the earth from your footprints on the sacred post, I next
perform a ceremony of consecration over it, and then bury it with a seed of
sweet potato in the ground. After that you are doomed. You may consider
yourself for all practical purposes not only dead but buried, like the earth
from your footprints.[45]

From some of the foregoing facts it seems to follow that the souls of the
Maoris are not, so to say, constitutionally immortal, but that they are of a
brittle and perishable nature, and that in particular they are liable to be cut
short in their career and totally exterminated by the insidious arts of
magicians. So frequently, indeed, did this happen in former days that the
Maoris of old apparently recognised no other cause of death, but imagined
that every man and woman would naturally live for ever, if the thread of his
or her life were not prematurely snipped by the abhorred shears of some
witch or wizard. Hence after every death it was customary to hold an
inquest in order to discover the wretch who had brought about the
catastrophe by his enchantments; a sage presided at the solemn enquiry, and
under his direction the culprit was detected, hunted down, and killed.[46]
The Maoris tell a story to explain how death first came into the world, or at
least how men were prevented from enjoying the boon of immortality. The
story runs as follows.
The great mythical hero of Polynesia is Maui, a demigod or man of
marvellous powers, who lived in the early ages of the world, and whose
mighty deeds are the theme of tales of wonder told far and wide among the
islands of the Pacific.[47] In his childhood his mother prophesied that he
should thereafter climb the threshold of his great ancestress Hine-nui-te-po,
and that death should have no more dominion over men. A happy
prediction, but alas! never destined to be fulfilled, for even the would-be
saviour Maui himself did not escape the doom of mortality. The way in
which he became subject to death was this. His father took him to the water
to be baptized, for infant baptism was a regular part of Maori ritual.[48] But
when the baptism was over and the usual prayers had been offered for
making the lad sacred and clean from all impurity, his father bethought him
that through haste or forgetfulness he had omitted some of the prayers and
purifications of the baptismal service. It was a fatal oversight, and the
anxious father was struck with consternation at the thought, for too well he
knew that the gods would punish the omission by causing his son Maui to
die.[49] Yet did his son make a brave attempt to rescue all men from the
doom of death and to make them live for ever. One day, after he had
performed many feats and returned to his father's house, his father, heavy at
heart and overcome with a foreboding of evil, said to him, "Oh, my son, I

have heard from your mother and others that you are very valiant, and that
you have succeeded in all feats that you have undertaken in your own
country, whether they were small or great; but now that you have arrived in
your father's country, you will perhaps be overcome." Then Maui asked his
father, "What do you mean? what things are there that I can be vanquished
by?" And his father answered him, "By your great ancestress, by Hine-nui-
te-po, who, if you look, you may see flashing, and, as it were, opening and
shutting there, where the horizon meets the sky." And Maui answered, "Lay
aside such idle thoughts, and let us both fearlessly seek whether men are to
die or live for ever." And his father said, "My child, there has been an ill
omen for us; when I was baptizing you, I omitted a portion of the fitting
prayers, and that I know will be the cause of your perishing." Then Maui
asked his father, "What is my ancestress Hine-nui-te-po like?" and he
answered, "What you see yonder shining so brightly red are her eyes, and
her teeth are as sharp and hard as pieces of volcanic glass; her body is like
that of a man, and as for the pupils of her eyes, they are jasper; and her hair
is like the tangles of long sea-weed, and her mouth is like that of a
barracouta."
Now Hine-nui-te-po was the Great Woman of Night, the Goddess of Death,
who dwelt in the nether world and dragged down men to herself. But Maui
was not afraid, for he had caught the great Sun himself in a snare and
beaten him and caused him to go so tardily as we now see him creeping
across the sky with leaden steps and slow; for of old the Sun was wont to
speed across the firmament like a young man rejoicing to run a race. So
forth fared the hero on his great enterprise to snatch the life of mortals from
the very jaws of death. And there came to him to bear him company the
small robin, and the large robin, and the thrush, and the yellow hammer, and
the pied fantail (tiwakawaka, Rhipidura flabellifora), and every kind of
little bird; and these all assembled together, and they started with Maui in
the evening, and arrived at the dwelling of Hine-nui-te-po, and found her
fast asleep.
Then Maui addressed them all, and said, "My little friends, now if you see
me creep into this old chieftainess, do not laugh at what you see. Nay, nay,
do not, I pray you, but when I have got altogether inside her, and just as I
am coming out of her mouth, then you may shout with laughter if you
please." But his little friends were frightened at what they saw, and they

answered, "Oh, sir, you will certainly be killed." And he answered them
again, saying, "If you burst out laughing at me as soon as I get inside her,
you will wake her up, and she will certainly kill me at once; but if you do
not laugh until I am quite inside her, and am on the point of coming out of
her mouth, I shall live, and Hine-nui-te-po will die." And his little friends
answered, "Go on then, brave sir, but pray take good care of yourself."
Then the young hero started off, and twisted the strings of his weapon tight
round his wrist, and went into the house, and stripped off his clothes, and
the skin on his hips was as mottled and beautiful as the skin of a mackerel
by reason of the tattoo marks cut on it with the chisel of Uetongo, and he
entered the old chieftainess. The little birds now screwed up their little
mouths to keep back their laughter when they saw him disappearing into the
body of the giantess; their cheeks swelled up and grew purple, and they
almost choked with suppressed emotion. At last the pied fantail could bear
it no longer, and he suddenly exploded with a loud guffaw. That woke the
old woman, she opened her eyes, and shut her jaws with a snap, cutting the
hero clean through the middle, so that his legs dropped out of her mouth.
Thus died Maui, but before he died he begat children, and sons were born to
him, and some of his descendants are alive to this day. That, according to
Maori tradition, is how death came into the world; for if only Maui had
passed safely through the jaws of the Goddess of Death, men would have
died no more and death itself would have been destroyed. Thus the Maoris
set down human mortality at the door of the pied fantail, since but for his
unseasonable merriment we might all have lived for ever.[50]

§ 4. The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of the Dead

When a chief died, a loud howl or wail announced the melancholy event,
and the neighbours flocked to the scene of death to testify their sorrow. The
wives and near relations, especially the women, of the deceased displayed
their anguish by cutting their faces, arms, legs, and breasts with flints or
shells till the blood flowed down in streams; it was not wiped off, for the
more the person of a mourner was covered with clotted gore, the greater
was esteemed his or her respect for the dead. Sometimes relatives would
hack off joints of their fingers as a token of grief. Mourners likewise cut
their hair, the men generally contenting themselves with clipping or shaving

it on one side only, from the forehead to the neck. The eyes of the dead
were closed by the nearest relative; and the body dressed in the finest mats,
decked with feathers, and provided with weapons, lay in state for a time.
After the first day a brother of the deceased used to beat the body with fresh
flax gathered for the purpose; this he did to drive away any evil thing that
might be hovering about the corpse. In the olden time one or more of the
chief's wives would strangle themselves, that their souls might accompany
their dead lord and wait upon him in the other world, and with the same
intentions slaves were killed, lest the great man should lack attendants in
the spirit land.[51]
The body was kept for three days because, we are told, the soul was
believed not to quit its mortal habitation till the third day.[52] The mode of
disposing of the corpse differed in different districts and according to the
rank of the deceased. In some places a grave was dug in the house and the
body buried in a sitting posture, the legs being kept in that position by
bandages or doubled up against the chest. In the grave the dead man
retained the fine garments in which he had been dressed together with the
family ornaments of jade and shark's teeth. With him also was usually
interred his property, especially the clothes which he had worn and
everything else that had touched him during his last illness. The weapons of
a warrior were laid near him that he might be able to fight his battles in the
spirit land. In other places the corpse was laid in a box on a stage; or two
pieces of an old canoe were set upright in the earth, and in the hollow
between them the body was seated on a grating so as to allow the products
of decomposition to drip through on the ground. In other places again, the
corpse was laid in a sort of canoe-shaped coffin and deposited among the
branches of a tree in a grove, where it remained for several months. This
burial in the branches of a tree seems to have been usually adopted for the
bodies of commoners; the corpses of chiefs, enclosed in coffins, were
placed in mausoleums, carved and painted red, which were raised on pillars.
Whether buried in the earth or placed in a tree or on a stage, the body was
left until the flesh had so far decayed as to permit of the bones being easily
detached; there was no fixed time allowed for decomposition, it might vary
from three months to six months, or even a year. When decay was thought
to have proceeded far enough, the bones were dug up or taken down from
the stage or tree and scraped; the ornaments also were removed from the

skeleton and worn by the relatives. In the south, where the custom was to
bury the dead in the ground, this disinterment took place four weeks after
the burial; the bones were then buried again, but only to be dug up again
after a longer interval, it might be two years, for the final ceremony. When
this took place, all the friends and relatives of the dead were summoned to
assist, and a great feast was given: the bones were scraped, painted red,
decked with feathers, and wrapped up in mats. The precious bundle was
then deposited in a small canoe or a miniature house elevated on a pole; or
it was carried to the top of some sacred tree and there left on a small stage.
Sometimes the bones were concealed in a hollow tree in a secret place of
the forest, or hidden away in one of the numerous limestone caverns or in
some lonely and inaccessible chasm among the rocks. The motive for secret
burial was a fear lest an enemy should get possession of the bones and
profane them by making fish-hooks out of them or converting the skull into
a baler for his canoe. Such a profanation was deemed a deadly insult to the
surviving relatives. After a burial the persons who had dressed or carried the
corpse, and all indeed who had had anything to do with it, repaired to the
nearest stream and plunged themselves several times over head in the water.
[53]

In some districts the removal of the bones from their temporary to their
final resting-place was the occasion of a grand annual festival in which
several neighbouring tribes took part. The bones of all members of the
tribes who had died within the year were taken down from the stages or
trees where the bodies had been temporarily deposited. The grave-clothes
having been removed, the mouldering remains were wrapped in new
blankets and carried in procession, attended by the crowd, to a place where
they were deposited on a carpet of leaves. Should any putrid flesh be found
still adhering to the bones, it was scraped off and buried on the spot. A few
old women, dressed in their best, oiled from head to foot, and plastered with
raddle, received the skulls into their laps. While they held them thus, a
funeral ode was sung and speeches, loud and long, were delivered. Then the
bones were tied up, decked with feathers of the gannet, rolled up in
blankets, and carried to their last place of rest in a sacred grove, where they
were left, securely fastened up and gaudily decorated with red and white.
Having thus discharged their duty to the dead, the living gave themselves
up to festivity; they ate and drank, danced, sang, whistled, wrestled,

quarrelled, bought and sold. This Holy Fair, which went by the name of
Hahunga, lasted several days. At the end of it the mourners, or revellers,
dispersed and returned to their homes, laden with food which had been
made ready for them by their hosts.[54] Great importance was attached to
the final disposal of the remains of the dead. According to one account, the
soul of the dead man could not rest till his bones were laid in the sepulchre
of his ancestors, which was often a natural cave or grotto. There they were
deposited on a shelf or platform a few feet above the floor of the cavern.[55]
Not uncommonly the bones of the dead, instead of being preserved, were
burned.[56] But cremation, though not unusual, seems never to have been a
general custom with the Maoris. They resorted to it only in exceptional
circumstances, for example, in order to stay the spread of disease, or in
cases where a tribe occupied open country and found no suitable place
where to lay the bones of their dead after exhumation. Cremation for the
latter reason is said to have been practised by the Ngati-apa tribe in the
Rangatikikei District, and also by the tribes who occupied the Waimate
Plains. An old earthwork fort near the present township of Manaia was the
scene of many cremations of the Maori dead in former days. Again, it was a
common custom for a raiding party to cremate their dead in the enemy's
country, when there was no time to carry them home for the usual
obsequies. The intention of burning them was to prevent the enemy from
eating the bodies and making fish-hooks out of the bones. For a similar
reason even the wounded, whom they could not carry with them, were
sometimes thrown into great fires and burnt alive. If the slain man was a
chief, only his body would be consumed in the flames; his head would be
cut off, steamed, cured, and carried home, to be wept over by his friends. In
the Bay of Plenty district the bodies of persons who died of a certain
disease called Kai uaua, apparently consumption, used to be burnt to
prevent the spread of the malady, and all the ashes were carefully buried.[57]
Often enough the heads of dead relatives were cut off, dried, and preserved
by the family for many years in order to be occasionally brought forth and
mourned over. Sometimes a widow would sleep with her husband's severed
head at her side. After a victory, too, it was customary to decapitate the slain
foes and dry their heads, which were then carried home and used as
scarecrows or stuck on short stakes in the village, where they were jeered at

and reviled. When the time came to plant the sweet potatoes, and the priests
recited their spells for the sake of the crops, the dried heads were sometimes
brought out and placed at the edge of the field, for this was believed to
promote the growth of the sweet potatoes.[58] Apparently the spirits of the
dead were thought able to quicken the fruits of the earth.
At all events the Maoris undoubtedly believed that the souls of the departed
survive the death of their bodies for a longer or shorter time and in their
disembodied state can influence the living for weal or woe. The belief in the
survival of the soul is strikingly manifested in their old custom of killing
widows and slaves to serve dead chiefs in the other world. It found
expression in the more harmless custom of laying food beside a dead person
or burying it with him in the grave; but, as usually happens in such cases,
the ghost only consumed the spiritual essence of the victuals, considerately
leaving the gross material substance to be despatched by the priest.[59] A
dying Maori, unable to eat a loaf which a missionary had offered to him,
begged that it might be kept for his ghost, who, after his death, would come
and fortify himself with it for the journey to his long home.[60] At Tanaraki
the child of a chief was buried in its father's house, grasping in each of its
little fists a taro for consumption in the other world. Over the grave were
laid boards, and the family slept on them. When they thought that the child's
body was sufficiently decayed, they dug it up, scraped the bones, and hung
them in the verandah, where from time to time the priest recited spells to
assist the soul in its ascent to heaven. Every spell was supposed to raise the
soul one stage nearer to the abode of bliss. But the ascent was long and
tedious, for there were no less than ten heavens one above the other; the
tenth was believed to be the principal abode of the gods. When the parents
of the child who had been despatched to the happy land with taro in each
hand were asked, "Why taro, if the little one is gone to heaven?" they
answered that they were not quite sure whether it went up or down, and
therefore as an additional precaution they planted a seed of taro in the
grave, so that their offspring might find something to eat either above or
below.[61]
Similar ceremonies were performed to facilitate the ascension of the souls
of chiefs and priests. Before the body was taken to the place of burial, it
was laid out with its feet towards the north, and all the blood-relations of

the deceased, men, women, and children, assembled round it. Then the
priest, standing at the head of the corpse, between the rows of the people,
chanted two incantations, of which the second was supposed to assist the
soul to ascend to heaven. The priest next put a bulb of taro in the left hand
of the corpse and chanted another incantation. After that, flaxen cords were
tied with a slip-knot to a tassel of the mat in which the body was
enshrouded, and a cord was placed in the hand of each child, boy and girl,
present at the ceremony. When the priest had chanted one more incantation,
each child pulled the cord with a jerk, to disconnect the soul from the body,
lest it should remain and afflict the relatives.[62] This last rite, with the
reason assigned for it, is significant at once of the dread which the Maoris
felt for departed spirits, and of the very materialistic conception which they
entertained of the human soul, since they appear to have imagined that it
could be detached from the body by jerking at a cord.
The wish to raise the soul to heaven was perhaps the motive for another
curious rite performed at the obsequies of a chief. When the body had been
buried, the chief returned to the village; but the men who had carried the
body went to the nearest swamp, and having caught a swamp-sparrow
(matata) sent word to the priest, who forthwith rejoined them. Each of the
bearers was then provided with a stick to which certain of the feathers of
the bird were tied. Then, holding the sticks in their hands, they sat on their
heels in a row opposite the priest, who stood facing the east with a stick
similarly adorned in his left hand. Next he moved to the south end of the
row of men and chanted, and as he chanted he gradually raised his stick,
while at the same time all the bearers, holding their sticks at arm's length,
gradually raised them and their bodies simultaneously, keeping perfect time,
till the priest had concluded his chant, when they all stood erect with
outstretched arms. After that the priest collected the sticks and threw them
down in front of the mua, which seems to have been a kind of altar.[63] We
may surmise that the ceremony was intended to waft the soul of the dead
chief upward, the feathers of the bird being naturally fitted to facilitate its
heavenward flight.
At other times, however, with the inconsistency so common in such matters,
it appears to have been supposed that the soul set out on its far journey
across the sea, and steps were accordingly taken to equip it for the voyage.
Thus we hear of a wahi tapu or sacred repository of the property of a

deceased chief, which contained, among other things, a little canoe with sail
and paddles, "to serve as a ferry-boat for the spirit to enter in safety into the
eternal abodes." Nevertheless in the same enclosure, which was fenced with
a double set of palings, "calabashes of food and water, and a dish prepared
from the pigeon, were placed for the ghost to regale itself when visiting the
spot; and the heathen natives aver that at night the spirit comes and feeds
from the sacred calabashes."[64]
Many people in the Taranaki district thought that souls went neither up nor
down, but always stayed near their mouldering bodies. Hence the sacred
grove in which their remains were buried was full of disembodied spirits;
and when a man died a violent death his soul wandered about disconsolate,
till a priest by his spells and enchantments had brought the poor ghost
within the spiritual fold.[65]
When a chief was killed in battle and eaten by his foes, as often happened,
his departed spirit entered the stones of the oven in which his body had
been cooked, and the stones retained their heat so long as the ghost was in
them. Meanwhile his sorrowing friends at home recited their most potent
spells to draw his soul out of the oven and back to the sacred grove (wahi
tapu) the burial-place of his people; for otherwise the soul could find no
repose, but must roam about for ever, wreaking its spite on the living, for all
disembodied spirits were deemed malicious. Hence after a battle, if people
could not obtain the body of a slain friend, they sought to procure at least
some drops of his blood or shreds of his raiment, that by crooning over
them the appropriate spell they might draw home the vagrant spirit to his
place of rest. The burial-grounds were regarded with awe and fear, for
sometimes a restless ghost would break bounds and spread sickness among
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Within their sacred precincts stood
altars or stages for offerings to the gods, and any living man who entered
them did so at his peril. For the same reason no one would set foot in a
house where a dead man or woman had been buried. Hence in nearly every
village half the houses stood empty and deserted, falling into decay,
tenanted only by ghosts. The living had constantly before their eyes the
mansions of the dead.[66]
The common belief of the Maoris seems to have been that the souls of the
dead pass away to a region of the underworld, which was sometimes called

Po and sometimes Reinga. Properly speaking, Po was night or the
primaeval darkness out of which all forms of life and light were evolved or
created;[67] and Reinga was not so much the spirit land itself as the leaping-
off place where the souls bade good-bye to earth and took their departure
for the far country. This leaping-off place was at the North Cape, the Land's
End of New Zealand. The cape terminates in a steep cliff with a sea-cave at
its foot, into which the tide rushes with a thunderous roar. There the evil
spirit Wiro is thought to dwell, lurking for his prey; for he battens on such
of the passing souls of the dead as he can get into his clutches. On their
passage to the North Cape the ghosts stop by the way at two hills; at the
first, which is called Wai-hokimai, they wail, cut themselves, and strip off
their clothes; at the second, which is called Wai-otioti, they turn their backs
on the land of the living and set their faces to the land of the dead. Arrived
at the cape they pass outward over a long narrow ledge of rock and then
leap down on a flat stone. There they see a mass of sea-weed floating on the
water, its roots hidden in the depth, its upper branches clinging to a
pohutukawa tree. When they perceive an opening in the sea-weed they dive
and soon find themselves in the lower world. But before they reach the
abode of spirits they must cross a river by a plank; the river is called
Waiorotane or the River of the Water of Life; and sometimes the warden of
the plank will not suffer the ghosts to pass the river, but drives them back
with friendly violence and bids them return to their friends on earth. Such
souls come back to the bright world of light and life, and tell their friends
what they have seen and heard on the journey to that bourne from which so
many travellers return no more. Hence when any one has recovered from a
dangerous sickness or escaped some great peril, they say of him that he has
come back from the River of the Water of Life. Even if a soul has crossed
that sombre stream, he may still return to the land of the living, if only he
refuses to partake of the food set before him by the ghosts; but should he
taste of it, he cannot come back. They say that people living near the North
Cape can hear the spirits of the dead passing through the air on their way to
the spirit land; and in the old days, when a battle had been fought and
before the news of it could reach them by word of mouth, the natives near
the cape were made aware of what had happened by the rushing sound of a
great multitude flitting by overhead in the darkness.[68] Perhaps the sighing
of the night-wind or the clangour of birds of passage winging their way out
to sea may have contributed to create or foster these fancies.

On the day after a burial the priest used to perform a ceremony to facilitate
the passage of the soul to its final rest. For this purpose some men would go
out in the morning and kill a small bird of the swamps called kokata and
pluck up some reeds of a certain sort (wiwi). These they brought to the
priest at the grave. He asked them, "Whence came ye?" They answered,
"From the seeking, from the searching." He asked them again, "Ah! what
have you got? ah! what have you gained?" Then the men threw the bird and
the reeds on the ground. Next the priest chose a stalk of grass or fern and
put it near the grave in a direction pointing towards Hawaiki, the land far
away from which the forefathers of the Maoris came long ago. Another
stalk of grass or fern was laid near the place of death, and along these stalks
the soul of the dead man travelled to rejoin his friends and kinsfolk who had
gone before.[69]
As might be anticipated, the accounts which the Maoris gave of the spirit
world and of life in it were neither clear nor consistent. According to one
account, while the heavens increase in beauty as they ascend one above the
other, the lower regions increase in darkness and horror as they descend,
each being darker and worse than the one above it, till in the lowest of all
complete darkness reigns. There the souls, deprived alike of light and food,
wasted away and ultimately ceased to exist; or according to another account
they assumed the shape of worms and in that guise returned to earth, where
they died a second death and so finally perished. But it was only the souls
of common folk which came to this melancholy end. Chiefs and priests
were believed to be descended from the gods, and at death their souls
ascended to heaven, there to live for ever.[70]
Other reports, however, paint the nether world in more cheerful colours. We
are told that the souls of the dead live there very much as people do on
earth, but all good things are more plentiful there than here. The staple food
of the ghosts is sweet potatoes, and the quality of the potatoes appears to be
remarkably fine; for once a woman, who had the good fortune to go to the
spirit land and come back, received from her dead father in the nether
regions two roots of sweet potatoes of a most prodigious size. These the
ghost told her to take back to earth and plant for the benefit of his
grandchild. So she hurried away with them and arriving at the foot of the
North Cape had begun to clamber up the face of the cliff, when two infant
spirits overtook her and attempted to drag her back to dead land by tugging

at her cloak. To divert their attention she threw the two roots of sweet
potato behind her, and while the sprites were munching them she made
good her escape up the cliff and succeeded in reaching home. Her friends
were very glad to see her again, but they always lamented that she had not
brought back at least one of those gigantic roots of sweet potato, since it
would unquestionably have done much to improve the quality of sweet
potatoes grown here on earth.[71]
But the spirits of the dead are by no means strictly confined to the lower
world; they can quit it from time to time and return to earth, there to
influence the actions and fortunes of the living and to communicate with
them through the priest, who can hear their voices. They speak in whistling
tones, which even common folk can sometimes distinguish as they walk
about in the dark. Often their communications are made to the priest or
chief in dreams, and he announces the glad or mournful tidings to other
people in the morning. Any commands conveyed in this manner from the
other world are, or used to be, implicitly obeyed and might decide the
course to be pursued in the most important affairs of life.[72] In some tribes,
especially among the natives of Wangunui, it used to be customary to keep
in the houses small carved images of wood, each of them dedicated to an
ancestor of the family, who was believed occasionally to enter into the
image in order to hold converse with his living descendants.[73] But even
without the intervention of such images the priest could summon up the
spirits of the dead and converse with them in the presence of the relatives or
of strangers; at these interviews, which were held within doors and in the
dark, the voices of the ghosts, or perhaps of the priestly ventriloquist, were
sometimes distinctly audible even to sceptical Europeans. Nor was the art
of necromancy confined to men; for we read of an old woman who, like the
witch of Endor, professed to exercise this ghostly office, and treated an
English visitor to an exhibition of her powers.[74]
The spirits of the dead were sometimes useful to the living, for commonly
enough they would appear to their kinsfolk in dreams and warn them of
approaching foes or other dangers. Again, they might be and were invoked
by spells and enchantments to avenge a murder or even to slay an innocent
person against whom the enchanter had a grudge.[75] But for the most part
the ghosts were greatly dreaded as malicious demons who worked harm to

man.[76] Even the nearest and dearest relations were believed to have their
natures radically changed by death and to hate those whom they had loved
in life.[77] And so powerful were these malignant beings supposed to be that
they were confused with the gods, or rather the spirits of the dead became
themselves gods to all intents and purposes, and played a much more
important part in the religious life of the Maoris than the high primaeval
deities, the personifications of nature, who figured in Maori mythology and
cosmogony.[78] The gods whom the Maoris feared, we are told, were the
spirits of the dead, who were believed to be constantly watching over the
living with jealous eyes, lest they should neglect any part of the law relating
to persons or things subject to the sacred restriction called taboo (tapu).
These spirits, however, confined their care almost exclusively to persons
among the living with whom they were connected by ties of relationship, so
that every tribe and every family had its own worshipful ancestral spirit or
god, whom members of the tribe or family invoked with appropriate prayers
or spells (karakias). Ancestral spirits who lived in the flesh before the
Maoris emigrated to New Zealand were invoked by all the tribes in New
Zealand without distinction, so far as their names and memories survived in
tradition. Thus the worship of these remote ancestors constituted what may
be called the national religion of the Maoris as distinguished from the tribal
and family religions, which consisted in the worship of nearer and better
remembered progenitors. The great importance attached by the Maoris to
the worship of ancestors may account, we are told, for the care with which
they preserved their genealogies; since the names of ancestors often formed
the groundwork of their religious formulas (karakias), and any error or even
hesitation in repeating these prayers or incantations was deemed fatal to
their efficacy.[79] "Ancestor worship, or rather the deification of ancestors,
was essentially a Maori cult. It was a form of necrolatry, or hero worship. A
man would placate the spirit of his father, grandfather, or ancestor, and
make offerings to the same, that such spirit might protect his life principle,
warn him of approaching danger, and give force or effectiveness to his rites
and charms of black or white magic."[80]
The ancestral spirits who particularly watched over the fortunes of a tribe
were the souls of its dead warriors and great men. In war these powerful,
though invisible, beings were thought to attend the army and direct its
movements on the march by communicating advice or warning through

some one or other of their nearest living kinsmen. In battle they hovered
over the combatants and inspired courage into the hearts of their own tribe.
Hence when, on the eve of battle, any young man showed signs of the white
feather, recourse was immediately had to the family priest, who repeated a
charm, invoking the aid of his friendly spirit; for the sensation of fear was
ascribed to the baneful influence of a hostile spirit. If the friendly spirit
prevailed, and the craven spirit was expelled, the young man would rush
into the thickest of the fight and prove himself the bravest of the brave.[81]
The interest taken by the spirits of the dead in mundane affairs seldom
extended beyond the limits of the tribe to which they belonged. Hence a
captive in war, who was carried away and enslaved by another tribe, ceased
from that moment to be under the protection and care of any ancestral spirit
or god. For the ancestral spirits of his own tribe did not trouble themselves
to follow him among a hostile tribe and hostile spirits, and the ancestral
spirits of the tribe whom he served as a slave would not deign to give him a
thought. Hence being forsaken of god and left to their own devices, slaves
were relieved from many of the burdensome restrictions which the Maori
gods laid upon their worshippers; they were therefore free to perform many
menial offices, particularly in regard to carrying and cooking food, which
no free Maori could discharge without sinning against the sacred law of
taboo and incurring the wrath of the ancestral spirits, who for such a
transgression might punish the sinner with sickness or death.[82]
In addition to their deified ancestors, who had lived as men of flesh and
blood on earth, the Maoris believed in certain great primaeval deities, who
had existed before the human race came into being, and whose doings were
the theme of many mythical stories. These mighty beings appear to have
been personifications of the various forces or elements of nature, such as
the sky and the earth. But though fancy wove round them a glistering web
of myth and fable, they were apparently believed to stand aloof in cold
abstraction from human affairs and to take no interest in the present race of
men. The practical religion of the Maori was concentrated on the souls of
his deceased kinsfolk and forefathers: "neither in any existing superstition
nor tradition, purely such, is there to be found internal evidence that an idea
of God existed more exalted than that of the spirit of a dead ancestor."[83]

The word which the Maoris applied to a god, whether a personification of
nature or the spirit of a dead ancestor, was atua. The name is not confined
to the Maori language, but is the common word for god throughout
Polynesia.[84] When the Maoris attempt to define the nature of an atua, they
have recourse to the same comparisons with a shadow and with breath
which appear to underlie their conception of the human soul.[85] But though
"god" is the nearest English equivalent of the word atua, we must beware of
assuming that the Maori idea of godhead coincided with ours. On this
subject one of our best authorities tells us that the term "god" is really not
applicable to the Atua Maori, the so-called gods of the Maoris. For these
beings, he says, "were, with few exceptions, malignant demons, to be feared
and placated or conciliated, but not worshipped. Their principal task seems
to have been the inflicting upon mankind of diverse evils, pains, and
penalties. Of the few good offices performed by them, the warning of the
people in regard to coming troubles, seems to have been the most
important. The vast majority of the so-called gods of the Maori were simply
deified ancestors."[86]
In order to illustrate the difference between the Maori conception of deity
and our own, I will quote the words of another eminent authority on the
native religion of the New Zealanders. He says, "Before the mythology of
the Maori is further considered, it will be necessary briefly to state what
were the ideas of God entertained by the natives. The word atua, or spirit,
which is used for God, formerly had various significations; a plague or
disease was also he atua, or God; a thief was an atua, thus also a thievish
dog was he kuri atua, a god-like dog, so also he tangata atua ki te muru, a
man equal to a god in stealing; a child who pilfered was he tamaiti atua, a
divine child; there were great spirits and small ones, a man's spirit was an
atua pore pore, a little spirit, but Maru Rongomai and other gods were Atua
nui, great gods; there were atua ika, reptile or fish gods; a great chief was
called He ika, a fish, sea monster, or reptile, and was regarded as a
malignant god in life, and a still worse one after death; there were likewise
Atua marau, as the toroa, albatross, the ruru, owl; and karu karu, the film
which shades its eye from the light, was also an atua; male and female
spirits presided over dreams, and were regarded as atuas, Ko nga atua moe
moea o te poko, the gods of dreams; Tunui a rangi, a male, Pare kewa, a
female deity, both were prayed to as gods; the atua kore and atua kiko kiko

were inferior gods. The Atua ngarara or reptile gods were very abundant,
and were supposed to be the cause of all diseases and death, being always
ready to avail themselves of every opportunity of crawling down the throat
during sleep, and thus preying upon the lives of unfortunate creatures. Atuas
or spirits of the deceased were thought to be able to revisit the earth and
reveal to their friends the cause of their sickness. Everything that was evil
or noxious was supposed especially to belong to the gods; thus a species of
euphorbium, whose milk or juice is highly poisonous, is called wai u atua,
the milk of the gods."[87] "In fact, in the accounts which the natives give of
their gods and their exploits, we have but a magnified history of their
chiefs, their wars, murders, and lusts, with the addition of some
supernatural powers; they were cannibals; influenced by like feelings and
passions as men, and were uniformly bad; to them were ascribed all the
evils incident to the human race; each disease was supposed to be
occasioned by a different god, who resided in the part affected; thus, Tonga,
the god who caused headache, took up his abode in the forehead; Moko Titi,
a lizard god, was the source of all pains in the breast; Tu-tangata-kino was
the god of the stomach; Titihai occasioned pains in the ankles and feet;
Rongomai and Tuparitapua were the gods of consumption, and the wasting
away of the legs and arms; Koro-kio-ewe presided over childbirth, and did
his worst to unfortunate females in that state. In fact, the entire human body
appears to have been shared out amongst those evil beings, who ruled over
each part, to afflict and pain the poor creatures who worshipped them."[88]
Anything, indeed, whether good or evil, which excited the fear or wonder of
the Maoris would seem in the old days to have been dubbed by them an
atua and invested with the attributes of divinity. For example, when a
traveller in the early years of the nineteenth century showed his watch to
some Maoris, the ticking struck them with such astonishment that they
deemed it nothing less than the voice of a god; and the watch itself, being
looked upon as a deity (atua) in person, was treated by the whole of them
with profound reverence.[89] Other travellers have had similar experiences
among the Maoris,[90] and compasses and barometers have also been
accorded divine honours by these ignorant savages.[91]

§ 5. Taboo among the Maoris

But the most momentous practical consequence which flowed from their
belief in the spirits of the dead was the enormous influence which that creed
wielded in establishing and maintaining the system of taboo, the most
remarkable and characteristic institution in the life of the Maoris and of the
Polynesians in general. I shall first give some account of the taboo or tapu,
as the Maoris called it, and afterwards show how this extraordinary system
of society and religion was directly based on a belief in the existence of
ghosts and their mighty power over human destiny.
First, then, as to taboo or tapu itself. This curious institution, as I have said,
prevailed throughout all the widely scattered islands of Polynesia, but
nowhere to a greater extent than in New Zealand. It pervaded the whole life
of the natives, affected their plans, influenced their actions, and in the
absence of an efficient police provided a certain security both for their
persons and their property. Sometimes it was used for political, and
sometimes for religious purposes; sometimes it was the means of saving
life, and at other times it was the ostensible reason for taking life away.[92]
It may be defined as a system of consecration which made any person,
place, or thing sacred either permanently or for a limited time.[93] The effect
of this consecration was to separate the sacred person or thing from all
contact with common (noa)[94] persons and things: it established a sort of
quarantine for the protection not only of the sacred persons themselves, but
of common folk, who were supposed to be injured or killed by mere contact
with a tabooed person or object. For the sanctity which the taboo conferred
on people and things was conceived of as a sort of dangerous atmosphere,
charged with a spiritual electricity, which discharged itself with serious and
even fatal effect on all rash intruders. A tabooed person might not be
touched by any one, so long as the taboo or state of consecration lasted; he
might not even put his own hand to his own head; and he was most
stringently forbidden to touch food with his hands. Hence he was either fed
like a child by another, who put the food into his mouth; or he had to lap up
his victuals like a dog from the ground, with his hands held behind his back;
or lastly he might convey the nourishment by means of a fern stalk to his
mouth. When he wished to drink, somebody else poured water into his
mouth from a calabash without allowing the vessel to touch his lips; for
mere contact with the lips of the tabooed man would have rendered the
vessel itself sacred or tabooed and therefore unfit for common use.

Similarly, when he desired to wash his hands, water had to be poured on
them from a distance by his attendant. This state of consecration or
defilement, as we might be tempted rather to call it, was incurred by any
person who had touched either a young child or a corpse or had assisted at a
funeral. The taboo contracted by association with the dead was the strictest
and most virulent of all. It extended not only to the persons who had
handled the corpse or paid the last offices of respect to the departed; it
applied to the place where the body was buried or the bones deposited. So
sacred, indeed, was deemed the spot where a chief had died that in the old
days everything upon it was destroyed by fire. Hence in order to avoid the
destruction of a house, which a death in it would have entailed, it was
customary to remove a sick or dying man to a temporary shed just large
enough to shelter him from the sun or screen him from the rain; for if the
man died in it, the destruction of the wretched hovel was no great loss to the
survivors.[95] A widow was tabooed and had to observe the aforesaid
restrictions from the death of her husband until his bones had been scraped
and deposited in their last resting-place; and the same rule applied to a
widower.[96] These taboos were temporary and could be removed by a
priest, who performed certain rites and repeated certain spells (karakias),
and thereby relieved the tabooed person from the state of sanctity or
consecration under which he had laboured. The performance of the
ceremony put an end to the spiritual quarantine; the man ceased to be
sacred, he became common (noa) once more, and could mingle freely with
his fellows. One of the ceremonies of desecration, as we may call it, was to
pass a consecrated piece of wood over the right shoulder of the tabooed
person, then round his loins, and back again over the left shoulder, after
which the stick was broken in two and buried, burned, or cast into the sea.
[97]
Again, a temporary taboo was laid on all persons who were engaged in
planting sweet potatoes, or in sorting the seed, or in digging and preparing
the ground; they might not leave the fields where they were at work nor
undertake any other labour. The fields themselves were sacred during these
operations; none but the persons who were tabooed for the purpose might
set foot on the ground or pluck up the weeds which grow rankly round the
roots of the vegetable.[98] Similarly, in their great fishing-expeditions to
catch mackerel, all concerned in making or mending the nets were under a
taboo: the ground where the nets were made was sacred, and so was the
river on the banks of which the work went on. No man but the tabooed

persons might walk over the land or pass up or down the river in a canoe:
no fire might be lighted within a prescribed distance: no food might be
dressed while the taboo lasted. Not till the net had been finished and wetted
with the sacred water, and the owner had caught and eaten a fish, did these
burdensome restrictions come to an end by the removal of the taboo.[99]
Once more, the men who took part in a warlike expedition were under a
severe taboo and had to observe very strictly the customs which that
mysterious state of consecration rendered obligatory.[100] Even after their
return home they were not allowed to enter their houses or to hold any
direct communication with their families who had remained there, till they
had been rendered common (noa) by a ceremony of desecration. Before that
ceremony took place, the warriors were obliged to throw away the remains
of the bodies of their foes on which, as usual, they had been feasting; for
being sacred food the flesh could only be touched by sacred or tabooed
persons. One woman only, the wahine ariki, as she was called, that is the
elder female of the elder branch of the stock from which the tribe traced
their descent, was permitted to touch the sanctified meat; indeed, in order to
carry out the ritual of desecration in due form she was expected and
required to swallow an ear of the first enemy killed in battle.[101] A warlike
expedition might lay even people at home under a taboo; for all who
remained behind, including old men, women, and slaves, were often
required to observe a rigid fast and to abstain from smoking till the return of
the warriors.[102]
But in contrast to the temporary taboos which affected common folk and
debarred them for a time from familiar intercourse with their fellows, a
perpetual and very stringent taboo was laid on the persons and property of
chiefs, especially of those high hereditary chiefs who bore the title of Ariki
and were thought to be able at any time to hold visible converse with their
dead ancestors.[103] Strictly speaking, "the ariki of a Maori tribe is the
senior male descendant of the elder branch of the tribe, that is, he is a
descendant of the elder son of the elder son of each generation from the
time of the original ancestor down to the present day. As such, he was of old
regarded almost as a god, inasmuch as he represented all that there was of
măna and sacredness of his tribe. That he should have been regarded in this
light is not astonishing, for the Maoris believed he was something more
than human, in that he was the shrine of an hereditary Atua, the guardian

spirit of the tribe, and could therefore at any time communicate with the
tribal gods.... Such a man was not only tapu in person but he made
everything he touched so dangerously sacred as to be a source of terror to
the tribe. To smoke his pipe, or drink from any vessel he had touched, was
death speedy and certain at the hands of the gods, who avenge breaches of
the tapu."[104] "The gods being no more than deceased chiefs, the arikis
were regarded as living ones, and thus were not to be killed by inferior men,
but only by those who had more powerful atuas in them; the victorious
chief who had slain numbers, swallowed their eyes, and drunk their blood,
was supposed to have added the spirits of his victims to his own, and thus
increased his mana or power; to keep up this idea, and hinder the lower
orders from trying whether it were possible to kill such corporeal and living
gods, was the grand work of the tapu."[105] The godhead of a chief was
thought to reside in his eyes, especially in his left eye; that was why by
swallowing the eye or eyes of a slain chief a living chief was believed to
absorb the divine spirit of the dead man and thereby to strengthen his own
divinity; the more eyes he swallowed, the greater god he became.[106]
Every such divine chief was under a permanent taboo; he was as it were
surrounded by an atmosphere of sanctity which attached to his person and
never left him; it was his birthright, a part of himself of which he could not
be divested, and it was well understood and recognised by everybody at all
times. And the sanctity was not confined to his person, it was an infection
which extended or was communicated to all his movable property,
especially to his clothes, weapons, ornaments, and tools, indeed to
everything which he touched. Even the petty chiefs and fighting men,
everybody indeed who could claim the title of rangatira or gentleman,
possessed in some degree this mysterious quality.[107] However, in young
people of rank the sanctity which appertained to them by virtue of their
birth was supposed to be only latent; it did not develop or burst into full
bloom till they had reached mature age and set up house on their own
account. Hence noble boys and lads were under none of the irksome
restrictions to which in their adult years they were afterwards bound to
submit; they mixed freely with the profane vulgar and did not even disdain
to carry fuel or provisions on their backs, a thing which no man of any
standing could possibly do; at all events, if he did so demean himself, the
food was thereby rendered taboo and could accordingly be used by nobody

but himself. "If he went into the shed used as a kitchen (a thing, however,
he would never think of doing except on some great emergency), all the
pots, ovens, food, etc., would be at once rendered useless—none of the
cooks or inferior people could make use of them, or partake of anything
which had been cooked in them. He might certainly light a little fire in his
own house, not for cooking, as that never by any chance could be done in
his house, but for warmth; but that, or any other fire, if he should have
blown upon it with his breath in lighting it, became at once tapu, and could
be used for no common or culinary purpose. Even to light a pipe at it would
subject any inferior person, or in many instances an equal, to a terrible
attack of the tapu morbus, besides being a slight or affront to the dignity of
the person himself. I have seen two or three young men fairly wearing
themselves out on a wet day and with bad apparatus trying to make fire to
cook with, by rubbing two sticks together, when on a journey, and at the
same time there was a roaring fire close at hand at which several rangatira
and myself were warming ourselves, but it was tapu, or sacred fire—one of
the rangatira had made it from his own tinder-box, and blown upon it in
lighting it, and as there was not another tinder-box amongst us, fast we
must, though hungry as sharks, till common culinary fire could be
obtained."[108]
The head of a chief was always and at all times deemed most sacred, and in
consequence he might not even touch it with his own hand; if he chanced to
commit the sacrilege, he was obliged at once to apply his fingers to his
sacred nose and to snuff up the odour of sanctity which they had abstracted,
thus restoring the holy effluvium to the place from which it had been taken.
[109]
For the same reason the cutting of a chief's hair was a most difficult
and delicate operation. While it lasted neither the great man himself nor the
barber who operated on him was allowed to do anything or partake of any
food except under the restrictions imposed on all sacred or tabooed persons;
to use the scissors or the shell, with which the operation was performed, for
any other purpose or any other person would have been a terrible
profanation of sacred things, and would have rendered the rash sacrilegious
wretch, who had dared so to appropriate it, liable to the severest
punishment. The severed hair was collected and buried or hung up on a tree,
[110]
probably to put it out of the way of common folk, who might have
been struck dead by contact with the holy locks. But apparently the dangers

incident to hair-cutting were by no means confined to chiefs, but extended
to any one who was bold enough to submit his head to the barber's shears;
for one of the early writers on the Maoris tells us that "he who has had his
hair cut is in the immediate charge of the Atua; he is removed from the
contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food
himself; it is put into his mouth by another person; nor can he for some days
resume his accustomed occupations, or associate with his fellow-men."[111]
The hair of the first-born of a family in particular, on account of his extreme
sanctity, might be cut by nobody but a priest; and for many days after the
operation had been performed the priestly barber was in a state of strict
taboo. He could do nothing for himself, and might not go near anybody. He
might not touch food with his hands, and no less than three persons were
required to feed him. One of them prepared the food at a safe distance, took
it to a certain place, and retired; a second came forward, picked up the
victuals, carried them to another spot and left them; finally, a third,
venturing into the danger zone, actually brought the food to the priest and
put it into his mouth.[112]
The atmosphere of taboo or sanctity which thus surrounded Maori chiefs
and gentlemen not only imposed many troublesome and inconvenient
restraints on the men themselves, it was also frequently a source of very
real danger, loss, and annoyance to other people. For example, it was a rule
that a chief should not blow on a fire with his mouth, because his breath
being sacred would communicate its sanctity to the fire, and if a slave or a
common man afterwards cooked food at the fire or merely took a brand
from it, the chief's holiness would cause that man's death.[113] Again, if the
blood of a high chief flowed on anything, though it were but a single drop,
it rendered the thing sacred to him, so that it could be used by nobody else.
Thus it once happened that a party of natives came in a fine new canoe to
pay their respects to an eminent chief; the great man stepped into the canoe,
and in doing so he chanced to strike a splinter into his foot, which bled.
That sufficed to consecrate the canoe to him. The owner at once leaped out,
drew the canoe ashore opposite to the chief's house and left it there.[114]
Again, a Maori gentleman, visiting a missionary, knocked his head against a
beam in the house, and his sacred blood was spilt. The natives present
thereupon told the missionary that in former times his house would after
such an accident have belonged to his noble visitor.[115] Even the cast

garments of a chief had acquired, by contact with his holy body, so virulent
a degree of sanctity that they would kill anybody else who might happen in
ignorance to find and wear them. On a journey, when a chief found his
blanket too heavy to carry, he has been known to throw it very
considerately down a precipice where nobody would be likely to light on it,
lest some future traveller should be struck dead by appropriating the sacred
garment. Once a chief's lost tinder-box actually caused the death of several
persons; for having found it and used it to light their pipes, they literally
died of fright on learning the sacrilege which they had committed.[116] Such
fatal effects consequent on the discovery of a breach of taboo were not
uncommon among the Maoris. For instance, a woman once ate some
peaches which, though she did not know it, had been taken from a tabooed
place. As soon as she heard where the fruit had come from, the basket
which she was carrying dropped from her hands, and she exclaimed in
agony that the spirit (atua) of the chief whose sanctuary had thus been
profaned would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, and next day by
twelve o'clock she was dead.[117] Again, a slave, a strong man in the prime
of life, once found the remains of a chief's dinner beside the road, and being
hungry ate it up without asking any questions. No sooner, however, did he
hear to whom the food had belonged than he was seized with the most
extraordinary convulsions and cramps in the stomach, which never ceased
till he died about sundown the same day. The English eyewitness who
reports the case adds, that any European freethinker who should have
denied that the man was killed by the chief's taboo would have been
listened to by the Maoris with feelings of contempt for his ignorance and
inability to understand plain and direct evidence.[118]
In order that a thing should be consecrated or tabooed to the exclusive use
and possession of a chief, it was not necessary that his sacred blood should
flow on it, or that he should merely touch it; he had only to call it his head,
or his back-bone, or any other part of his body, and at once the thing, by a
legal fiction, became his and might be appropriated by nobody else under
pain of violating the taboo which the chief had laid upon it. For example,
when a chief desired to prevent a piece of ground from being cultivated by
any one but himself, he often resorted to the expedient of calling it his back-
bone; after that if any man dared to set foot on the land so consecrated, the
transgression was equivalent to a declaration of war. In this simple and easy

fashion a chief might acquire anything that took his fancy from an axe or a
canoe to a landed estate, and the rightful owner of the property dared not
complain nor dispute the claim of his superior.[119]
Nevertheless in daily life even ordinary people used the taboo to secure
their property or to acquire for themselves what had hitherto been common
to all. For example, if a man found a piece of drift timber, he could make it
his own by tying something to it or giving it a chop with his axe; he thereby
set his taboo on the log, and as a general rule the taboo would be respected.
Again, with a simple piece of flax he might bar the door of his house or his
store of food; the contents of the house or store were thus rendered
inviolable, nobody would meddle with them.[120]
It is easy to see that this form of taboo must have greatly contributed to
create and confirm respect for the rights of private property. The most
valuable articles might, we are told, under ordinary circumstances be left to
its protection in the absence of the owners for any length of time.[121]
Indeed so obvious and so useful is this function of taboo that one well-
informed writer supposes the original purpose of the institution to have
been no other than the preservation of private property;[122] and another
observer, after eulogising its beneficent effects, declares that "it was
undoubtedly the ordinance of a wise legislator."[123] But to say this is
greatly to overrate the wisdom and foresight of primitive man in general
and of the Polynesians in particular; it implies a fundamental misconception
of the real nature and history of taboo. That curious institution was not the
creation of a prudent and sagacious legislator, who devised this system of
checks and restrictions for the purpose of curbing the passions of a savage
race and inducing them to submit to the salutary restraints of law and
morality. It was in its origin, I believe, simply a crude and barbarous form
of superstition, which, like many other superstitions, has accidentally led to
good results that were never contemplated by its ignorant and foolish
votaries. It is thus that in the long history of mankind things which to a
contemporary spectator might seem to be almost unmitigated evils turn out
in the end to be fraught with incalculable good to humanity. This
experience, often repeated, enables students of the past to look forward,
even in the darkest hours, with cheerful confidence to the future.

The particular superstition which lies at the root of taboo and has
incidentally exercised a beneficent influence by inspiring a respect for law
and morality appears to be a belief in the existence of ghosts and their
power to affect the fortunes of the living for good or evil. For the ultimate
sanction of the taboo, in other words, that which engaged the people to
observe its commandments, was a firm persuasion that any breach of these
commandments would surely and speedily be punished by an atua or ghost,
who would afflict the sinner with a painful malady till he died. From youth
upwards the Maori was bred in the faith that the souls of his dead ancestors,
jealous of any infraction of the traditionary rites, would commission some
spirit of their kin to enter into the transgressor's body and prey on a vital
part. The visible signs of this hidden and mysterious process they fancied to
be the various forms of disease. The mildest ailments were thought to be
caused by the spirits of those who had known the sufferer on earth, and who
accordingly were imagined to be more merciful and more reluctant to injure
an old friend and relation. On the other hand the most malignant forms of
disease were attributed to the spirits of dead infants, who having never
learned to love their living friends, would rend and devour the bowels of
their nearest kin without compunction. With these ideas as to the origin of
disease the Maoris naturally did not attempt to heal the sick through the
curative properties of herbs and other drugs; their remedies consisted not in
medicine but in exorcism: instead of a physician they sent for a priest, who
by his spells and incantations undertook to drive the dangerous sprite from
the body of the patient and to appease the ancestral spirit, whose wrath was
believed to be the cause of all the mischief. If the deity proved recalcitrant
and obstinately declined to accept this notice to quit, they did not hesitate to
resort to the most threatening and outrageous language, sometimes telling
him that they would kill and eat him, and at others that they would burn him
to a cinder if he did not take himself off at once and allow the patient to
recover.[124] Curiously enough, the spirit which preyed on the vitals of a
sick man was supposed to assume the form of a lizard; hence these animals,
especially a beautiful green species which the Maoris called kakariki, were
regarded with fear and horror by the natives.[125] Once when a Maori of
Herculean thews and sinews was inadvertently shown some green lizards
preserved in a bottle of spirits, his massive frame shrank back as from a
mortal wound, and his face betrayed signs of extreme horror. An aged chief
in the room, on learning what was the matter, cried out, "I shall die! I shall

die!" and crawled away on hands and knees; while the other man gallantly
interposed himself as a bulwark between the fugitive and the green gods
(atuas) in the bottle, shifting his position adroitly so as to screen the chief
till he was out of range of the deities.[126] An old man once assured a
missionary very seriously that in attending to a sick person he had seen the
god come out of the sufferer's mouth in the form of a lizard, and that from
the same moment the patient began to mend and was soon restored to
perfect health.[127]

§ 6. Conclusion

If now we attempt to sum up the effects which the belief in human
immortality exercised on the life of the Maoris we may perhaps conclude
that these effects were partly good and partly evil. On the one hand by
ascribing to the chiefs the special protection of the powerful spirits of the
dead, it invested the governing class with a degree of authority to which on
merely natural or rational grounds they could have laid no claim; hence it
tended to strengthen the respect for government and to ensure the
maintenance of law and order. Moreover, by lending a supernatural sanction
to the rights of private property among all classes it further contributed to
abolish one of the most fruitful sources of discord and crime in the
community and thereby to foster economic progress, which cannot exist
without some measure of peace and security for life and possessions. These
were great gains, and so far as the faith in immortality helped to win them
for the Maoris, it certainly ameliorated their condition and furthered the
cause of civilisation among them. But on the other hand the belief in the
essential malignancy of the spirits of the dead and in their great power to
harm the living added a host of purely imaginary terrors to the real evils
with which man's existence on earth is naturally and inevitably
encompassed: it imposed a regular system of needless and vexatious
restrictions on social intercourse and the simplest acts of daily life; and it
erected an almost insuperable barrier to the growth of science, and
particularly of that beneficent branch of science which has for its object the
alleviation of human suffering, since by concentrating the whole attention
of the people on a false and absurd theory of supernatural agency it diverted
them from that fruitful investigation of natural causes which alone can
strengthen and extend man's control over matter. This was a heavy toll to

pay for the advantages incidental to a belief in immortality; and if we were
asked to strike a balance between the good and the evil which that belief
entailed on the Maoris, we might well hesitate to say to which side the
scales of judgment should incline.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Horatio Hale, The United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 sqq., 9 sqq.; J. Deniker, The Races of Man
(London, 1900), pp. 500 sqq.
[2] J. Deniker, The Races of Man (London, 1900), pp. 154, 501; British Museum,
Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections (1910), p. 147.
[3] Captain James Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), v. 416; W. Mariner, Account
of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 67; W.
Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 220; E.
Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, Second Edition
(London, 1856), p. 212; J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 501. In Polynesia "the
bow was not a serious weapon; it was found in some islands, e.g. in Tahiti and
Tonga, but was principally used for killing rats or in shooting matches" (British
Museum, Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections, p. 153). As to the limited
use of bows and arrows in Polynesia, see further E. Tregear, "The Polynesian
Bow," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. i. no. 1 (April 1892), pp. 56-59; W.
H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society (Cambridge, 1914), ii. 446 sqq.
[4] Compare (Sir) E. B. Tylor, Anthropology (London, 1881), p. 102; R. H.
Codrington, The Melanesian Languages (Oxford, 1885), pp. 33 sqq.; S. Percy
Smith, Hawaiki, the Original Home of the Maori (Christchurch, etc., New
Zealand, 1910), pp. 85 sqq.; A. C. Haddon, The Wanderings of Peoples
(Cambridge, 1919), pp. 34 sqq.; A. H. Keane, Man Past and Present, revised by
A. Hingston-Quiggin and A. C. Haddon (Cambridge, 1920), p. 552.
[5] On the affinity of the Polynesian, Melanesian, and Malay languages, see R.
H. Codrington, The Melanesian Languages (Oxford, 1885), pp. 10 sqq.; S. H.
Ray, "The Polynesian Language in Melanesia," Anthropos, xiv.-xv. (1919-1920),
pp. 46 sqq.
[6] J. Deniker, The Races of Man, pp. 482 sqq.
[7] Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol.
iii. Linguistics, by Sydney H. Ray (Cambridge, 1907), p. 528 (as to the relation
of the Polynesian to the Melanesian language). As to the poverty of the
Polynesian language in sounds and grammatical forms by comparison with the
Melanesian, see R. H. Codrington, The Melanesian Languages, p. 11.
[8] This seems to be the hypothesis favoured by Dr. R. H. Codrington, The
Melanesian Languages, pp. 33 sqq. Compare J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p.
505. On the other hand Sir E. B. Tylor says (Anthropology, pp. 163 sq.), "The

parent language of this family may have belonged to Asia, for in the Malay
region the grammar is more complex, and words are found like tasik = sea and
langit = sky, while in the distant islands of New Zealand and Hawaii these have
come down to tai and lai, as though the language became shrunk and formless as
the race migrated further from home, and sank into the barbaric life of ocean
islanders." Dr. W. H. R. Rivers suggests that the Polynesian language "arose out
of a pidgin Indonesian" (The History of Melanesian Society, ii. 584).
[9] J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 501. On the apparent homogeneity of the
Polynesian race see W. H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society
(Cambridge, 1914), ii. 280, who, however, argues (ii. 280 sqq.) that the race has
been formed by the fusion of two distinct peoples.
[10] Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 sqq.
[11] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand (London, 1843), ii. 85 sqq.;
Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology
(Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 146 sqq.; Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology
(London, 1855), pp. 123 sqq., 136 sqq., 162 sqq., 202 sqq.; E. Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, Second Edition (London,
1856), pp. 1 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants,
Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 26, 27, 289 sqq.; John White, The Ancient
History of the Maori, his Mythology and Traditions (London, 1887-1889), ii.
176 sqq.; Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) pp. 73-
76. The number of generations which have elapsed since the migration to New
Zealand is variously estimated. Writing about the middle of the nineteenth
century Shortland reckoned the number at about eighteen; Mr. Elsdon Best,
writing in 1914, variously calculated it at about twenty-eight or twenty-nine (on
p. 73) and from eighteen to twenty-eight (on p. 74).
[12] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 33.
[13] H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, pp.
119 sq.; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand (London, 1843), ii. 85 sqq.; E.
Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 33 sqq.; A. S.
Thomson, The Story of New Zealand (London, 1859), i. 57 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te
Ika A Maui, p. 26; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary
(Wellington, N.Z., 1891), pp. 56 sqq., s.v. "Hawaiki"; A. C. Haddon, The
Wanderings of Peoples (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36. Of these writers, Dieffenbach,
Shortland, and Taylor decide in favour of Hawaii; Thomson, Hale, and Haddon
prefer Savaii; Tregear seems to leave the question open, pointing out that "the
inhabitants of those islands themselves believe in another Hawaiki, neither in
Samoa nor Hawaii."
[14] Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) pp. 73-76.
The Melanesian strain in the Maoris was recognised by previous writers. See J.
S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders (London, 1840), i. 6,
"The nation consists of two aboriginal and distinct races, differing, at an earlier
period, as much from each other as both are similarly removed in similitude
from Europeans. A series of intermarriages for centuries has not even yet
obliterated the marked difference that originally stamped the descendant of the

now amalgamated races. The first may be known by a dark-brown complexion,
well formed and prominent features, erect muscular proportions, and lank hair,
with a boldness in the gait of a warrior, wholly differing from that of the second
and inferior race, who have a complexion brown-black, hair inclining to the
wool, like the Eastern African, stature short, and skin exceeding soft." The writer
rightly connects the latter people with the stock which we now call Melanesian.
Compare also R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 13 sqq., who says (p. 13), "The
Melanesian preceded the Polynesian.... The remains of this race are to be seen in
every part of New Zealand, especially among the Nga-ti-ka-hunu, to which the
derisive name of Pokerekahu—Black Kumara—is applied. The Maori traditions
preserve both the names of the canoes which brought them to New Zealand, as
well as of the chiefs who commanded them; several of these records make
mention of their having found this black race in occupation of the country on
their arrival." The blending of two distinct races, a light-brown and a dark race,
among the Maoris is clearly recognised by E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New
Zealand, ii. 8-11. The dark race, he says (pp. 9 sq.), "has undoubtedly a different
origin. This is proved by their less regularly shaped cranium, which is rather
more compressed from the sides, by their full and large features, prominent
cheek-bones, full lips, small ears, curly and coarse, although not woolly, hair, a
much deeper colour of the skin, and a short and rather ill-proportioned figure.
This race, which is mixed in insensible gradations with the former, is far less
numerous; it does not predominate in any one part of the island, nor does it
occupy any particular station in a tribe, and there is no difference made between
the two races amongst themselves; but I must observe that I never met any man
of consequence belonging to this race, and that, although free men, they occupy
the lower grades; from this we may perhaps infer the relation in which they
stood to the earliest native immigrants into the country, although their traditions
and legends are silent on the subject."
[15] Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) pp. 73 sq.
[16] (Sir) Arthur Keith, "Moriori in New Zealand," Man, xiii. (1913) pp. 171 sq.
[17] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the Maoris, p. 202. The
elaborate system of fortification employed by the Maoris, of which the remains
may be seen by thousands, seems to have no exact parallel in Polynesia. See
Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) p. 75. These
native forts or pas, as they were called, had often a double or even quadruple
line of fence, the innermost formed by great poles twenty or thirty feet high,
which were tightly woven together by the fibrous roots of a creeper. They were
built by preference on hills, the sides of which were scarped and terraced to
assist the defence. Some of them were very extensive and are said to have
contained from one to two thousand inhabitants. Many of them were immensely
strong and practically impregnable in the absence of artillery. It is believed that
the habit of fortifying their villages was characteristic of the older race whom the
Maoris, on landing in New Zealand, found in occupation of the country. See W.
Yate, An Account of New Zealand (London, 1835), pp. 122 sqq.; G. F. Angas,
Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand (London, 1847), i. 332
sq.; Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maoris of New
Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xii. no. 4 (December 1903), pp.

204 sqq.; W. H. Skinner, "The Ancient Fortified Pa," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. xx. no. 78 (June 1911), pp. 71-77.
[18] Captain James Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), ii. 50.
[19] The ruins of native irrigation works are to be found in New Zealand as well
as in other parts of Polynesia (J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 501).
[20] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 202
sq.
[21] Captain James Cook, Voyages, ii. 30 sq., 40 sq.; W. Yate, An Account of
New Zealand (London, 1835), pp. 157 sqq.; E. Shortland, Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 204 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p.
5.
[22] Captain James Cook, Voyages, ii. 47 sq.; W. Yate, op. cit. pp. 161 sqq.
[23] A. Shand, "The Occupation of the Chatham Islands by the Maoris in 1835,"
Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. i. no. 2 (July 1892), pp. 83 sqq.
[24] R. Taylor, op. cit. p. 496; A. R. Wallace, Australasia (London, 1913), pp.
442 sq.
[25] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 212;
Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New
Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xi. no. 4 (December 1902), p.
240.
[26] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 212
sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 442 sq.
[27] Captain James Cook, Voyages, i. 49 sq.; W. Yate, An Account of New
Zealand, p. 160.
[28] Captain James Cook, Voyages, ii. 49; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 4.
[29] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 4. The Maoris delivered set speeches composed
according to certain recognised laws of rhetoric, and their oratory was
distinguished by a native eloquence and grace. See E. Shortland, Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 186 sqq.
[30] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 177 sqq., 189 sqq.
[31] E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 591 sq., s.v.
"wairua."
[32] Elsdon Best, op. cit. p. 189.
[33] E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 52, s.v. "hau";
Elsdon Best, op. cit. p. 190.
[34] J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la
Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 558 sq.

[35] William Brown, New Zealand and its Aborigines (London, 1845), p. 81.
[36] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 177 sq.
[37] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 333-335. As to omens derived from dreams
see Elsdon Best, "Omens and Superstitious Beliefs of the Maori," Journal of the
Polynesian Society, vol. vii. no. 27 (September 1898), pp. 124 sqq.
[38] Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology (London, 1855), pp. 168 sq.
[39] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 187.
[40] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 181.
[41] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New
Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xi. no. 3 (September 1902), p.
141.
[42] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New
Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xii. no. 2 (June 1903), p. 72.
[43] Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol.
xiii. no. 4 (December 1904), p. 225.
[44] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand (London, 1843), ii. 58 sq.; E.
Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 116 sq.; id.,
Maori Religion and Mythology (London, 1882), p. 31.
[45] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 194 sq., 196.
[46] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 51.
[47] E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 233 sqq., s.v.
"Maui"; Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 23.
[48] J. L. Nicholas, Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand (London, 1817), i. 61
sq., "The New Zealanders make it an invariable practice, when a child is born
among them, to take it to the Tohunga, or priest, who sprinkles it on the face
with water, from a certain leaf which he holds in his hand for that purpose; and
they believe that this ceremony is not only beneficial to the infant, but that the
neglect of it would be attended with the most baneful consequences. In the latter
case, they consider the child as either doomed to immediate death, or that, if
allowed to live, it will grow up with a most perverse and wicked disposition."
Before or after sprinkling the child with water the priest bestowed on the infant
its name. See W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand (London, 1835), pp. 82-84;
A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand (London, 1859), i. 118 sqq.; R.
Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 184 sqq. Compare J.
Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse,
Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 443 sq. (who says that the baptism
was performed by women); E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand (London,

1843), ii. 28-30 (who, in contradiction to all the other authorities, says that the
naming of the child was unconnected with its baptism).
[49] Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology (London, 1855), p. 32.
[50] Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology, pp. 56-58; John White, The
Ancient History of the Maori (Wellington and London, 1887-1889), ii. 98, 105-
107. For another version of the myth, told with some minor variations, see S.
Percy Smith, The Lore of the Whare-wānanga, Part I. (New Plymouth, N.Z.,
1913), pp. 145 sq., 176-178. For the identification of the bird tiwakawaka see E.
Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 519, s.v. "Tiwaiwaka."
[51] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 135 sqq.; J. Dumont d'Urville,
Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage
(Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 541 sq.; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande,"
Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xv. (1843) p. 25; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in
New Zealand, ii. 62, 118; W. Brown, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, pp. 15
sqq.; G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 331;
A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand, i. 185 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui,
or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 217
sq.; E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New Zealand," Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, xix. (1890) pp. 104 sq.
[52] J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 541.
[53] J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 543 sq.; W. Yate, op. cit. p. 137; Servant,
"Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande," Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xv.
(1843) p. 25; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 62 sqq.; G. F. Angas,
Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 331; A. S. Thomson,
The Story of New Zealand, i. 188; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 218 sqq.; E.
Tregear, "The Maori of New Zealand," Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
xix. (1890) p. 105; Elsdon Best, "Cremation among the Maori Tribes of New
Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) p. 110.
[54] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 137-139; Servant, "Notice sur la
Nouvelle-Zélande," Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xv. (1843) pp. 26 sq.
The name Hahunga is doubtless connected with the verb hahu which means "to
exhume the bones of dead persons before depositing them in their final resting-
place." See E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 42, s.v.
"hahu."
[55] J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 543, 545.
[56] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 220. This was called tahunga, "burning," a
word no doubt derived from tahu, "to set on fire, kindle." See E. Tregear, Maori-
Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 444, s.v. "tahu."
[57] Elsdon Best, "Cremation amongst the Maori tribes of New Zealand," Man,
xiv. (1914) pp. 110 sq.
[58] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New
Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xii. no. 4 (December 1903), pp.
195-197. Compare W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 130 sqq.; E.
Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 66.

[59] J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 542; G. F. Angas, op. cit. ii. 71; R. Taylor, Te
Ika A Maui, p. 220.
[60] J. Dumont d'Urville, l.c.
[61] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 220.
[62] John White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," Report of the Third
Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at
Christchurch, New Zealand, in January 1891, pp. 362 sq.
[63] John White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," op. cit. p. 363. As to the
meaning of mua, see E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p.
267, s.v. "mua."
[64] G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, ii. 70
sq.
[65] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 220 sq.
[66] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 221.
[67] E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 342, s.v. "Po."
[68] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 150
sqq.; id., Maori Religion and Mythology, p. 45; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 52,
231; W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 140; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in
New Zealand, ii. 66 sq.; E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New Zealand," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xix. (1890) pp. 118 sq.; id., Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary, pp. 407 sq., 591, s.vv. "Reinga" and "Waiora"; John
White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," Report of the Third Meeting of the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Christchurch,
New Zealand, in January 1891, pp. 361 sq.
[69] E. Shortland, Maori Religion and Mythology, p. 44. Such a stalk to aid the
spirit on its passage was called a tiri. Compare E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary, p. 517, s.v. "Tiri." The ceremony described in the text
resembles in some points the one which seems intended to raise the soul of the
deceased to heaven. See above, p. 25.
[70] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 232; John White, "A Chapter from Maori
Mythology," Report of the Third Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Christchurch, New Zealand, in January 1891,
pp. 361 sq.
[71] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 48 sq., 67, 118; E. Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 153 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te
Ika A Maui, pp. 233 sq.
[72] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 67, 118; E. Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, ii. 83, 84.
[73] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 83.

[74] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 84
sqq.; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori (London, 1884), pp. 122 sqq. As to
the belief in the reappearance of the dead among the living compare R. A.
Cruise, Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand (London, 1823), p.
186: "The belief in the reappearance of the dead is universal among the New
Zealanders: they fancy they hear their deceased relatives speaking to them when
the wind is high; whenever they pass the place where a man has been murdered,
it is customary for each person to throw a stone upon it; and the same practice is
observed by all those who visit a cavern at the North Cape, through which the
spirits of departed men are supposed to pass on their way to a future world."
[75] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 182.
[76] Elsdon Best, op. cit. p. 184.
[77] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 104.
[78] E. Shortland, The Southern Districts of New Zealand (London, 1851), p.
294; id., Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 80, 81; id.,
Maori Religion and Mythology, pp. 10 sq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 108,
"Maori gods are so mixed up with the spirits of ancestors, whose worship
entered largely into their religion, that it is difficult to distinguish one from the
other."
[79] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 81; id.,
Maori Religion and Mythology, p. 11. As to the karakias, which were prayers or
invocations, spells or incantations, addressed to gods or ancestral spirits, see E.
Shortland, Maori Religion and Mythology, pp. 28 sqq.; E. Tregear, Maori-
Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 128, s.v. "karakia." Apparently the
karakia partook of the nature of a spell rather than of a prayer, since it was
believed to be so potent that the mere utterance of it compelled the gods to do
the will of the person who recited the formula. See R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp.
180 sq.: "The Maori, in his heathen state, never undertook any work, whether
hunting, fishing, planting, or war, without first uttering a karakia; he would not
even take a journey without repeating a spell to secure his safety; still he could
not be said to pray, for, properly speaking, they had no such thing as prayer. As
in war, they armed themselves with the most formidable weapons they could
procure, and laid their plans with the greatest skill they possessed, so to secure
the fruition of their desires, they used their most powerful means to compel the
gods to be obedient to their wishes, whether they sought for victory over their
foes, fruitful crops, successful fishings, or huntings, they called in the aid of
potent incantations; when they planted their kumara [sweet potatoes], they
sought to compel the god who presided over them to yield a good increase; when
they prepared their nets and their hooks, they must force the ocean god to let his
fish enter them; as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take
it by storm, so the heathen Maori sought, by spells and incantations, to compel
the gods to yield to their wishes; they added sacrifices and offerings at the same
time, to appease as it were their anger, for being thus constrained to do what they
wished them. Their ancestors were addressed as powerful familiar friends; they
gave them offerings, and if it can be said that any prayers were offered up, it was

to them they were made. The word karakia, which we use for prayer, formerly
meant a spell, charm, or incantation."
[80] Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," Report of the Twelfth Meeting of the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Brisbane,
1909, p. 459.
[81] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 81 sq.
[82] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 82
sq.; id., The Southern Districts of New Zealand, pp. 296 sq.
[83] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 80.
Compare id., Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 81; id., The
Southern Districts of New Zealand, p. 294; id., Maori Religion and Mythology,
pp. 10 sq. In Maori mythology Rangi is the personification of the sky, and Papa
of earth. They were the primal parents, and the other great gods were their
offspring. See Elsdon Best, "The Maori Genius for Personification,"
Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, liii. (1921) p. 2. Among the great
primordial deities who were worshipped by all tribes of New Zealand may be
mentioned Tane, Tu, Tangaroa, and Rongo. Of the four, Tane was the origin and
tutelary deity of forests and birds: no tree might be felled and no bird caught till
certain rites had been performed to placate him. Tu was the god of war. Tangaroa
was the god of the ocean, the origin and tutelary deity of fish. Rongo was the
god of peace, and presided over agriculture. See Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion,"
Report of the Twelfth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Brisbane, 1909, p. 458. The same four gods,
with names only dialectically different, were, as we shall see later on, the
principal deities of the Sandwich Islanders, the most distant geographically from
the Maoris of all the Polynesians. The coincidence furnishes an example of the
homogeneity of religion which prevailed among the various branches of the
Polynesian race.
[84] E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 30 sq., s.v.
"Atua."
[85] J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la
Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 516 sq.
[86] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New
Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xi. no. 2 (June 1902). pp. 63
sq.
[87] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 134 sq.
[88] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 137.
[89] J. L. Nicholas, Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand (London, 1817), i.
254.
[90] J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la
Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 516.
[91] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 118.

[92] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 84 sq.
[93] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 84; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p.
163.
[94] E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 268 sq., s.v.
"Noa."
[95] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 85 sq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui,
pp. 163, 164.
[96] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 40.
[97] J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la
Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), iii. 685; W. Yate, An Account of
New Zealand, p. 86; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 104 sq.;
Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande," Annales de la Propagation de la Foi,
xv. (1843) p. 23; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 166 sq.; Old New Zealand, by a
Pakeha Maori, pp. 104 sqq. The taboo could be got rid of more simply by the
tabooed man touching his child or grandchild and taking food or drink from the
child's hands. But when that was done, the taboo was transferred to the child,
who retained it for the rest of the day. See E. Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 105.
[98] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 85; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp.
165 sq.; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 103 sq.
[99] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 85.
[100] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 96, 114 sq.
[101] E. Shortland, The Southern Districts of New Zealand, pp. 68 sq.
[102] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 114 sq.
[103] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 40, 112 sq., 356; E. Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 104; R. Taylor, Te Ika A
Maui, pp. 149, 164, 212 sq.; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary, pp. 23 sq., s.v. "Ariki." The word ariki signifies properly the first-
born or heir, whether male or female, of a family.
[104] Lieut.-Col. W. E. Gudgeon, "Maori Religion," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. xiv. no. 3 (September 1905), p. 130. Compare id., "The Tipua-Kura
and other Manifestations of the Spirit World," Journal of the Polynesian Society,
vol. xv. no. 57 (March 1906), p. 38.
[105] R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 173. Mana means authority, especially divine
authority or supernatural power. See E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary, p. 203, s.v. "Mana"; and for a full discussion of the conception see
Lieut.-Col. W. E. Gudgeon, "Mana Tangata," Journal of the Polynesian Society,
vol. xiv. no. 2 (June 1905), pp. 49-66. "Mana plays a leading part in the ability
of a leader, or successes in war of celebrated warriors. When a man frequently
undertakes daring deeds, which ought under ordinary circumstances to fail, but
none the less prove successful, he is said to possess mana, and thereafter is
regarded as one peculiarly favoured by the gods, and in such cases it is held that
he can only be overcome by some act or default; such as a disregard or neglect

of some religious or warlike observance, which has been shown by experience to
be essential to success in war, but which our warrior, spoiled by a long career of
good fortune, had come to regard as necessary to ordinary mortals only and of
but little consequence to men of mana" (W. E. Gudgeon, op. cit. p. 62). "There
were cases in which the mana of a man depended upon the facility with which
he could communicate with the spirits of departed ancestors, that is, upon his
capacity to enforce the aid and attendance of these minor deities. To this end
every man with any pretension to mana had a knowledge of certain forms of
invocation by which he could summon the spirits of long departed heroes and
ancestors, but it must not be supposed that these invocations would necessarily
have power in the mouths of all men, for such was not the case. The efficacy of a
karakia or invocation depended in part on its method of delivery, and in part on
the mana of the man who used it" (W. E. Gudgeon, op. cit. p. 50). Compare R.
Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 172, 173; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, p.
100.
[106] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 147, 352. The soul was thought to reside
especially in the left eye; accordingly it was the left eye of an enemy which was
most commonly swallowed by a victorious chief who desired to increase his
spiritual power. See J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la
recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 527; E.
Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 118, 128 sq.
[107] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 94.
[108] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 98.
[109] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 87; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p.
165.
[110] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 87; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in
New Zealand, ii. 104.
[111] Richard A. Cruise, Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand
(London, 1823), pp. 283 sq. Compare J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du
Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833),
ii. 533.
[112] Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," Report of the Twelfth Meeting of the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Brisbane,
1909, p. 463.
[113] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 165.
[114] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 101; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui,
pp. 164 sq.
[115] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 165.
[116] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 164 sq.
[117] W. Brown, New Zealand and its Aborigines (London, 1845), p. 76.
[118] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 95-97.

[119] E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 111;
Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 137 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p.
168.
[120] R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 171.
[121] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 97.
[122] Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 94.
[123] E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 100, "Ridiculous as this
custom of the tapu has appeared to some, and as many of its applications really
are, it was, notwithstanding, a wholesome restraint, and, in many cases, almost
the only one that could have been imposed; the heavy penalties attached to the
violation of its laws serving in one tribe, or in several not in actual hostility with
each other, as moral and legal commandments. It was undoubtedly the ordinance
of a wise legislator." Compare G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia
and New Zealand, i. 330, "Doubtless this law is the result of some wise
regulation for the protection of property and individuals, and it has in many
things a beneficial influence amongst a people who have no written or regularly
established code of laws of their own." To the same effect another authority on
the Maoris observes: "The most politic and useful of all the superstitious
institutions of the Maori people is that which involves the rites of tapu. It has
always seemed to me that this institution, with its far-reaching ramifications,
must have been the conception of a very gifted mind, for, as a governing factor,
it is very superior to the Hindu institution of caste. It must, moreover, have been
initiated during a period of civilisation, to which the Polynesians have long been
strangers, but with which at one period of their history they were sufficiently
familiar." See Lieut.-Colonel Gudgeon, "The Tipua-Kura and other
Manifestations of the Spirit World," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xv.
no. 57 (March 1906), p. 49.
[124] E. Shortland, The Southern Districts of New Zealand, pp. 30 sq., 294 sq.;
id., Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 114 sqq.; id., Maori
Religion and Mythology, 31 sq.; W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 141
sq. Most malignant and dangerous of all appear to have been thought the spirits
of abortions or still-born infants. See Elsdon Best, "The Lore of the Whare-
Kohanga," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xv. no. 57 (March 1906), pp.
12-15; Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde,
Anthropologischer Theil, Dritte Abtheilung, Ethnographie, bearbeitet von Dr. Fr.
Müller (Vienna, 1868), pp. 59 sq. Even more dangerous than the spirits of dead
infants were supposed to be the spirits of human germs, which the Maoris
imagined to exist in the menstrual fluid. See E. Shortland, Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 115, 292; id., Maori Religion and
Mythology, pp. 107 sq. As to disease inflicted by ancestral spirits (atuas) for
breaches of taboo, see further J. L. Nicholas, Narrative of a Voyage to New
Zealand (London, 1817), i. 272 sq., ii. 176 sq.; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New
Zealand, ii. 105, "The breaking of the tapu, if the crime does not become known,
is, they believe, punished by the Atua, who inflicts disease upon the criminal; if
discovered, it is punished by him whom it regards, and often becomes the cause
of war."

[125] Richard A. Cruise, Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand
(London, 1823), p. 320; J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la
recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 517; W. Yate,
An Account of New Zealand, pp. 141 sq.; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New
Zealand, ii. 117; Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. xiii. no. 4 (December 1904), p. 228. As to the superstitious
veneration of lizards among the peoples of the Malay-Polynesian stock, see G.
A. Wilken, Verspreide Geschriften (The Hague, 1912), iv. 125 sqq.
[126] G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, ii. 67.
[127] W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 142.

CHAPTER II
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE TONGANS

§ 1. The Tonga or Friendly Islands

The Tonga or Friendly Islands form an archipelago of about a hundred
small islands situated in the South Pacific, between 18° and 22° South
latitude and between 173° and 176° East longitude. The archipelago falls
into three groups of islands, which lie roughly north and south of each
other. The southern is the Tonga group, the central is the Haabai or Haapai
group, and the northern is the Vavau group. In the southern group the
principal islands are Tongataboo and Eua; in the central group, Namuka and
Lifuka (Lefooga); in the northern group, Vavau. The largest island of the
archipelago, Tongataboo, is about twenty-two miles long by eight miles
wide; next to it in importance are Vavau and Eua, and there are seven or
eight other islands not less than five miles in length. The rest are mere
islets. Most of the islands are surrounded by dangerous coral reefs, and
though the soil is deep and very fertile, there is a great lack of flowing
water; running streams are almost unknown. Most of the islands consist of
coral and are very low; the highest point of Tongataboo is only about sixty
feet above the level of the sea.[1] However, some of the islands are lofty and
of volcanic formation. When Captain Cook visited the islands in 1773 and
1777 there was apparently only one active volcano in the archipelago; it
was situated in the small island of Tufoa, which lies to the west of Namuka.
Cook saw the island smoking at the distance of ten leagues, and was told by
the natives that it had never ceased smoking in their memory, nor had they
any tradition of its inactivity.[2] In the hundred and fifty years which have
elapsed since Cook's time volcanic action has greatly increased in the
archipelago. A considerable eruption took place at Tufoa in 1885: the small
but lofty island of Kao (5000 feet high) has repeatedly been in eruption: the
once fertile and populous island of Amargura, or Funua-lai, in about 18°
South latitude, was suddenly devastated in 1846 or 1847 by a terrific
eruption, which reduced it to a huge mass of lava and burnt sand, without a

leaf or blade of grass of any kind. Warned by violent earthquakes, which
preceded the explosion, the inhabitants escaped in time to Vavau. The roar
of the volcano was heard one hundred and thirty miles off; and an American
ship sailed through a shower of ashes, rolling like great volumes of smoke,
for forty miles. For months afterwards the glare of the tremendous fires was
visible night after night in the island of Vavau, situated forty miles away.[3]
Another dreadful eruption occurred on the 24th of June 1853, in Niua Foöu,
an island about two hundred miles to the north-north-west of Funua-lai. The
entire island seems to be the circular ridge of an ancient and vast volcano,
of which the crater is occupied by a lake of clear calm water. On the
occasion in question the earth was rent in the centre of a native village; the
flames of a new volcano burst forth from the fissure, belching a sea of
molten lava, under which ten miles of country, once covered with the
richest verdure, have been encased in solid rock, averaging from eight to
fifteen feet in thickness. The lake boiled like a cauldron, and long after the
more powerful action of the volcano had ceased, the waters of the lake were
often rent by tongues of flame, which shot up from them as well as from the
clefts in the surrounding precipices.[4] In the island of Late, lying to the
west of Vavau, a new volcano broke out with great violence in 1854; the
roar of the volcano was heard at Lifuka, fifty miles away; the immense
pillar of smoke was visible by day and the fire by night. The central portion
of one side of the mountain (about 2500 feet high) was completely blown
out by the explosion.[5]
But not only have new volcanoes appeared or long extinct volcanoes
resumed their activity within the last century in the existing islands, new
islands have been formed by volcanic action. One such island, emitting
volumes of fire, smoke, and steam, issued from the surface of the sea, and
was discovered by the missionary ship John Wesley in August 1857; its
appearance had been heralded some years before by a strange agitation of
the sea and by fire and smoke ascending from the water. This new volcanic
island lies about midway between the two other volcanic islands of Tufoa
and Late.[6] A third new volcanic island seems to have been formed to the
south of Tufoa in 1886.[7] Another new island was thrown up from the sea
about the beginning of the twentieth century; it was partly washed away
again, but has again materially increased in size.[8] It is noteworthy that the
volcanoes, new or old, all occur in a line running roughly north and south at

a considerable distance to the west of, but parallel to, the main body of the
Tongan archipelago. They clearly indicate the existence of submarine
volcanic action on a great scale. Even in the coralline islands traces of
volcanic agency have come to light in the shape of pumice-stones, which
have been dug out of the solid coral rock at considerable depths.[9] In the
lofty island of Eua an extensive dyke of basalt is found inland underlying
the coral formation.[10]
These facts lend some countenance to the view that the whole archipelago
forms the summit or visible ridge of a long chain of submarine volcanoes,
and that the islands, even those of coralline formation, have been raised to
their present level by volcanic action.[11] That very acute observer, Captain
Cook, or one of the naturalists of the expedition, noticed that in the highest
parts of Tongataboo, which he estimated roughly at a hundred feet above
sea-level, he often met with "the same coral rock, which is found at the
shore, projecting above the surface, and perforated and cut into all those
inequalities which are usually seen in rocks that lie within the wash of the
tide."[12] Again, on ascending the comparatively lofty island of Eua, Captain
Cook observes: "We were now about two or three hundred feet above the
level of the sea, and yet, even here, the coral was perforated into all the
holes and inequalities which usually diversify the surface of this substance
within the reach of the tide. Indeed, we found the same coral till we began
to approach the summits of the highest hills; and, it was remarkable, that
these were chiefly composed of a yellowish, soft, sandy stone."[13] In the
island of Vavau it was remarked by Captain Waldegrave that the coral rock
rises many feet above the present level of the sea, and he adds: "The action
of fire is visible on it, and we saw several instances of its crystallisation."
[14]

The view that even the coralline islands of the Tongan archipelago have
been elevated by volcanic agency is not necessarily inconsistent with
Darwin's theory that coral reefs are formed during periods of subsidence,
not of elevation;[15] for it is quite possible that, after being raised ages ago
by volcanic forces, these islands may be now slowly subsiding, and that it
has been during the period of subsidence that they have become incrusted
by coral reefs. Yet the occurrence of coral rocks, bearing all the marks of
marine action, at considerable heights above the sea, appears indubitably to

prove that such a general subsidence has been in some places varied by at
least a temporary elevation.
In thus postulating elevation by volcanic action, as well as subsidence, to
explain the formation of the Tongan islands I am glad to have the support of
a good observer, the late Rev. Dr. George Brown, who spent the best years
of his life in the Pacific, where his experience both of the larger and the
smaller islands was varied and extensive. He writes: "I have seen islands
composed of true coralline limestone, the cliffs of which rise so
perpendicularly from the blue ocean that the natives have to ascend and
descend by ladders in going from the ocean to the top, or vice versa. A large
steamer can go so close to some of these cliffs that she could be moored
alongside of them in calm weather. It is not at all improbable, I think, that in
these islands we have the two factors in the formation of islands, viz.
subsidence, during which these immense cliffs were formed, and
subsequent upheaval. This is the only way, I think, in which we can account
for these perpendicular cliffs in the midst of deep blue ocean."[16]
I have dwelt at what may seem undue length on the volcanic phenomena of
the Tonga islands because the occurrence of such phenomena in savage
lands has generally influenced the beliefs and customs of the natives, quite
apart from the possibility, which should always be borne in mind, that man
first obtained fire from an active volcano. But even if, as has been
suggested, the Tonga islands formed the starting-point from which the
Polynesian race spread over the islands of the Pacific,[17] it seems very
unlikely that the Polynesians first learned the use of fire when they reached
the Tongan archipelago. More probably they were acquainted, not only with
the use of fire, but with the mode of making it long before they migrated
from their original home in Southern Asia. A people perfectly ignorant of
that prime necessity could hardly have made their way across such wide
stretches of sea and land. But it is quite possible that the myth which the
Tongans, in common with many other Polynesians, tell of the manner in
which their ancestors procured their first fire, was suggested to them by the
spectacle of a volcano in eruption. They say that the hero Maui Kijikiji, the
Polynesian Prometheus, first procured fire for men by descending into the
bowels of the earth and stealing it from his father, Maui Atalanga, who had
kept it there jealously concealed.[18]

§ 2. The Tonga Islanders, their Character, Mode of Life, and Government

Physically the Tonga islanders are fine specimens of the Polynesian race
and generally impress travellers very favourably. Captain Cook, the first to
observe them closely, describes them as very strong and well made, some of
them really handsome, and many of them with truly European features and
genuine Roman noses.[19] At a later date Commodore Wilkes, the
commander of the United States Exploring Expedition, speaks of them as
"some of the finest specimens of the human race that can well be imagined,
surpassing in symmetry and grace those of all the other groups we had
visited"; and farther on he says: "A larger proportion of fine-looking people
is seldom to be seen, in any portion of the globe; they are a shade lighter
than any of the other islanders; their countenances are generally of the
European cast; they are tall and well made, and their muscles are well
developed."[20] Still later, in his account of the voyage of the Challenger,
Lord George Campbell expressed himself even more warmly: "There are no
people in the world," he says, "who strike one at first so much as these
Friendly Islanders. Their clear, light, copper-brown coloured skins, yellow
and curly hair, good-humoured, handsome faces, their tout ensemble,
formed a novel and splendid picture of the genus homo; and, as far as
physique and appearance go, they gave one certainly an impression of being
a superior race to ours."[21] A Catholic missionary observes that "the natives
of Tonga hardly differ from Europeans in stature, features, and colour; they
are a little sallower, which may be set down to the high temperature of the
climate. It is difficult to have a very fresh complexion with thirty degrees of
heat, Réaumur, as we have it during four or five months of the year."[22] In
appearance the Tonga islanders closely resemble the Samoans, their
neighbours on the north; some find them a little lighter, but others
somewhat darker in colour than the Samoans.[23] According to the French
explorer, Dumont d'Urville, who passed about a month in Tongataboo in
1827, the Polynesian race in Tonga exhibits less admixture with the swarthy
Melanesian race than in Tahiti and New Zealand, there being far fewer
individuals of stunted stature, flat noses, and frizzly hair among the
Tongans than among the other Polynesians.[24] Even among the Tongans the
physical superiority of the chiefs to the common people is said to be
conspicuous; they are taller, comelier, and lighter in colour than the lower

orders. Some would explain the difference by a difference in upbringing,
noblemen being more carefully nursed, better fed, and less exposed to the
sun than commoners;[25] but it is possible that they come of a different and
better stock.
Intellectually the Tongans are reported to "surpass all the other South Sea
islanders in their mental development, showing great skill in the structure of
their dwellings and the manufacture of their implements, weapons, and
dress."[26] They are bold navigators,[27] and Captain Cook observes that
"nothing can be a more demonstrative evidence of their ingenuity than the
construction and make of their canoes, which, in point of neatness and
workmanship, exceed everything of this kind we saw in this sea."[28]
However, the Tongans appear to have acquired much of their skill in the art
of building and rigging canoes through intercourse with the Fijians, their
neighbours to the west, who, though their inferiors in seamanship and the
spirit of marine adventure, originally surpassed them in naval architecture.
[29]
Indeed we are told that all the large Tongan canoes are built in Fiji,
because the Tongan islands do not furnish any timber fit for the purpose.
Hence a number of Tongans are constantly employed in the windward or
eastern islands of the Fiji group building these large canoes, a hundred feet
or more in length, a process which, it is said, lasts six or seven years.[30]
The debt which in this respect the Tongans owe to the Fijians was
necessarily unknown to Captain Cook, since he never reached the Fijian
islands and knew of them only by report, though he met and questioned a
few Fijians in Tongataboo.[31]
When Captain Cook visited the Tonga islands he found the land almost
everywhere in a high state of cultivation. He says that "cultivated roots and
fruits being their principal support, this requires their constant attention to
agriculture, which they pursue very diligently, and seem to have brought
almost to as great perfection as circumstances will permit."[32] The plants
which they chiefly cultivated and which furnished them with their staple
foods were yams and plantains. These were disposed in plantations
enclosed by neat fences of reeds about six feet high and intersected by good
smooth roads or lanes, which were shaded from the scorching sun by fruit-
trees.[33] Walking on one of these roads Cook tells us, "I thought I was
transported into the most fertile plains in Europe. There was not an inch of

waste ground; the roads occupied no more space than was absolutely
necessary; the fences did not take up above four inches each; and even this
was not wholly lost, for in many places were planted some useful trees or
plants. It was everywhere the same; change of place altered not the scene.
Nature, assisted by a little art, nowhere appears in more splendour than at
this isle."[34] Interspersed among these plantations irregularly were bread-
fruit trees and coco-nut palms, of which the palms in particular, raising their
tufted heads in air above the sea of perpetual verdure, formed a pleasing
ornament of the landscape.[35] There were no towns or villages; most of the
houses were built in the plantations, generally surrounded by trees or
ornamental shrubs, whose fragrancy perfumed the air.[36]
When Captain Cook surveyed this rich and beautiful country, the islands
were and had long been at peace, so that the natives were able to devote
themselves without distraction to the labour of tilling the soil and providing
in other ways for the necessities of life. Unhappily shortly after his visit to
the islands wars broke out among the inhabitants and continued to rage
more or less intermittently for many years. Even the introduction of
Christianity in the early part of the nineteenth century, far from assuaging
the strife, only added bitterness to it by furnishing a fresh pretext for
hostilities, in which apparently the Christians were sometimes the
aggressors with the connivance or even the encouragement of the
missionaries.[37] In consequence cultivation was neglected and large
portions of land were allowed to lie waste.[38]
Like all the Polynesians the natives of Tonga were ignorant of the metals,
and their only tools were made of stone, bone, shells, shark's teeth, and
rough fish-skins. They fashioned axes, or rather adzes, out of a smooth
black stone, which they procured from the volcanic island of Tufoa; they
used shells as knives; they constructed augers out of shark's teeth, fixed on
handles; and they made rasps of the rough skin of a fish, fastened on flat
pieces of wood. With such imperfect tools they built their canoes and
houses, reared the massive tombs of their kings; and did all their other
work.[39] The wonder is that with implements so imperfect they could
accomplish so much and raise themselves to a comparatively high level
among savages.

A feature of the Tongan character in which the islanders evinced their
superiority to most of the Polynesians was their regard for women. In most
savage tribes which practise agriculture the labour of tilling the fields falls
in great measure on the female sex, but it was not so in Tonga. There the
women never tilled the ground nor did any hard work, though they occupied
themselves with the manufacture of bark-cloth, mats, and other articles of
domestic use. Natives of Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii, who resided in Tonga,
used to remark on the easy lives led by the Tongan women, and
remonstrated with the men on the subject, saying that as men underwent
hardships and dangers in war and other masculine pursuits, so women ought
to be made to labour in the fields and to toil for their living. But the Tongan
men said that "it is not gnale fafíne (consistent with the feminine character)
to let them do hard work; women ought only to do what is feminine: who
loves a masculine woman? besides, men are stronger, and therefore it is but
proper that they should do the hard labour."[40]
Further, it is to the credit of the Tongans that, unlike many other
Polynesians, they were not generally cannibals, and indeed for the most part
held in abhorrence the practice of eating human bodies. Still young warriors
occasionally devoured the corpses of their enemies in imitation of the
Fijians, imagining that in so doing they manifested a fierce, warlike, and
manly spirit. On one occasion, returning from such a repast, they were
shunned by every one, especially by the women, who upbraided them,
saying, "Away! you are a man-eater."[41]
The government of the Tongan islanders was eminently monarchical and
aristocratic. A strict subordination of ranks was established which has been
aptly compared to the feudal system. At the head of the social edifice were
two chiefs who bore some resemblance to the Emperor and the Pope of
mediaeval Europe, the one being the civil and military head of the State,
while the other embodied the supreme spiritual power. Nominally the
spiritual chief, called the Tooitonga, ranked above the civil chief or king,
who paid him formal homage; but, as usually happens in such cases, the
real government was in the hands of the secular rather than of the religious
monarch. The Tooitonga was acknowledged to be descended from one of
the chief gods; he is spoken of by Mariner, our principal authority, as a
divine chief of the highest rank, and he is said to have enjoyed divine
honours. The first-fruits of the year were offered to him, and it was

supposed that if this ceremony were neglected, the vengeance of the gods
would fall in a signal manner upon the people. Yet he had no power or
authority in matters pertaining to the civil king.[42] The existence of such a
double kingship, with a corresponding distribution of temporal and spiritual
functions, is not uncommon in more advanced societies; its occurrence
among a people so comparatively low in the scale of culture as the Tongans
is remarkable.
Below the two great chiefs or kings were many subordinate chiefs, and
below them again the social ranks descended in a succession of sharply
marked gradations to the peasants, who tilled the ground, and whose lives
and property were entirely at the mercy of the chiefs.[43] Yet the social
system as a whole seems to have worked well and smoothly. "It does not,
indeed, appear," says Captain Cook, "that any of the most civilised nations
have ever exceeded this people, in the great order observed on all
occasions; in ready compliance with the commands of their chiefs; and in
the harmony that subsists throughout all ranks, and unites them, as if they
were all one man, informed with, and directed by, the same principle."[44]
According to the American ethnographer, Horatio Hale, the mass of the
people in the Tonga islands had no political rights, and their condition in
that respect was much inferior to that of commoners in the Samoan islands,
since in Tonga the government was much stronger and better organized, as
he puts it, for the purpose of oppression. On the other hand, he admitted that
government in Tonga was milder than in Tahiti, and infinitely preferable to
the debasing despotism which prevailed in Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands.
[45]

§ 3. The Tongan Religion: its General Principles

For our knowledge of the religion and the social condition of the Tongans
before they came under European influence, we are indebted chiefly to an
English sailor, William Mariner, who lived as a captive among them for
about four years, from 1806 to 1810.[46] His account of the natives,
carefully elicited from him and published by a medical doctor, Mr. John
Martin, M.D., is one of the most valuable descriptions of a savage people
which we possess. Mariner was a good observer and endowed with an
excellent memory, which enabled him to retain and record his experiences

after his return to England. He spoke the Tongan language, and he was a
special favourite of the two Tongan kings, named Finow, who reigned
successively in Tonga during his residence in the islands. The kings
befriended and protected him, so that he had the best opportunities for
becoming acquainted with the customs and beliefs of the people. His
observations have been confirmed from independent sources, and we have
every reason to regard them as trustworthy. So far as we can judge, they are
a simple record of facts, unbiassed by theory or prejudice. In the following
notice of the Tongan religion and doctrine of the human soul I shall draw
chiefly on the evidence of Mariner.
According to him, the religion of the Tonga islanders rests, or rather used to
rest, on the following notions.[47]

They believed that there are hotooas,[48] gods, or superior beings, who have
the power of dispensing good and evil to mankind, according to their merit,
but of whose origin the Tongans formed no idea, rather supposing them to
be eternal.
They believed that there are other hotooas or gods, who are the souls of all
deceased nobles and matabooles, that is, the companions, ministers, and
counsellors of the chiefs, who form a sort of inferior nobility.[49] The souls
of all these dead men were held to possess a power of dispensing good and
evil to mankind like the power of the superior gods, but in a lesser degree.
They believed that there are besides several hotooa pow, or mischievous
gods, who never dispense good, but only petty evils and troubles, not as a
punishment, but indiscriminately to anybody, from a purely mischievous
disposition.
They believed that all these superior beings, although they may perhaps
have had a beginning, will have no end.
They believed that the world also is of uncertain origin, having coexisted
with the gods. The sky, which they regard as solid, the heavenly bodies, and
the ocean were in being before the habitable earth. The Tonga islands were
drawn up out of the depth of the sea by the god Tangaloa one day when he
was fishing with a line and a hook.

They believed that mankind, according to a partial tradition, came
originally from Bolotoo, the chief residence of the gods, a fabulous island
situated to the north-west of the Tongan archipelago. The first men and
women consisted of two brothers, with their wives and attendants. They
were commanded by the god Tangaloa to take up their abode in the Tonga
islands, but of their origin or creation the Tongans professed to know
nothing.[50]
They believed that all human evil was inflicted by the gods upon mankind
on account of some neglect of religious duty, whether the neglect is the
fault of the sufferers or of the chief whom they serve. In like manner the
Tongans apparently referred all human good to the gods, regarding it as a
reward bestowed by the divine beings on men who punctually discharged
the offices of religion.[51]
They believed that nobles had souls, which existed after death in Bolotoo,
not according to their moral merit, but according to their rank in this world;
these had power like that of the original gods, but less in degree. The
matabooles, or ministers of the nobles, also went after death to Bolotoo,
where they existed as matabooles, or ministers of the gods, but they had
not, like the gods and the souls of dead noblemen, the power of inspiring
the priests with superhuman knowledge. Some thought that the mooas, who
ranked next below the matabooles in the social hierarchy, also went after
death to Bolotoo; but this was a matter of great doubt. As for the tooas or
commoners, who formed the lowest rung in the social ladder, they had
either no souls at all or only such as dissolved with the body after death,
which consequently ended their sentient existence.
They believed that the human soul during life is not an essence distinct
from the body, but only the more ethereal part of the corporeal frame, and
that the moment after death it exists in Bolotoo with the form and likeness
of the body which it had on earth.
They believed that the primitive gods and deceased nobles sometimes
appear visibly to mankind to warn or to afford comfort and advice; and that
the primitive gods also sometimes come into the living bodies of lizards,
porpoises, and a species of water snake, hence these animals are much

respected. When the gods thus entered into the bodies of porpoises, it was
for the sake of safeguarding canoes or for other beneficent purposes.
They believed that the two personages in the Tonga islands known by the
titles of Tooitonga and Veachi were descendants in a right line from two
chief gods, and that all respect and veneration are therefore due to them.
They believed that some persons are favoured with the inspiration of the
gods, and that while the inspiration lasts the god actually exists in the body
of the inspired person or priest, who is then capable of prophesying.
They believe that human merit or virtue consists chiefly in paying respect to
the gods, nobles, and aged persons; in defending one's hereditary rights; in
honour, justice, patriotism, friendship, meekness, modesty, fidelity of
married women, parental and filial love, observance of all religious
ceremonies, patience in suffering, forbearance of temper, and so on.
They believed that all rewards for virtue or punishments for vice happen to
men in this world only, and come immediately from the gods.
They believed that several acts which civilised nations regard as crimes are,
under certain circumstances, matters of indifference. Such acts included the
taking of revenge on an enemy and the killing of a servant who had given
provocation, or indeed the killing of anybody else, always provided that the
victim were not a very superior chief or noble. Further, among indifferent
acts was reckoned rape, unless it were committed on a married woman or
on one whom the offender was bound to respect on the score of her superior
rank. Finally, the list of venial offences included theft, unless the stolen
object were consecrated property; for in that case the action became
sacrilege and was, as we shall see presently, a very serious crime.
They believed that omens are the direct intimations of the future vouchsafed
by the gods to men. "Charms or superstitious ceremonies to bring evil upon
any one are considered for the most part infallible, as being generally
effective means to dispose the gods to accord with the curse or evil wish of
the malevolent invoker; to perform these charms is considered cowardly
and unmanly, but does not constitute a crime."[52] One such charm consisted
in hiding on a grave (fytoca) some portion of the wearing apparel of an
inferior relation of the deceased. The person whose garment was so hidden

was believed to sicken and die. An equally effectual way of working the
charm and ensuring the death of the victim was to bury the garment in the
house consecrated to the tutelary god of the family. But when a grave was
made use of for the malignant purpose, it was thought essential that the
deceased should be of a rank superior to that of the person against whom
the charm was directed; otherwise it was supposed that the charm would
have no effect.[53] In either case the fatal result was clearly held to be
brought about by the power of the ghost or of the god, who used the
garment as an instrument for putting the charm in operation. These charms
or superstitious ceremonies are what we should now call magical rites, and
they were apparently supposed to effect their purpose indirectly by
constraining the gods to carry out the malevolent intention of the magician.
If I am right in so interpreting them, we seem driven to conclude that in
Tonga magic was supposed to be ineffectual without the co-operation of the
gods, although its power to compel them was deemed for the most part
irresistible. Even so its assumed dependence on the consent, albeit the
reluctant consent, of the deities implies a certain decadence of magic and a
growing predominance of religion. Moreover, the moral reprehension of
such practices for the injury of enemies is another sign that among the
Tongans magic was being relegated to that position of a black art which it
generally occupies among more civilised peoples. Be that as it may, certain
it is that we hear extremely little about the practice of magic among the
Tongans.

§ 4. The Primary or Non-human Gods

Such are, or rather used to be, the principal articles of the old Tongan creed.
We may now examine some of them a little more at large. But first we may
observe that on this showing the Tongans were an eminently religious
people. They traced all the good and ill in human affairs to the direct
intervention of the gods, who rewarded or punished mankind for their deeds
in this life, bestowing the reward or inflicting the punishment in the present
world and not deferring either to a distant and more or less uncertain future
in a world beyond the grave. Thus with the Tongans the fear of the gods
was a powerful incentive to lead a virtuous life; morality was placed under
the immediate guardianship of the deities. It is true that according to their
notions morality consisted largely in the performance of religious

ceremonies, but it was by no means limited to a simple observance of the
prescribed rites; for we have seen that their conception of a virtuous life
included compliance with the dictates of justice, modesty, and friendship,
the fidelity of wives to their husbands, the mutual affection of parents and
children, patience in suffering, and other modes of conduct which we too
should not hesitate to rank among the virtues.
When we consider the nature of the Tongan gods, we perceive that they are
sharply discriminated into two classes, namely, the primitive and superior
gods on the one side and the secondary and inferior gods on the other side.
The primitive and superior gods are those who have always been gods and
whose origin and beginning are unknown; the secondary and inferior gods
are the souls of dead men, who consequently have not always been gods,
because they were human beings before death elevated them to the rank of
deities. The distinction between these two classes of gods is highly
important, not merely for Tongan religion in particular, but for the history of
religion in general. For whatever we may think of Euhemerism as a
universal explanation of the gods, there can be no doubt that in many lands
the ranks of the celestial hierarchy have been largely recruited by the ghosts
of men of flesh and blood. But there appears to be a general tendency to
allow the origin of the human gods to fall into the background and to
confuse them with the true original deities, who from the beginning have
always been deities and nothing else. The tendency may sometimes be
accentuated by a deliberate desire to cast a veil over the humble birth and
modest beginning of these now worshipful beings; but probably the
obliteration of the distinction between the two classes of divinities is
usually a simple result of oblivion and the lapse of time. Once a man is
dead, his figure, which bulked so large and so clear to his contemporaries,
begins to fade and melt away into something vague and indistinct, until, if
he was a person of no importance, he is totally forgotten; or, if he was one
whose actions or thoughts deeply influenced his fellows for good or evil,
his memory lingers in after generations, growing ever dimmer and it may be
looming ever larger through the long vista of the ages, as the evening mist
appears to magnify the orb of the descending sun. Thus naturally and
insensibly, as time goes on, our mortal nature fades or brightens into the
immortal and divine.

As our subject is the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, we
are not directly concerned with the original Tongan deities who were
believed never to have been men. But since their functions and worship
appear to have been in certain respects closely analogous to those of the
inferior deities, the souls of the dead, some notice of them may not be out of
place, if it helps to a fuller understanding of what we may call the human
gods. Besides, we must always bear in mind that some at least of the so-
called original gods may have been men, whose history and humanity had
been forgotten. We can hardly doubt that the celestial hierarchy has often
been recruited by the souls of the dead.
The original and superior gods, Mariner tells us, were thought to be rather
numerous, perhaps about three hundred all told; but the names of very few
of them were known, and even those few were familiar only to some of the
chiefs and their ministers, the matabooles; "for it may easily be supposed,"
says Mariner, "that, where no written records are kept, only those (gods)
whose attributes particularly concern the affairs of this world should be
much talked of; as to the rest, they are, for the most part, merely tutelar
gods to particular private families, and having nothing in their history at all
interesting, are scarcely known to anybody else."[54]
Among these original and superior deities was Tali-y-Toobo, the patron god
of the civil king and his family. He was the god of war and was
consequently always invoked in time of war by the king's family; in time of
peace prayers were sometimes offered to him for the general good of the
nation as well as for the particular interest and welfare of the royal house.
He had no priest, unless it was the king himself, who was occasionally
inspired by him; but sometimes a whole reign would pass without the king
being once favoured with the divine afflatus.[55]
Another god was Tooi fooa Bolotoo, whose name means "Chief of all
Bolotoo." From this it might be supposed that he was the greatest god in
Bolotoo, the home of the gods and of the deified spirits of men; but in fact
he was regarded as inferior to the war god, and the natives could give no
explanation of his high-sounding title. He was the god of rank in society,
and as such he was often invoked by the heads of great families on occasion
of sickness or other trouble. He had several priests, whom he occasionally
inspired.[56]

Another great god was Toobo Toty, whose name signifies "Toobo the
mariner." He was the god of voyages, and in that capacity was invoked by
chiefs or anybody else at sea; for his principal function was to preserve
canoes from accidents. Without being himself the god of wind, he had great
influence with that deity, and was thus enabled no doubt to save many who
were in peril on the great deep.[57]
Another god was Alo Alo, whose name means "to fan." He was the god of
wind and weather, rain, harvest, and vegetation in general. When the
weather was seasonable, he was usually invoked about once a month to
induce him to keep on his good behaviour; but when the weather was
unseasonable, or the islands were swept by destructive storms of wind and
rain, the prayers to him were repeated daily. But he was not supposed to
wield the thunder and lightning, "of which, indeed," says Mariner, "there is
no god acknowledged among them, as this phenomenon is never recollected
to have done any mischief of consequence."[58] From this it would appear
that where no harm was done, the Tongans found it needless to suppose the
existence of a deity; they discovered the hand of a god only in the working
of evil; fear was the mainspring of their religion. In boisterous weather at
sea Alo Alo was not invoked; he had then to make room for the superior
god, Toobo Toty, the protector of canoes, who with other sea gods always
received the homage of storm-tossed mariners. However, Alo Alo, the
weather god, came to his own when the yams were approaching maturity in
the early part of November. For then offerings of yams, coco-nuts, and
other vegetable products were offered to him in particular, as well as to all
the other gods in general, for the purpose of ensuring a continuation of
favourable weather and consequent fertility. The offering was accompanied
by prayers to Alo Alo and the other gods, beseeching them to extend their
bounty and make the land fruitful. Wrestling and boxing matches formed
part of the ceremony, which was repeated eight times at intervals of ten
days. The time for the rite was fixed by the priest of Alo Alo, and a curious
feature of the ceremony was the presence of a girl of noble family, some
seven or eight years old, who represented the wife of Alo Alo and resided in
his consecrated house during the eighty days that the festal season lasted.[59]
Another god named Móooi was believed to support the earth on his
prostrate body. In person he was bigger than any other of the gods; but he

never inspired anybody, and had no house dedicated to his service. Indeed,
it was supposed that this Atlas of the Pacific never budged from his painful
and burdensome post beneath the earth. Only when he felt more than
usually uneasy, he tried to turn himself about under his heavy load; and the
movement was felt as an earthquake by the Tongans, who endeavoured to
make him lie still by shouting and beating the ground with sticks.[60]
Similar attempts to stop an earthquake are common in many parts of the
world.[61]
Tangaloa was the god of artificers and the arts. He had several priests, who
in Mariner's time were all carpenters. It was he who was said to have
brought up the Tonga islands from the bottom of the sea at the end of his
fishing line;[62] though in some accounts of Tongan tradition this feat is
attributed to Maui.[63] The very hook on which he hauled up the islands was
said to be preserved in Tonga down to about thirty years before Mariner's
time. It was in the possession of the divine chief Tooitonga; but
unfortunately, his house catching fire, the basket in which the precious hook
was kept perished with its contents in the flames. When Mariner asked
Tooitonga what sort of hook it was, the chief told him that it was made of
tortoise-shell, strengthened with a piece of whalebone, and that it measured
six or seven inches from the curve to the point where the line was attached,
and an inch and a half between the barb and the stem. Mariner objected that
such a hook could hardly have been strong enough to support the whole
weight of the Tonga islands; but the chief replied that it was a god's hook
and therefore could not break. The hole in the rock in which the divine hook
caught on the memorable occasion was shown down to Mariner's time in
the island of Hoonga. It was an aperture about two feet square.[64]

§ 5. The Temples of the Gods

Some of the primitive gods had houses dedicated to them. These sacred
houses or temples, as we may call them, were built in the style of ordinary
dwellings; but generally more than ordinary care was taken both in
constructing them and in keeping them in good order, decorating their
enclosures with flowers, and so on. About twenty of the gods had houses
thus consecrated to them; some of them had five or six houses, some only
one or two. For example, Tali-y-Toobo, the patron god of the royal family,

had four houses dedicated to him in the island of Vavau, two in the island of
Lefooga (Lifuka), and two or three others of smaller importance elsewhere.
[65]
Another patron god of the royal family, called Alai Valoo, had a large
consecrated enclosure in the island of Ofoo; he had also at least one priest
and was very frequently consulted in behalf of sick persons.[66]
To desecrate any of these holy houses or enclosures was a most serious
offence. When Mariner was in the islands it happened that two boys, who
had belonged to the crew of his ship, were detected in the act of stealing a
bale of bark-cloth from a consecrated house. If they had been natives, they
would instantly have been punished with death; but the chiefs, taking into
consideration the youth and inexperience of the offenders, who were
foreigners and ignorant of native customs, decided that for that time the
crime might be overlooked. Nevertheless, to appease the anger of the god,
to whom the house was consecrated, it was deemed necessary to address
him humbly on the subject. Accordingly his priest, followed by chiefs and
their ministers (matabooles), all dressed in mats with leaves of the ifi
tree[67] round their necks in token of humility and sorrow, went in solemn
procession to the house; they sat down before it, and the priest addressed
the divinity to the following purport: "Here you see the chiefs and
matabooles that have come to thee, hoping that thou wilt be merciful: the
boys are young, and being foreigners, are not so well acquainted with our
customs, and did not reflect upon the greatness of the crime: we pray thee,
therefore, not to punish the people for the sins of these thoughtless youths:
we have spared them, and hope that thou wilt be merciful and spare us."
The priest then rose up, and they all retired in the same way they had come.
The chiefs, and particularly the king, severely reprimanded the boys,
endeavouring to impress on their minds the enormity of their offence, and
assuring them that they owed their lives only to their presumed ignorance of
the heinousness of the crime.[68]
Another case of sacrilege, which occurred in Mariner's time, was attended
with more tragic consequences. He tells us that consecrated places might
not be the scene of war, and that it would be highly sacrilegious to attack an
enemy or to spill his blood within their confines. On one occasion, while
Mariner was in the islands, four men, pursued by their enemies, fled for
refuge to a consecrated enclosure, where they would have been perfectly

safe. One of them was in the act of scrambling over the reed fence, and had
got a leg over it, when he was overtaken by a foe, who struck him such a
furious blow on the head that he fell dead within the hallowed ground.
Conscience-stricken, the slayer fled to his canoe, followed by his men; and
on arriving at the fortress where the king was stationed he made a clean
breast of his crime, alleging in excuse that it had been committed in hot
blood when he had lost all self-command. The king immediately ordered
kava to be taken to the priest of his own tutelary god, that the divinity might
be consulted as to what atonement was proper to be made for so heinous a
sacrilege. Under the double inspiration of kava and the deity, the priest
made answer that it was necessary a child should be strangled to appease
the anger of the gods. The chiefs then held a consultation and determined to
sacrifice the child of a high chief named Toobo Toa. The child was about
two years old and had been born to him by a female attendant. On such
occasions the child of a male chief by a female attendant was always chosen
for the victim first, because, as a child of a chief, he was a worthier victim,
and second, because, as a child of a female attendant, he was not himself a
chief; for nobility being traced in the female line only those children were
reckoned chiefs whose mothers were chieftainesses; the rank of the father,
whether noble or not, did not affect the rank of his offspring. On this
occasion the father of the child was present at the consultation and
consented to the sacrifice. The mother, fearing the decision, had concealed
the child, but it was found by one of the searchers, who took it up in his
arms, while it smiled with delight at being noticed. The mother tried to
follow but was held back; and on hearing her voice the child began to cry.
But on reaching the place of execution it was pleased and delighted with the
bandage that was put round its neck to strangle it, and looking up in the face
of the executioner it smiled again. "Such a sight," we are told, "inspired pity
in the breast of every one: but veneration and fear of the gods was a
sentiment superior to every other, and its destroyer could not help
exclaiming, as he put on the fatal bandage, O iaaoé chi vale! (poor little
innocent!)." Two men then tightened the cord by pulling at each end, and
the struggles of the innocent victim were soon over. The little body was
next placed upon a sort of hand-barrow, supported on the shoulders of four
men, and carried in a procession of priests, chiefs, and matabooles, all
clothed as suppliants in mats and with wreaths of green leaves round their
necks. In this way it was conveyed to various houses dedicated to different

gods, before each of which it was placed on the ground, all the company
sitting behind it, except one priest, who sat beside it and prayed aloud to the
god that he would be pleased to accept of this sacrifice as an atonement for
the heinous sacrilege committed, and that punishment might accordingly be
withheld from the people. When this had been done before all the
consecrated houses in the fortress, the body was given up to its relations, to
be buried in the usual manner.[69]
The consecration of a house or a piece of ground to a god was denoted by
the native word taboo, the general meaning of which was prohibited or
forbidden.[70] It was firmly believed by the Tongans in former days that if a
man committed sacrilege or broke a taboo, his liver or some other of his
internal organs was liable to become enlarged and scirrhous, that is,
indurated or knotty; hence they often opened dead bodies out of curiosity, to
see whether the deceased had been sacrilegious in their lifetime. As the
Tongans are particularly subject to scirrhous tumours, it seems probable that
many innocent persons were thus posthumously accused of sacrilege on the
strength of a post-mortem examination into the state of their livers.[71]
Another disagreeable consequence of breaking a taboo was a peculiar
liability to be bitten by sharks, which thus might be said to act as ministers
of justice. As theft was included under the general head of breach of taboo,
a simple way of bringing the crime home to the thief in case of doubt was to
cause the accused to go into the water where sharks were known to swarm;
if they bit him, he was guilty; if they did not, he was innocent.[72]

§ 6. Priests and their Inspiration

Priests were known by the title of fahe-gehe, a term which means "split
off," "separate," or "distinct from," and was applied to a man who has a
peculiar sort of mind or soul, different from that of ordinary men, which
disposed some god occasionally to inspire him. Such inspirations frequently
happened, and when the fit was on him the priest had the same reverence
shown to him as if he were the god himself; at these times even the king
would retire to a respectful distance and sit down among the rest of the
spectators, because a god was believed to exist at that moment in the priest
and to speak from his mouth. But at other times a priest had no other
respect paid to him than was due to him for his private rank in society.

Priests generally belonged to the lower order of chiefs or to their ministers,
the matabooles; but sometimes great chiefs were thus visited by the gods,
and the king himself has been inspired by Tali-y-Toobo, the chief of the
gods.[73] The profession of priest was generally hereditary, the eldest son of
a priest becoming, on his father's death, a priest of the same god who had
inspired his deceased parent. In their uninspired moments the priests lived
indiscriminately with the rest of the people and were treated with no special
deference.[74]
The ceremony of inspiration, during which the priest was believed to be
possessed by a god and to speak in his name, was regularly accompanied or
preceded by a feast, at which the drinking of kava formed the principal
feature. The priest himself presided at the feast and the people gathered in a
circle round him; or, to be more exact, the people formed an ellipse, of
which the priest occupied the place of honour at one of the narrow ends;
while opposite him, at the other extremity of the ellipse, sat the man who
was charged with the important duty of brewing the kava. At such sessions
the chiefs sat indiscriminately among the people on account of the
sacredness of the occasion, conceiving that such humble demeanour must
be acceptable to the gods. The actual process of inspiration was often
witnessed by Mariner, and is described by him in his own words as follows:
"As soon as they are all seated, the priest is considered as inspired, the god
being supposed to exist within him from that moment. He remains for a
considerable time in silence, with his hands clasped before him; his eyes are
cast down, and he rests perfectly still. During the time that the victuals are
being shared out, and the cava preparing, the matabooles sometimes begin
to consult him; sometimes he answers them, at other times not; in either
case he remains with his eyes cast down. Frequently he will not utter a word
till the repast is finished, and the cava too. When he speaks, he generally
begins in a low and very altered tone of voice, which gradually rises to
nearly its natural pitch, though sometimes a little above it. All that he says
is supposed to be the declaration of the god, and he accordingly speaks in
the first person as if he were the god. All this is done generally without any
apparent inward emotion or outward agitation; but on some occasions his
countenance becomes fierce, and, as it were, inflamed, and his whole frame
agitated with inward feeling; he is seized with an universal trembling; the
perspiration breaks out on his forehead, and his lips, turning black, are

convulsed; at length, tears start in floods from his eyes, his breast heaves
with great emotion, and his utterance is choked. These symptoms gradually
subside. Before this paroxysm comes on, and after it is over, he often eats as
much as four hungry men, under other circumstances, could devour. The fit
being now gone off, he remains for some time calm, and then takes up a
club that is placed by him for the purpose, turns it over and regards it
attentively; he then looks up earnestly, now to the right, now to the left, and
now again at the club; afterwards he looks up again, and about him in like
manner, and then again fixes his eyes upon his club, and so on, for several
times: at length he suddenly raises the club, and, after a moment's pause,
strikes the ground, or the adjacent part of the house, with considerable
force: immediately the god leaves him, and he rises up and retires to the
back of the ring among the people."[75]

§ 7. The Worship of the Gods, Prayers, and Sacrifices

The worship offered to the gods consisted as usual of prayers and sacrifices.
Prayers were put up to them, sometimes in the fields, and sometimes at their
consecrated houses. On ordinary occasions a simple offering consisted of a
small piece of kava root deposited before a god's house.[76] But in the great
emergencies of life the favour of the gods was sued with more precious
offerings. When the younger daughter of Finow, a girl of six or seven years,
was sick to death, the dying princess was carried from her father's house
into the sacred enclosure of Tali-y-Toobo, the patron god of the kings, and
there she remained for a fortnight. Almost every morning a hog was killed,
dressed, and presented before the god's house to induce him to spare the life
of the princess. At the same time prayers were addressed to the deity for the
recovery of the patient; but as this particular god had no priest, the prayers
were offered by a minister (mataboole), sometimes by two or three in
succession, and they were repeated five, six, or seven times a day. Their
general purport was as follows: "Here thou seest assembled Finow and his
chiefs, and the principal ministers (matabooles) of thy favoured land; thou
seest them humbled before thee. We pray thee not to be merciless, but to
spare the life of the woman for the sake of her father, who has always been
attentive to every religious ceremony. But if thy anger is justly excited by
some crime or misdemeanour committed by any other of us who are here
assembled, we entreat thee to inflict on the guilty one the punishment which

he merits, and not to let loose thy vengeance on one who was born but as
yesterday. For our own parts, why do we wish to live but for the sake of
Finow? But if his family is afflicted, we are all afflicted, innocent as well as
guilty. How canst thou be merciless? Have regard for Finow and spare the
life of his daughter." When despite of prayers and the sacrifices of pigs, the
girl grew daily worse instead of better, she was removed to many other
consecrated enclosures of other gods, one after the other, where the like
fond prayers and fruitless offerings were presented in the vain hope of
staving off the approach of death.[77]
But more precious sacrifices than the blood of hogs were often laid at the
feet of the angry gods. When a relation of a superior rank was ill, it was a
very common practice for one or more of his or her inferior kinsfolk to have
a little finger, or a joint of a finger, cut off as a sacrifice to induce the
offended deity to spare the sick man or woman. So common was the custom
in the old days that there was scarcely a person living in the Tonga islands
who had not thus lost one or both of his little fingers, or a considerable
portion of both. It does not appear that the operation was very painful.
Mariner witnessed more than once little children quarrelling for the honour
of having it performed on them. The finger was laid flat upon a block of
wood: a knife, axe, or sharp stone was placed with the edge on the joint to
be severed, and a powerful blow with a hammer or heavy stone effected the
amputation. Sometimes an affectionate relative would perform the
operation on his or her own hand. John Williams questioned a girl of
eighteen who had hacked off her own little finger with a sharp shell to
induce the gods to spare her sick mother. Generally a joint was taken off at
a time; but some persons had smaller portions amputated to admit of the
operation being often repeated in case they had many superior relations,
who might be sick and require the sacrifice. When they had no more joints
which they could conveniently spare, they rubbed the stumps of the
mutilated fingers till the blood streamed from the wounds; then they would
hold up the bleeding hands in hope of softening the heart of the angry god.
[78]
Captain Cook understood that the operation was performed for the
benefit of the sufferers themselves to heal them in sickness,[79] and the same
view was apparently taken by the French navigator Labillardière,[80] but in
this they were probably mistaken; neither of them had an accurate
knowledge of the language, and they may easily have misunderstood their

informants. Perhaps the only person in the islands who was exempt from
the necessity of occasionally submitting to the painful sacrifice was the
divine chief Tooitonga, who, as he ranked above everybody, even above the
king, could have no superior relation for whom to amputate a finger-joint.
Certainly we know that Tooitonga had not, like the rest of his countrymen,
to undergo the painful operations of tattooing and circumcision; if he
desired to be tattooed or circumcised, he was obliged to go to other islands,
particularly to Samoa, for the purpose.[81] Perhaps, though this is not
mentioned by our authorities, it would have been deemed impious to shed
his sacred blood in his native land.
But sacrifices to the gods for the recovery of the sick were not limited to the
amputation of finger-joints. Not uncommonly children were strangled for
this purpose.[82] Thus when Finow the king was grievously sick and seemed
likely to die, the prince, his son, and a young chief went out to procure one
of the king's own children by a female attendant to sacrifice it as a vicarious
offering to the gods, that their anger might be appeased and the health of its
father restored. They found the child sleeping in its mother's lap in a
neighbouring house; they took it away by force, and retiring with it behind
an adjacent burial-ground (fytoca) they strangled it with a band of bark-
cloth. Then they carried it before two consecrated houses and a grave, at
each place gabbling a short but appropriate prayer to the god, that he would
intercede with the other gods in behalf of the dying king, and would accept
of this sacrifice as an atonement for the sick man's crimes.[83] When, not
long afterwards, the divine chief Tooitonga, in spite of his divinity, fell sick
and seemed like to die, one or other of his young relations had a little finger
cut off every day, as a propitiatory offering to the gods for the sins of the
saintly sufferer. But these sacrifices remaining fruitless, recourse was had to
greater. Three or four children were strangled at different times, and prayers
were offered up by the priests at the consecrated houses and burial-grounds
(fytocas) but all in vain. The gods remained deaf to the prayers of the
priests; their hearts were not touched by the cutting off of fingers or the
strangling of children; and the illness of the sacred chief grew every day
more alarming. As a last resort and desperate remedy, the emaciated body of
the dying man was carried into the kitchen, the people imagining that such
an act of humility, performed on behalf of the highest dignitary of the Tonga
islands, would surely move the deities to compassion and induce them to

spare a life so precious to his subjects.[84] The same curious remedy had
shortly before been resorted to for the benefit of the dying or dead king,
Finow the First: his body was carried into the kitchen of the sacred chief,
the Tooitonga, and there placed over the hole in the ground where the fire
was lighted to cook victuals: "this was thought to be acceptable to the gods,
as being a mark of extreme humiliation, that the great chief of all the Hapai
islands and Vavaoo, should be laid where the meanest class of mankind, the
cooks, were accustomed to operate."[85]
The custom of strangling the relations of a sick chief as a vicarious sacrifice
to appease the anger of the deity and ensure the recovery of the patient was
found in vogue by the first missionaries to Tonga before the arrival of
Mariner. When King Moomōoe lay very sick and his death was hourly
expected, one of his sons sent for a younger brother under pretence of
wishing to cut off his little fingers as a sacrifice to save the life of their
dying father. The young man came, whereupon his elder brother had him
seized, strangled, and buried within a few yards of the house where the
missionaries were living. Afterwards the fratricide came and mourned over
his murdered brother by sitting on the grave with his elbows on his knees
and covering his face with his hands. In this posture he remained for a long
time in silence, and then departed very thoughtful. His motive for thus
mourning over the brother whom he had done to death is not mentioned by
the missionaries and was probably not known to them. We may conjecture
that it was not so much remorse for his crime as fear of his brother's ghost,
who otherwise might have haunted him.[86] Morality, or at all events a
semblance of it, has often been thus reinforced by superstitious terrors.
In recording this incident the missionaries make use of an expression which
seems to set the strangling of human beings for the recovery of sick
relations in a somewhat different light. They say that "the prince of
darkness has impressed the idea on them, that the strength of the person
strangled will be transferred into the sick, and recover him."[87] On this
theory the sacrifice acts, so to say, mechanically without the intervention of
a deity; the life of the victim is transfused into the body of the patient as a
sort of tonic which strengthens and revives him. Such a rite is therefore
magical rather than religious; it depends for its efficacy on natural causes,
and not on the pity and help of the gods. Yet the missionaries, who record

this explanation of the custom, elsewhere implicitly accept the religious
interpretation of such rites as vicarious sacrifices; for they say that among
the superstitious notions of the natives concerning spirits was one that "by
strangling some relations of the chief when he is sick, the deity will be
appeased, and he (that is, the sick chief) will recover."[88] Perhaps both
explanations, the religious and the magical, were assigned by the Tongans:
consistency of thought is as little characteristic of savage as of civilised
man: provided he attains his ends, he recks little of the road by which he
reaches them. An English sailor named Ambler, who had resided for
thirteen months in Tonga before the arrival of the missionaries, told them,
"that when a great chief lay sick they often strangled their women, to the
number of three or four at a time."[89] Such a sacrifice is more likely to have
been religious than magical; we may suppose that the victims were rather
offered to the gods as substitutes for the chief than killed to recruit his
failing strength by an infusion of their health and vigour. A chief would
probably have disdained the idea of drawing fresh energy from the bodies
of women, though he might be ready enough to believe that the gods would
consent to accept their life as a proxy for his own. It is true that elsewhere,
notably in Uganda, human beings have been killed to prolong the life of the
king by directly transferring their strength to him;[90] but in such cases it
would seem that the victims have invariably been men and not women.

§ 8. The Doctrine of the Soul and its Destiny after Death

Thus far we have dealt with the primary or superior gods, who were
believed to have been always gods, and about whose origin nothing was
known. We now pass to a consideration of the secondary or inferior gods,
whose origin was perfectly well known, since they were all of them the
souls of dead chiefs or nobles, of whom some had died or been killed in
recent years. But before we take up the subject of their worship, it will be
well to say a few words on the Tongan doctrine of the human soul, since
these secondary deities were avowedly neither more nor less than human
souls raised to a higher power by death.
The Tongans, in their native state, before the advent of Europeans, did not
conceive of the soul as a purely immaterial essence, that being a conception
too refined for the thought of a savage. They imagined it to be the finer or

more aeriform part of the body which leaves it suddenly at the moment of
death, and which may be thought to stand in the same relation to the body
as the perfume of a flower to its solid substance. They had no proper word
to express this fine ethereal part of man; for the word loto, though it might
sometimes be used for that purpose, yet rather means a man's disposition,
inclination, passion, or sentiment. The soul was supposed to exist
throughout the whole of the body, but to be particularly present in the heart,
the pulsation of which they regarded as the strength and power of the soul.
They did not clearly distinguish between the life and the soul, but said that
the right auricle of the heart was the seat of life. They took the liver to be
the seat of courage, and professed to have remarked, on opening dead
bodies, that the largest livers belonged to the bravest men, in which
observation they were careful to make allowance for the enlargement of
livers consequent on disease.[91]
They acknowledged that the tooas or lower order of people had minds or
souls; but they firmly believed that these vulgar souls died with their bodies
and consequently had no future existence. In this aristocratic opinion the
generality of the commoners acquiesced, though some were vain enough to
think that they had souls like their betters, and that they would live hereafter
in Bolotoo. But the orthodox Tongan doctrine restricted immortality to
chiefs and their ministers (the matabooles); at most, by a stretch of charity,
it extended the privilege to the mooas or third estate; but it held out no hope
of salvation to tooas, who formed the fourth and lowest rank of society.[92]
Mariner's account, which I have followed, of the sharp distinction which the
Tongans drew between the immortality of chiefs and the mortality of
common people is confirmed by the testimony of other and independent
observers. According to Captain Cook, while the souls of the chiefs went
immediately after death to the island of Boolootoo (Bolotoo), the souls of
the lower sort of people underwent a sort of transmigration or were eaten by
a bird called loata, which walked upon their graves for that purpose.[93] The
first missionaries, who landed in Tongataboo in 1797, report that the natives
"believe the immortality of the soul, which at death, they say, is
immediately conveyed in a very large fast-sailing canoe to a distant country
called Doobludha, which they describe as resembling the Mahometan
paradise. They call the god of this region of pleasure Higgolayo, and esteem

him as the greatest and most powerful of all others, the rest being no better
than servants to him. This doctrine, however, is wholly confined to the
chiefs, for the tooas (or lower order) can give no account whatever; as they
reckon the enjoyments of Doobludha above their capacity, so they seem
never to think of what may become of them after they have served the
purposes of this life."[94] One of these first missionaries was a certain
George Veeson, who had been a bricklayer before he undertook to convert
the heathen to Christianity. Wearying, however, of missionary work, he
deserted his brethren and betook himself to the heathen, among whom he
lived as one of them, adopting the native garb, marrying native women, and
eagerly fighting in the wars of the natives among themselves. In this way he
acquired a considerable knowledge of the Tongan language and customs, of
which he made some use in the account of his experiences which he
published anonymously after his return to England. Speaking of Tongan
ideas concerning the immortality of the soul he says that he heard the chiefs
speak much of Bulotu (Bolotoo). "Into this region, however, they believed
none were admitted but themselves. The Tuas, or lower class, having no
hope of sharing such bliss, seldom speculate upon a futurity, which to them
appears a subject lost in shadows, clouds, and darkness."[95] The
missionaries reported to Commodore Wilkes that the spirits of all chiefs
were supposed to go to Bolotoo, while the souls of poor people remained in
this world to feed upon ants and lizards.[96] With regard to the fate of the
soul after death, the Tongans universally and positively believed in the
existence of a great island, lying at a considerable distance to the north-
west, which they considered to be the abode of their gods and of the souls
of their dead nobles and their ministers (the matabooles). This island they
supposed to be much larger than all their own islands put together, and to be
well stocked with all kinds of useful and ornamental plants, always in a
high state of perfection, and always bearing the richest fruits and the most
beautiful flowers according to their respective natures; they thought that
when these fruits or flowers were plucked, others immediately took their
place, and that the whole atmosphere was filled with the most delightful
fragrance that the imagination can conceive, exhaled from these immortal
plants. The island, too, was well stocked with the most beautiful birds, of all
imaginable kinds, as well as with abundance of hogs; and all of these
creatures were immortal, except when they were killed to provide food for
the gods. But the moment a hog or a bird was killed, another live hog or

bird came into existence to supply its place, just as happened with the fruits
and flowers; and this, so far as they could ascertain, was the only way in
which plants and animals were propagated in Bolotoo. So far away was the
happy island supposed to be that it was dangerous for living men to attempt
to sail thither in their canoes; indeed, except by the express permission of
the gods, they could not find the island, however near they might come to it.
They tell, however, of a Tongan canoe which, returning from Fiji, was
driven by stress of weather to Bolotoo. The crew knew not the place, and
being in want of provisions and seeing the country to abound in all sorts of
fruits, they landed and proceeded to pluck some bread-fruit. But to their
unspeakable astonishment they could no more lay hold of the fruit than if it
were a shadow; they walked through the trunks of the trees and passed
through the substance of the houses without feeling any shock or resistance.
At length they saw some of the gods, who passed through the men's bodies
as if they were empty space. These gods recommended them to go away
immediately, as they had no proper food for them, and they promised them
a fair wind and a speedy passage. So the men put to sea, and sailing with
the utmost speed they arrived at Samoa, where they stayed two or three
days. Thence, again sailing very fast, they returned to Tonga, where in the
course of a few days they all died, not as a punishment for having been at
Bolotoo, but as a natural consequence, the air of that place, as it were,
infecting mortal bodies with speedy death. The gods who dwell in Bolotoo
have no canoes, not requiring them; for if they wish to be anywhere, there
they are the moment the wish is felt.[97]
It is said that in order to people Bolotoo the god Hikuleo used to carry off
the first-born sons of chiefs and other great men, whom he transported to
the island of the gods. To such lengths did he go in this system of abduction
that men on earth grew very uneasy. Their ranks became thinner and
thinner. How was all this to end? At last the other gods were moved to
compassion. The two gods Tangaloa and Maui laid hold of brother Hikuleo,
passed a strong chain round his waist and between his legs, and then taking
the chain by the ends they fastened one of them to the sky and the other to
the earth. Thus trussed up, the deity still made many attempts to snatch
away first-born sons; but all his efforts were thwarted and baffled by the
chain, for no sooner did he dart out in one direction, than the chain pulled
him back in another. According to another, or the same story, the excursions

of the deity were further limited by the length of his tail, the end of which
was tethered to the cave in which he resided; and though the tail was long
and allowed him a good deal of rope, do what he would, he could not break
bounds or obtain more than a very partial view of what was going on in the
rest of the world.[98]
In this curious story we may perhaps detect a tradition of a time when
among the Tongans, as among the Semites, religion or superstition
demanded the sacrifice of all first-born sons, a barbarous custom which has
been practised by not a few peoples in various parts of the earth.[99]
The human soul after its separation from the body at death was termed a
hotooa or atua, that is, a god or spirit, and was believed to exist in the shape
of the body and to have the same propensities as in life, but to be corrected
by a more enlightened understanding, by which it readily distinguished
good from evil, truth from falsehood, and right from wrong. The souls
dwelt for ever in the happy regions of Bolotoo, where they bore the same
names as in life and held the same rank among themselves as they had held
during their mortal existence. But their lot in Bolotoo was in no way
affected by the good or evil which they had done on earth; for the Tongans
did not believe in a future state of retribution for deeds done in the body;
they thought that the gods punished crime in this present world, without
waiting to redress the balance of justice in the world to come. As many of
the nobles who passed at death to Bolotoo had been warlike and turbulent in
their life, it might naturally be anticipated that they should continue to wage
war on each other in the land beyond the grave; but that was not so, for by a
merciful dispensation their understandings were so much enlightened, or
their tempers so much improved, by their residence in Bolotoo, that any
differences they might have between themselves, or with the primitive gods,
they adjusted by temperate discussion without resort to violence; though
people in Tonga sometimes heard an echo and caught a glimpse of these
high debates in the rumble of thunder and the flash of lightning.[100] In the
blissful abode of Bolotoo the souls of chiefs and nobles lived for ever, being
not subject to a second death, and there they feasted upon all the favourite
productions of their native country, which grew also abundantly in the
happy island.[101]

A less cheerful picture, however, of the state of souls in the other world was
painted for Commodore Wilkes by the missionaries who furnished him with
information on the native religion of the Tongans. According to them, the
souls were forced to become the servants, or rather slaves, of the long-tailed
deity Hikuleo, whose commands they had no choice but to execute. His
house and all things in it were even constructed of the souls of the dead; and
he went so far as to make fences out of them and bars to his gates, an
indignity which must have been deeply resented by the proud spirits of
kings and nobles.[102] How this gloomy picture of the fate of souls in
Bolotoo is to be reconciled with the bright descriptions of it which I have
drawn from the pages of Mariner and Cook, it is not easy to say. Apparently
we must acquiesce in the discrepancy. That savages should entertain
inconsistent views on the life after death need not surprise us, when we
remember how little accurate information even civilised peoples possess on
that momentous subject.

§ 9. The Souls of the Dead as Gods

We have seen that according to Mariner, our best authority on Tongan
religion, the souls of dead nobles ranked as gods, possessing all the powers
and attributes of the primary or original deities, though in an inferior
degree.[103] Thus, like the primary gods, they had the power of returning to
Tonga to inspire priests, relations, or other people.[104] For example, the son
of Finow, the King, used to be inspired by the spirit of Toogoo Ahoo, a
former king of Tonga, who had been assassinated with the connivance of
his successor, Finow. One day Mariner asked this young chief how he felt
when he was visited by the spirit of the murdered monarch. The chief
replied that he could not well describe his feelings, but the best he could say
of it was, that he felt himself all over in a glow of heat and quite restless
and uncomfortable; he did not feel his personal identity, as it were, but
seemed to have a mind differing from his own natural mind, his thoughts
wandering upon strange and unusual topics, though he remained perfectly
sensible of surrounding objects. When Mariner asked him how he knew it
was the spirit of Toogoo Ahoo who possessed him, the chief answered
impatiently, "There's a fool! How can I tell you how I knew it? I felt and
knew it was so by a kind of consciousness; my mind told me that it was

Toogoo Ahoo." Similarly Finow himself, the father of this young man, used
occasionally to be inspired by the ghost of Moomooi, a former king of
Tonga.[105]
Again, the souls of dead nobles, like gods, had the power of appearing in
dreams and visions to their relatives and others to admonish and warn them.
It was thought, for example, that Finow the king was occasionally visited
by a deceased son of his; the ghost did not appear, but announced his
presence by whistling. Mariner once heard this whistling when he was with
the king and some chiefs in a house at night; it was dark, and the sound
appeared to come from the loft of the house. In Mariner's opinion the sound
was produced by some trick of Finow's, but the natives believed it to be the
voice of a spirit.[106] Once more, when Finow the king was himself dead, a
noble lady who mourned his death and generally slept on his grave,
communicated to his widow a dream which she had dreamed several nights
at the graveyard. She said that in her dream the late king appeared to her,
and, with a countenance full of sorrow, asked why there yet remained so
many evil-designing persons in the islands; for he declared that, since he
had been at Bolotoo, he had been disturbed by the plots of wicked men
conspiring against his son; therefore was he come to warn her of the danger.
Finally, he bade her set in order the pebbles on his grave, and pay every
attention to his burial-ground. With that he vanished.[107] In such dreams of
the reappearance of the recent dead we may discover one source of the
belief in the survival of the soul after death.
But the gods appeared to mankind to warn, comfort, and advise, not only in
their own divine form but also in the form of animals. Thus the primitive
gods, according to Mariner, sometimes entered into the living bodies of
lizards, porpoises, and a species of water snake. Hence these creatures were
much respected. The reason why gods entered into porpoises was to take
care of canoes. This power of assuming the form of living animals, says
Mariner, belonged only to the original gods, and not to the deified souls of
chiefs.[108] In thus denying that the spirits of the dead were supposed
sometimes to revisit the earth in animal shapes Mariner was perhaps
mistaken, for a different view on the subject was apparently taken at a later
time by Miss Farmer, who had access to good sources of information. She
writes as follows: "Bulotu (Bolotoo) was peopled with the spirits of

departed chiefs and great persons of both sexes; and it was to these chiefly
that worship was paid and that sacrifices were offered. These spirits in
Bulotu were supposed to act as intercessors with the supreme gods, who
were too highly exalted to be approached by men except in this way. The
spirits were in the habit of revisiting earth. They would come in birds, or in
fish as their shrines. The tropic-bird, king-fisher, and sea-gull, the sea-eel,
shark, whale, and many other animals were considered sacred, because they
were favourite shrines of these spirit-gods. The heathen never killed any of
these creatures; and if, in sailing, they chanced to find themselves in the
neighbourhood of a whale, they would offer scented oil or kava to him. To
some among the natives the cuttle-fish and the lizard were gods; while
others would lay offerings at the foot of certain trees, with the idea of their
being inhabited by spirits. A rainbow or a shooting star would also
command worship."[109]
This account seems to imply that the spirits which took the form of these
animals, birds, and fish were believed to be the souls of the dead returning
from the spirit world to revisit their old homes on earth. But even if we
suppose that herein the writer was mistaken, and that, as Mariner affirmed,
only the original and superior gods were deemed capable of incarnation in
animal shape, the account is still valuable and interesting because it calls
attention to a side of Tongan religion on which our principal authority,
Mariner, is almost silent. That side comprises the worship of natural
objects, and especially of animals, birds, and fish, regarded as embodiments
of spirits, whether gods or ghosts. This worship of nature, and particularly
of animated nature, was highly developed among the Samoans; it would be
natural, therefore, to find the same system in vogue among their neighbours
and near kinsmen the Tongans, though our authorities on Tongan religion
say little about it. The system may with some appearance of probability be
regarded as a relic of a former practice of totemism.[110]
In recent years a considerable amount of evidence bearing on the subject
has been collected by Mr. E. E. V. Collocot. He distinguishes the national
Tongan gods from the gods of tribes, clans, and small groups of allied
households; such a group of households, it appears, formed the ordinary
social unit. Indeed, he tells us that there was nothing to prevent a man from
setting up a tutelary deity of his own, if he were so disposed; he might
adopt almost any object for the religious reverence of his household and

himself. Thus there was "a gradation in the divine hierarchy from gods of
populous tribes down to deities the private possession of a very few."[111]
Further, Mr. Collocot found that most of the gods had sacred animals or
other natural objects associated with them,[112] and that the worshippers
were generally forbidden to eat the sacred animals of their gods. He
concludes that "in the period of which we have information totemism has
given way to a more highly developed polytheism, but there are indications
that the development was by way of totemism."[113] Among the facts which
appear to support this conclusion we may note the following.
There was a great god called Boolotoo Katoa, that is, "the whole of
Boolotoo (Bolotoo)," who had the dog for his sacred animal; while the deity
was being worshipped, a dog lay at the side of the priest. This god had his
principal shrine at Boha in the eastern part of Tongataboo: the district was
of old the centre of government and the residence of the Tooitonga.[114]
Another god, whose name was the King of the tribe or clan of Fonua (Tui-
Haafakafonua), had for his sacred animal a lizard, and for the convenience
of his departure, and presumably arrival, a tree or post was always provided
for him to crawl along. A handy post or tree-stump was a regular part of his
temple furnishings.[115] Another god, whose name signifies "Proud
Boastfulness of the Season" (Mofuta-ae-ta'u), had for his sacred animal a
great sea-eel, which dwelt in an opening of the reef opposite the village.
This deity used to take it very ill if anybody appeared on the beach near his
abode wearing a turban or whitened with lime; and should a man rashly
disregard the feelings of the divine eel in these respects, it was believed that
the deity would carry him off to his hole in the rock.[116] Another god,
named Haele-feke, used to manifest himself in the form of an octopus
(feke). Whenever an octopus appeared in a certain pool, it was at once
recognised as the god, and the priestess immediately went and awaited him
at the shrine, which seems to have been a small raised platform. Thither the
people presently resorted, bringing bunches of coco-nuts and coco-nut
leaves and earth. The priestess thereupon spoke as in the person of the
octopus, and apparently imitated the creature, presumably by sprawling in
the ungainly manner of an octopus. The worshippers of this deity abstained
from eating the flesh of the octopus, and even from approaching a place
where other people were eating it. If any of them transgressed the taboo, he
was afflicted with complete baldness. Should any of the worshippers find a

dead octopus, they buried it with all due ceremony in Teekiu, their principal
village.[117] The rail bird (kalae) was worshipped by some people, who used
to tie bunches of the birds together and carry them about with them when
they travelled; and the priest had a bunch of the sacred birds tattooed as a
badge on his throat.[118] The clan Fainga'a had for its sacred animal the
mullet; and it is said that young mullets were tabooed to the men of the
clan.[119] A family group in Haapai had the owl for their sacred creature; if
an owl hooted near a house in the afternoon, it was a sign that there was a
pregnant woman in the household.[120] The god of Uiha in Haapai was the
Eel-in-the-Open-Sea (Toke-i-Moana); as usual, the worshippers might not
eat the flesh of eels or approach a place where an eel was being cooked.[121]
The clan Falefa worshipped two goddesses, Jiji and Fainga'a, whose sacred
creature was the heron. Jiji was supposed to be incarnate in the dark-
coloured heron, and Fainga'a in the light-coloured heron. When a pair of
herons, one dark and the other light-coloured, were seen flying together,
people said that it was the two goddesses Jiji and Fainga'a.[122] In the island
of Tofua there was a clan called the King of Tofua (Tui Tofua), which had
the shark for its god; members of the clan might not eat the flesh of sharks,
because they believed themselves to be related to the fish; they said that
long ago some of the clansmen leaped from a canoe into the sea and were
turned into sharks.[123] Another god who appeared in the form of a shark
was Taufa of the Sea (Taufa-tahi); but in another aspect he was a god of the
land (Taufa-uta) and a notable protector of gardens. To secure his aid the
husbandman had only to plait a coco-nut leaf in the likeness of a shark and
to hang it up in his plantation; a garden thus protected was under a taboo
which no one would dare to violate. A Christian, who ventured to thrust his
hand in mockery into the maw of the sham shark, had both his arms
afterwards bitten off by a real shark.[124] Other gods were recognised in the
shape of flying-foxes, shell-fish, and little blue and green lizards.[125] We
hear of two Tongan gods who had black volcanic pebbles for their sacred
objects,[126] and of one whose shrine was the tree called fehi, the hard wood
of which was commonly used for making spears and canoes.[127] The gods
of Niua Fo'ou, one of the most distant islands of the Tongan group, were
three in number, to wit, the octopus, pig's liver, and a large lump of coral.
The worshippers of the two former deities might not eat the divine octopus
and the divine pig's liver.[128] Christianity itself appears not to have wholly

extinguished the reverence of the natives for the sacred animals of their
clans. A much-respected native minister of the Methodist Church informed
Mr. Collocot that to this day he gets a headache if he eats the sacred animal
of his clan, though other people may partake of the creature, not only with
impunity, but with relish.[129]
Thus the worship of natural objects, and especially of animals, fish, and
birds, presents a close analogy to the Samoan system, as we shall see
presently;[130] and it is not without significance that tradition points to
Samoa as the original home from which the ancestors of the Tongans
migrated to their present abode.[131] On the question of the nature of the
divine beings who presented themselves to their worshippers in the form of
animals, the evidence collected by Mr. Collocot seems to confirm the
statement of Mariner, that only the primary or non-human gods were
believed capable of thus becoming incarnate; at least Mr. Collocot gives no
hint that the worshipful creatures were supposed to be tenanted by the souls
of the human dead; in other words, there is nothing to show that the Tongan
worship of animals was based on a theory of transmigration.
The statement of Miss Farmer, which I have quoted, that among the
Tongans the souls of the dead were the principal object of worship and
received the most sacrifices, is interesting and not improbable, though it is
not confirmed by Mariner. It may indeed, perhaps, be laid down as a
general principle that the worship of the dead tends constantly to encroach
on the worship of the high gods, who are pushed ever farther into the
background by the advent of their younger rivals. It is natural enough that
this should be so. The affection which we feel for virtue, the reverence and
awe inspired by great talents and powerful characters, persist long after the
objects of our love and admiration have passed away from earth, and we
now render to their memories the homage which we paid, or perhaps
grudged, to the men themselves in their lifetime. For us they seem still to
exist; with their features, their characteristic turns of thought and speech
still fresh in our memories, we can hardly bring ourselves to believe that
they have utterly ceased to be, that nothing of them remains but the lifeless
dust which we have committed to the earth. The heart still clings fondly to
the hope, if not to the belief, that somewhere beyond our ken the loved and
lost ones are joined to the kindred spirits who have gone before in that

unknown land, where, in due time, we shall meet them again. And as with
affection, so with reverence and fear; they also are powerful incentives to
this instinctive belief in the continued existence of the dead. The busy brain
that explored the heights and depths of this mysterious universe—the
glowing imagination that conjured up visions of beauty born, as we fondly
think, for immortality—the aspiring soul and vaulting ambition that
founded or overturned empires and shook the world—are they now no more
than a few mouldering bones or a handful of ashes under their marble
monuments? The mind of most men revolts from a conclusion so
derogatory to what they deem the dignity of human nature; and so to satisfy
at once the promptings of the imagination and the impulse of the heart, men
gradually elevate their dead to the rank of saints and heroes, who in course
of time may easily pass by an almost insensible transition to the supreme
place of deities. It is thus that, almost as far back as we can trace the
gropings of the human mind, man has been perpetually creating gods in his
own likeness.
In a pantheon thus constantly recruited by the accession of dead men, the
recruits tend to swamp the old deities by sheer force of numbers; for
whereas the muster-roll of the original gods is fixed and unchangeable, the
newcomers form a great host which is not only innumerable but perpetually
on the increase, for who can reckon up the tale of the departed or set bounds
to the ravages of death? Indeed, where the deification of the dead is carried
to its logical limit, a new god is born for every man that dies; though in
Tonga against such an extreme expansion of the spiritual hierarchy, and a
constant overcrowding of Bolotoo, a solid barrier was interposed by the
Tongan doctrine which opened the gates of paradise only to noblemen.[132]

§ 10. Temples and Tombs: Megalithic Monuments

On the whole it seems reasonable to conclude that in Tonga the distinction
between the original superhuman deities and the new human gods tended to
be obliterated in the minds of the people. More and more, we may suppose,
the deified spirits of dead men usurped the functions and assimilated
themselves to the character of the ancient divinities. Yet between these two
classes of worshipful beings Mariner draws an important distinction which
we must not overlook. He says that these new human gods, these souls of

deified nobles, "have no houses dedicated to them, but the proper places to
invoke them are their graves, which are considered sacred, and are therefore
as much respected as consecrated houses."[133] If this distinction is well
founded, the consecrated house or temple, as we may call it, of an original
god was quite different from the grave at which a new god, that is, a dead
man or woman, was worshipped. But in spite of the high authority of
Mariner it seems doubtful whether the distinction which he makes between
the temples of the old gods and the tombs of the new ones was always
recognised in practice, and whether the two were not apt to be confounded
in the minds even of the natives. The temples of the gods, as we have seen,
did not differ in shape and structure from the houses of men, and similar
houses, as we shall see, were also built on the graves of kings and chiefs
and even of common people. What was easier than to confuse the two
classes of spirit-houses, the houses of gods and the houses of dead kings or
chiefs, especially when the memory of these potentates had grown dim and
their human personality had been forgotten? Certainly European observers
have sometimes been in doubt as to whether places to which the natives
paid religious reverence were temples or graves. In view of this ambiguity I
propose to examine some of the descriptions which have been given by eye-
witnesses of the sacred structures and enclosure which might be interpreted
either as temples or tombs. The question has a double interest and
importance, first, in its bearing on the theory, enunciated by Herbert
Spencer, that temples are commonly, if not universally, derived from tombs,
[134]
and gods from dead men; and secondly, in its bearing on the question
of the origin and meaning of megalithic monuments; for not a few of the
tombs of Tongan kings and sacred chiefs are constructed in part of very
large stones.
I will begin with the evidence of Captain Cook, an excellent observer and
faithful witness. He paid two visits to the Tonga islands, a short one in
1773, and a longer one of between two and three months in 1777. Speaking
of his first visit to Tongataboo in 1773, he writes as follows:
"After sitting here some time, and distributing some presents to those about
us, we signified our desire to see the country. The chief immediately took
the hint, and conducted us along a lane that led to an open green, on the one
side of which was a house of worship built on a mount that had been raised
by the hand of man, about sixteen or eighteen feet above the common level.

It had an oblong figure, and was inclosed by a wall or parapet of stone,
about three feet in height. From this wall the mount rose with a gentle
slope, and was covered with a green turf. On the top of it stood the house,
which had the same figure as the mount, about twenty feet in length, and
fourteen or sixteen broad. As soon as we came before the place, every one
seated himself on the green, about fifty or sixty yards from the front of the
house. Presently came three elderly men; who seated themselves between
us and it, and began a speech, which I understood to be a prayer, it being
wholly directed to the house. This lasted about ten minutes; and then the
priests, for such I took them to be, came and sat down along with us, when
we made them presents of such things as were about us. Having then made
signs to them that we wanted to view the premises, my friend Attago
immediately got up, and going with us, without showing the least
backwardness, gave us full liberty to examine every part of it.
"In the front were two stone steps leading to the top of the wall; from this
the ascent to the house was easy, round which was a fine gravel walk. The
house was built, in all respects, like to their common dwelling-houses; that
is, with posts and rafters; and covered with palm thatch. The eaves came
down within about three feet of the ground, which space was filled up with
strong matting made of palm leaves, as a wall. The floor of the house was
laid with fine gravel; except in the middle, where there was an oblong
square of blue pebbles, raised about six inches higher than the floor. At one
corner of the house stood an image rudely carved in wood, and on one side
lay another; each about two feet in length. I, who had no intention to offend
either them or their gods, did not so much as touch them, but asked Attago,
as well as I could, if they were Eatuas, or gods. Whether he understood me
or no, I cannot say; but he immediately turned them over and over, in as
rough a manner as he would have done any other log of wood, which
convinced me that they were not there as representatives of the Divinity. I
was curious to know if the dead were interred there, and asked Attago
several questions relative thereto; but I was not sure that he understood me;
at least I did not understand the answers he made, well enough to satisfy my
inquiries. For the reader must know, that at our first coming among these
people, we hardly could understand a word they said. Even my Otaheitean
youth, and the man on board the Adventure, were equally at a loss: but more
of this by and by. Before we quitted the house we thought it necessary to

make an offering at the altar. Accordingly we laid down upon the blue
pebbles, some medals, nails, and several other things; which we had no
sooner done than my friend Attago took them up, and put them in his
pocket. The stones with which the walls were made that inclosed this
mount, were some of them nine or ten feet by four, and about six inches
thick. It is difficult to conceive how they can cut such stones out of the coral
rocks.
"This mount stood in a kind of grove open only on the side which fronted
the high road, and the green on which the people were seated. At this green
or open place, was a junction of five roads, two or three of which appeared
to be very public ones. The groves were composed of several sorts of trees.
Among others was the Etoa tree, as it is called at Otaheite, of which are
made clubs, etc., and a kind of low palm, which is very common in the
northern parts of New Holland.
"After we had done examining this place of worship, which in their
language is called a-fiat-tou-ca, we desired to return."[135]
A little farther on, still speaking of his first visit to Tonga, Captain Cook
observes: "So little do we know of their religion, that I hardly dare mention
it. The buildings called afiatoucas, before mentioned, are undoubtedly set
apart for this purpose. Some of our gentlemen were of opinion, that they
were merely burying-places. I can only say, from my own knowledge, that
they are places to which particular persons directed set speeches, which I
understood to be prayers, as hath been already related. Joining my opinion
with that of others, I was inclined to think that they are set apart to be both
temples and burying-places, as at Otaheite, or even in Europe. But I have no
idea of the images being idols; not only from what I saw myself, but from
Mr. Wales's informing me that they set one of them up, for him and others
to shoot at."[136]
Thus Captain Cook and his party were divided in opinion as to whether the
house on the mound, within its walled enclosure built of great stones, was a
temple or a tomb. Captain Cook himself called it simply a "house of
worship" and a "place of worship," but he inclined to the view that it was
both a temple and a burying-place, and in this opinion he was probably
right. The native name which he applied to it, afiatouca, means a burial-

place; for it is doubtless equivalent to fytoca, a word which Mariner
explains to mean "a burying-place, including the grave, the mount in which
it is sunk, and a sort of shed over it."[137] Moreover, the oblong square of
blue pebbles, which Captain Cook observed on the floor of the house on the
mound, and which he regarded as the altar, speaks also in favour of the
house being a tomb; for Mariner has described how the mourners brought
white and black pebbles to the house which stood over the grave of King
Finow, and how they "strewed the inside of the house with the white ones,
and also the outside about the fytoca, as a decoration to it: the black pebbles
they strewed only upon those white ones, which covered the ground directly
over the body, to about the length and breadth of a man, in the form of a
very eccentric ellipse. After this, the house over the fytoca," continues
Mariner, "was closed up at both ends with a reed fencing, reaching from the
eaves to the ground, and, at the front and back, with a sort of basket-work,
made of the young branches of the cocoa-nut tree, split and interwoven in a
very curious and ornamental way, to remain till the next burial, when they
are to be taken down, and, after the conclusion of the ceremony, new ones
are to be put up in like manner."[138] This description of the house over
King Finow's grave agrees so closely with Captain Cook's description of the
house in the afiatouca, that we may with much probability regard the latter
as a tomb, and suppose that the "oblong square of blue pebbles," which
Cook regarded as an altar and on which he laid down his offering, marked
the place of the body in the grave: it was at once an altar and a tombstone.
On his second and more prolonged visit to the Tonga islands, Captain Cook
expressed, with more confidence, his opinion that the fiatookas, as he calls
them, were at once burial-grounds and places of worship. Thus he says:
"Their morais or fiatookas (for they are called by both names, but mostly by
the latter), are, as at Otaheite, and many other parts of the world, burying-
grounds and places of worship; though some of them seemed to be only
appropriated to the first purpose; but these were small, and, in every other
respect, inferior to the others."[139] Again, in another passage he describes
one of the more stately of these temple-tombs. He says: "Some of us,
accompanied by a few of the king's attendants, and Omai as our interpreter,
walked out to take a view of a fiatooka, or burying-place, which we had
observed to be almost close by the house, and was much more extensive,
and seemingly of more consequence, than any we had seen at the other

islands. We were told, that it belonged to the king. It consisted of three
pretty large houses, situated upon a rising ground, or rather just by the brink
of it, with a small one, at some distance, all ranged longitudinally. The
middle house of the three first, was by much the largest, and placed in a
square, twenty-four paces by twenty-eight, raised about three feet. The
other houses were placed on little mounts, raised artificially to the same
height. The floors of these houses, as also the tops of the mounts round
them, were covered with loose, fine pebbles, and the whole was inclosed by
large flat stones of hard coral rock, properly hewn, placed on their edges;
one of which stones measured twelve feet in length, two in breadth, and
above one in thickness. One of the houses, contrary to what we had seen
before, was open on one side; and within it were two rude, wooden busts of
men; one near the entrance, and the other farther in. On inquiring of the
natives, who had followed us to the ground, but durst not enter here, What
these images were intended for? they made us as sensible as we could wish,
that they were merely memorials of some chiefs who had been buried there,
and not the representations of any deity. Such monuments, it should seem,
are seldom raised; for these had probably been erected several ages ago. We
were told, that the dead had been buried in each of these houses; but no
marks of this appeared. In one of them, was the carved head of an Otaheite
canoe, which had been driven ashore on their coast, and deposited here. At
the foot of the rising ground was a large area, or grass-plot, with different
trees planted about it; amongst which were several of those called etoa,
very large. These, as they resemble the cypresses, had a fine effect in such a
place. There was also a row of low palms near one of the houses, and
behind it a ditch, in which lay a great number of old baskets."[140]
Between the departure of Cook and the arrival of Mariner the first
Protestant missionaries were fortunate enough to witness the burial of a
king of Tonga, by name Moomōoe. Their description of it and of the royal
tomb entirely bears out the observations and conclusions of Captain Cook.
The fiatooka or burial-ground, they tell us, "is situated on a spot of ground
about four acres. A mount rises with a gentle slope about seven feet, and is
about one hundred and twenty yards in circumference at the base; upon the
top stands a house neatly made, which is about thirty feet long, and half that
in width. The roof is thatched, and the sides and ends left open. In the
middle of this house is the grave, the sides, ends, and bottom of which are

of coral stone, with a cover of the same: the floor of the house is of small
stones. The etoa and other trees grow round the fiatooka."[141] Into this
grave, or rather stone vault, the missionaries saw the king's body lowered.
The stone which covered the vault was eight feet long, four feet broad, and
one foot thick. This massive stone was first raised and held in suspense by
means of two great ropes, the ends of which were wound round two strong
piles driven into the ground at the end of the house. The ropes were held by
about two hundred men, who, when the king's body had been deposited in
the grave, slowly lowered the great stone and covered the vault.[142] Some
years later Mariner witnessed the funeral of another king of Tonga, Finow
the First; and he similarly describes how the tomb was a large stone vault,
sunk about ten feet deep in the ground, the covering stone of which was
hoisted by the main strength of a hundred and fifty or two hundred men
pulling at the two ends of a rope; when the bodies of the king and his
daughter had been laid side by side in the vault the massive stone was
lowered by the men with a great shout.[143] The number of the men required
to raise and lower these great stones gives us some idea of their weight.
Thus far we have been dealing only with the tombs of the civil kings of
Tonga. But far more stately and massive are the tombs of the sacred kings
or pontiffs, the Tooitongas, which still exist and still excite the curiosity and
admiration of European observers. The Tongan name for these tombs is
langi, which properly means "sky," also "a band of singers"; but there
appears to be no connexion between these different meanings of the word.
[144]
The tombs are situated in Tongataboo, not far from Mooa, the old
capital of the island. They stand near the south-eastern shore of the lagoon,
which, under the name of the Mooa Inlet, penetrates deeply into the
northern side of Tongataboo. Beginning at the northern outskirts of the
village of Labaha, they stretch inland for more than half a mile into the
forest.[145] They are of various constructions and shapes. Some consist of a
square enclosure, on the level of the ground, the boundary walls being
formed of large stones; while at each corner of the square two high stones,
rising above the wall, are placed upright at right angles to each other and in
a line with their respective sides.[146] But apparently the more usual and
characteristic type of tomb has the form of a truncated pyramid or oblong
platform raised in a series of steps or terraces, which are built of massive
blocks of coral. The number of steps or terraces seems to vary from one to

four according to the height of the monument.[147] It is much to be regretted
that no one has yet counted and mapped out these tombs and recorded the
names of their royal or divine occupants, so far as they are remembered; but
a trace of the religious awe which once invested this hallowed ground still
avails to keep it inviolate. A proposal which Sir Basil Thomson made to
clear away the forest and preserve the tombs was very coldly received; in
the eyes of the natives, professing Christians as they are, it probably
savoured of sacrilege. The ancient custom was to clear the ground about
every new tomb, and after the interment to suffer the tropical undergrowth
to swallow it up for ever. Nowadays no holy pontiffs are borne to their last
resting-place in these hallowed shades; so the forest is never cleared, and
nature is left free to run wild. In consequence the tombs are so overgrown
and overshadowed that it is difficult to photograph them in the gloomy and
tangled thicket. Great ifi trees[148] overhang them: banyan-trees have
sprouted on the terraces and thrust their roots into every crevice, mantling
the stones with a lacework of tendrils, which year by year rend huge blocks
asunder, until the original form of the terrace is almost obliterated. Sir Basil
Thomson followed the chain of tombs for about half a mile, but on each
occasion his guides told him that there were other smaller tombs farther
inland. The tombs increase in size and in importance as they near the shore
of the lagoon, and to seven or eight of the larger ones the names of the
occupants can be assigned; but the names of the sacred chiefs who sleep in
the smaller tombs inland are quite forgotten. Some of them are mere
enclosures of stones, not squared, but taken haphazard from the reef.[149]
The tombs were built in the lifetime of the sacred chiefs who were to lie in
them, and their size accordingly affords a certain measure of the power and
influence of the great men interred in them. Among the largest is the tomb
which goes by the name of Telea, though it is said to contain no body, Telea
himself being buried in the tomb next to it. We are told that, dissatisfied
with the first sepulchre that was built for him, he replaced it by the other,
which is also of great size. The most modern of the tombs is that of
Laufilitonga, the last to bear the title of Tooitonga. He died a Christian
about 1840 and was buried in the tomb of very inferior size which crowns
the village cemetery. The most ancient cannot be dated; but that some are
older than A.D. 1535 may be inferred from the tradition that Takalaua, a
Tooitonga, was assassinated about that time because he was a tyrant who

compelled his people to drag great stones from Liku, at the back of the
island, to the burial ground at Mooa; the distance is about a mile and a half.
[150]

Profile of the Steps.
The first, so far as I know, to see and describe these remarkable tombs were
the earliest missionaries to Tonga about the end of the eighteenth century.
Speaking of the burial ground at Mooa, where lay interred the divine chiefs
whose title was Tooitonga and whose family name was Futtafāihe or
Fatafehi, the missionaries observe that "the fiatookas are remarkable. There
lie the Futtafāihes for many generations, some vast and ruinous, which is
the case with the largest; the house on the top of it is fallen, and the area and
tomb itself overgrown with wood and weeds."[151] Later on they had the
advantage of being conducted over the august cemetery by the Futtafāihe or
Tooitonga of the day in person, who gave them some explanations
concerning these sepulchres of his ancestors. To quote their description,
they say that the tombs "lie ranged in a line eastward from his house,
among a grove of trees, and are many in number, and of different
constructions: some, in a square form, were not in the least raised above the
level of the common ground; a row of large stones formed the sides, and at
each corner two high stones were placed upright at right angles to each
other, and in a line with their respective sides: others were such as the

brethren describe that of Moomōoe to be: and a third sort were built square
like the first; the largest of which was at the base one hundred and fifty-six
feet by one hundred and forty; it had four steps from the bottom to the top,
that run quite round the pile: one stone composed the height of each step, a
part of it being sunk in the ground; and some of these stones in the wall of
the lower are immensely large; one, which I measured, was twenty-four feet
by twelve, and two feet thick; these Futtafāihe informed me were brought in
double canoes from the island of Lefooga. They are coral stone, and are
hewn into a tolerably good shape, both with respect to the straightness of
their sides and flatness of their surfaces. They are now so hardened by the
weather, that the great difficulty we had in breaking a specimen of one
corner made it not easy to conjecture how the labour of hewing them at first
had been effected; as, by the marks of antiquity which some of them bear,
they must have been built long before Tasman showed the natives an iron
tool. Besides the trees which grow on the top and sides of most of them,
there are the etooa, and a variety of other trees about them; and these,
together with the thousands of bats which hang on their branches, all
contribute to the awful solemnity of those sepulchral mansions of the
ancient chiefs. On our way back Futtafāihe told us that all the fiatookas we
had seen were built by his ancestors, who also lay interred in them; and as
there appeared no reason to doubt the truth of this, it proves that a supreme
power in the government of the island must for many generations have been
in the family of the Futtafāihes: for though there were many fiatookas in the
island, the brethren, who had seen most of them, said they were not to be
compared to these for magnitude, either in the pile or the stones which
compose them."[152]
Some thirty years later the tombs of the Tooitongas were visited and
described by the French explorer, J. Dumont d'Urville. His description is
worth quoting. He says: "I directed my steps to the splendid faï-tokas of the
Fata-Faïs. As these monuments are essentially taboo, in the absence of the
Tooi-tonga no one looks after their upkeep, and they are now buried on
every side among dark masses of trees and almost impenetrable thickets.
Hence we had some difficulty in approaching them, and it was impossible
for us to get a single general view of the whole of these structures, which
must have a somewhat solemn effect when the ground is properly cleared.

"For the most part these mausoleums have the form of great rectangular
spaces surrounded by enormous blocks of stone, of which some are as much
as from fifteen to twenty feet long by six or eight broad and two feet thick.
The most sumptuous of these monuments have four or five rows of steps,
making up a total height of eighteen or twenty feet. The interior is filled up
with shingle and fragments of unhewn coral. One of these faï-tokas, which I
measured, was a hundred and eighty feet long by a hundred and twenty
broad. At one of the upper angles I observed a block of considerable size
with a deep cutting in it. I was told that it was the seat of the Tooi-tonga-
fafine[153]; it was there that she sat to preside at the ceremony of the funeral
of the Tooi-tonga.
"Some of these edifices were of an oval form, but they were much smaller.
Each of them was surmounted by a small hut, which served as an oratory or
house for the spirit of the dead; most of them have been destroyed by the
lapse of time, and only traces of them are left scattered on the ground.
"The enormous blocks of coral employed in the construction of these
monuments have all been brought by sea from Hifo to Mooa. They were got
on the shore of the sea at Hifo, were hewn on the spot, and were transported
in great canoes; then they were landed at Mooa and drawn on rollers to the
place of their destination. These monuments are astonishing evidence of the
patience which they must have demanded on the part of these islanders;
they were ocular testimony to me of the high degree of civilisation which
the natives had reached. Man must have risen to ideas of a much higher
order than those of a simple savage before he would take so great pains for
the single object of consecrating the memory of his chiefs.
"Such tombs are no longer built in Tongataboo: people content themselves
with simple mounds surrounded by a row of posts or even an ordinary
palisade. However, Singleton assured me that Finow the Younger had
erected two great faï-tokas of stone in Vavao, one for the last Tooitonga, and
one for his father."[154]
The Frenchman, De Sainson, who accompanied Dumont d'Urville on his
visit to Tongataboo, has also described the tombs of the Tooitongas at Mooa
from personal observation. I will quote his description: "It is in the heart of
the forest that the ancient inhabitants of these countries, who idolized their

Kings (Tooi-tongas), placed the tombs of that sacred race. These
monuments of a more enterprising age still astonish the beholder by their
mass and their extent. The fai-tokas, as these burial-places are called, are
artificial eminences, on the top of which, in the form of a square, are three
or four crosses of great granitic blocks arranged as steps, of which each
block may be four or five feet high. If there is only a single step on the top
of the mound, it is because only a single Tooi-tonga sleeps there in the
grave; if the bones of a whole family are deposited in a common tomb,
three or four steps, one above the other, mark their union in death. Some of
these monuments which contain only a single body are arranged in an oval.
I counted more than twelve of these immense structures, and yet we left a
great many aside. I counted more than one stone between eight and fifteen
feet long; and I conceived a high idea of those men of ancient days who
erected over the remains of their kings these imperishable mausoleums, in
an island based on coral, where it would be difficult to find a stone of two
feet square. I imagined them to be very different from their effeminate
descendants, those men of old who went in their canoes more than a
hundred and fifty leagues to look for the enormous blocks of which these
tombs are built, who cut them without the help of iron, and succeeded, by
means unknown, in planting them on these hillocks, where by their own
weight they are fixed for ever, like the Druidical monuments of Brittany,
which one would say were dropped on earth rather by the magic of
talismans than by the power of man.
"The present inhabitants of Tonga contemplate with a pious awe the fruit of
the labours and patience of their forefathers, without dreaming for a
moment of imitating them in their noble enterprises. A distant voyage
affrights these degenerate scions of a hardy race, and the great canoes
which still survive, sheltered under sheds very skilfully built, are little more
than the useless encumbrance of chiefs grown languid in the long peace
which has infected the whole people with habits of indolence.
"The most recent tombs consist of a small house enclosed on all sides, built
on a rising ground, and shaded by a circle of mimosas, a tree sacred to the
dead. Most of the illustrious graves are clustered together at Mafanga, a
large village of which the whole territory is sacred on account of the
hallowed relics which it contains. Along with the corpse they bury at the
depth of a few inches small wooden effigies representing persons of both

sexes. I had occasion to unearth a few of these little statues, and I remarked
in them an astonishing feeling for artistic design."[155]
Some sixteen years later a Catholic missionary, living among the heathen
population of Tongataboo, wrote thus: "Nothing equals the care which they
take in the burial of their dead. As soon as a native has breathed his last, the
neighbours are informed, and immediately all the women come to weep
about the corpse. Here the men never weep. The body is kept thus for a day
or two, during which they are busy building a tomb near the dwelling of the
deceased's family. The sepulchral house is neat, built on an eminence,
surrounded by a pretty fence of choice bamboos; the enclosure is planted
with all kinds of odoriferous shrubs, especially evergreens. Finally, the
monument is covered by a roof artistically constructed. For the tombs of
kings and the greatest chiefs they go to distant islands to find huge stones to
crown the grave. I have seen one twenty-four feet long by eight broad and
at least eighteen inches thick. One of these tombs was built by the natives of
Wallis Island, who brought the enormous blocks in immense canoes. It is
wonderful for these peoples."[156]
Captain Erskine, who visited Tongataboo in 1849, says that "near the
landing-place at the village of Holobeka, off which we were lying, we saw
overshadowed with trees, one of the faitokas, or old burial-places of the
country, which, although no longer 'tabu,' are still in some cases used as
places of sepulture, and very carefully kept. This one was an oblong square
platform a few feet high, surrounded by a stone wall, the interior being
beautifully paved with coloured corals and gravel; the house or temple,
which Captain Cook and others describe as occupying the centre, having
been, I suppose, removed. I saw but one other of these monuments during
our stay among the islands, the largest of which stands on several rows of
steps, as described by all former visitors."[157]
Thomas West, who lived as a missionary in the Tongan islands from 1846 to
1855, tells us that "chiefs were usually interred in tombs, constructed of
blocks of sandstone, cut from suitable localities by the seashore, where, at a
little depth from the surface, layers of hard and durable sandstone are
found, even on many of the coralline islands. In several of the ancient
burial-places, similar stones, arranged in terraces, surround the whole
enclosure. Some of these are of immense size, and seem to indicate the

possession, on the part of former inhabitants, either of greater energy than
the present race, or of better tools and appliances. The burial-places of the
Tonguese are always surrounded by the most imposing foliage of the
tropics, and placed in sequestered spots. A mound of earth is raised, of
dimensions varying with the necessities of the place; and, whenever a grave
is opened within the limits of this mound, it is always filled up with
beautiful white sand, and never contains more than one body. No particle of
clay or earthy mould is allowed to touch the remains of the dead. The sand
is brought in baskets by the chief mourners, who sometimes sail or journey
many miles to procure it; and each person pours the contents into the grave
until it is sufficiently filled up. The top of the grave is, afterwards, carefully
tended and decorated with black pebbles and red coral, arranged in various
devices, which have a very pretty effect. Small houses are also placed over
the tombs of the chiefs and gentry."[158]
In more recent years the tombs of the Tooitongas at Mooa have been visited
by Sir Basil Thomson, who has described and discussed them.[159] From an
anonymous pamphlet called The Wairarapa Wilderness, written by the
passengers of the s.s. Wairarapa and published in 1884, Sir Basil Thomson
quotes a passage containing a description of the tombs, with measurements
which, he tells us, are accurate as far as they go. From it I will extract a few
particulars. The writers inform us that the tombs are built of blocks of coral
which vary in length and thickness; some of the largest they found to be
from fifteen to eighteen feet long and from one and a half to two feet thick.
The largest measured by them is twenty-two feet long and two feet thick
and stands between seven and eight feet above the ground. This great stone,
now split in two, is at the middle of the lowest step of one of the pyramidal
tombs. The height of the steps varies much in the different pyramids; one
step was found to be four feet high. The breadth of each step is three feet or
more: it has been carefully levelled and covered with coral gravel. The
stones fit very closely and are very regular at top and bottom throughout the
tiers. The corners of one pyramid observed by the writers are formed of
huge rectangular stones, which seem to have been put in position before
they were finally faced. On the upper surface of the largest stone is a deep
hollow about the size and shape of a large chestnut mortar. Sir Basil
Thomson, who has examined this hollow, believes it to be a natural cavity
which has been artificially smoothed by a workman. He suggests that it may

have been lined with leaves and used as a bowl for brewing kava at the
funeral ceremonies. On one mound the writers of the pamphlet remarked a
large flat stone, some five and a half feet square; and in several of the tombs
they noticed huge slabs of volcanic stone placed indiscriminately side by
side with blocks of coral. The writers measured the bases of three of the
tombs and found them to be about two chains (one hundred and thirty-two
feet) long by a chain and a half (ninety-nine feet) broad; the base of a fourth
was even larger.[160]
Surveying these various accounts of the tombs of the Tooitongas or sacred
chiefs, we may perhaps conclude that, while the type of tomb varied in
different cases, the most characteristic, and certainly the most remarkable,
type was that of a stepped or terraced pyramid built of such large blocks of
stone as to merit the name of megalithic monuments. So far as I have
observed in the accounts given of them, this type of tomb was reserved
exclusively for the sacred chiefs, the Tooitongas, whom the Tongans
regarded as divine and as direct descendants of the gods. The civil kings, so
far as appears, were not buried in these massive pyramids, but merely in
stone vaults sunk in the summits of grassy mounds.

It is natural, with Sir Basil Thomson,[161] to compare the pyramids of the
Tooitongas with the similar structures called morais or marais which are
found in Tahiti and the Marquesas islands. Indeed, the very name morai was
sometimes applied to them by the Tongans themselves, though more usually
they called them fiatookas, which was simply the common word for
burying-ground.[162] In Tahiti and the Marquesas islands these marais were
in like manner truncated pyramids, rising in a series of steps or tiers, built
of stones, some of which were large, but apparently not so large as in the
corresponding Tongan edifices; for in describing one of the largest of the
Tahitian morais or marais Cook mentions only one stone measuring as
much as four feet seven inches in length by two feet four in breadth, though
he found several three and a half feet long by two and a half feet broad.
These dimensions can hardly compare with the size of the blocks in the
tombs of the Tooitongas, some of which, as we have seen, measure fifteen,
eighteen, and even twenty-two or twenty-four feet in length by eight or
twelve feet in height. These Tahitian and Marquesan pyramids are
commonly described as temples, and justly so, because the gods were

worshipped there and human sacrifices were offered on them.[163] But they
were also, like the similar structures in Tonga, used in certain cases for the
burial of the dead, or at all events for the preservation of their embalmed
bodies. Captain Cook seems even to have regarded the Tahitian morais
primarily as burying-grounds and only secondarily as places of worship.
[164]
In the island of Huahine, one of the Society Islands, the sovereign
chiefs were buried in a marai, where they lay, we are told, in more than
Oriental state.[165] William Ellis, one of our best authorities on the religion
of the Tahitians, tells us that "the family, district, or royal maraes were the
general depositories of the bones of the departed, whose bodies had been
embalmed, and whose skulls were sometimes preserved in the dwelling of
the survivors. The marae or temple being sacred, and the bodies being
under the guardianship of the gods, were in general considered secure when
deposited there. This was not, however, always the case; and in times of
war, the victors sometimes not only despoiled the temples of the
vanquished, and bore away their idol, but robbed the sacred enclosure of the
bones of celebrated individuals."[166] Moerenhout, another good authority
on the Tahitian religion, informs us that the marais which belonged to
individuals often served as cemeteries and were only the more respected on
that account; but he says that in the public marais almost the only persons
buried were the human victims offered in sacrifice, and sometimes the
priests, who were laid face downwards in the grave, for the curious reason
that otherwise the gaze of the dead men would blight the trees and cause the
fruit to fall to the ground.[167]
In the Marquesas islands the morais appear to have been also used
occasionally or even regularly as burial-places. Langsdorff, one of our
earliest authorities on these islands, speaks of a morai simply as a place of
burial.[168] He tells us that the mummified bodies of the dead were
deposited on scaffolds in the morai or family burial-place, and that the
people of neighbouring but hostile districts used to try to steal each other's
dead from the morais, and deemed it a great triumph when they succeeded
in the attempt. To defeat such attempts, when the inhabitants of a district
expected to be attacked in force by their enemies, they were wont to remove
their dead from the morai and bury them in the neighbourhood.[169] Again,
in their monograph on the Marquesas islands, the French writers
Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz recognise only the mortuary aspect of

the morais. They say: "The morais, funeral monuments where the bodies
are deposited, are set up on a platform of stone, which is the base of all
Nukahivan constructions. They are to be found scattered in the whole extent
of the valleys; no particular condition seems to be required in the choice of
the site. Near the shore of Taïohae is the morai which contains the remains
of a brother of the atepeïou Patini, an uncle of Moana, who died some years
ago, as they tell us."[170]
Thus to some extent, in function as well as in form, these pyramidical
temples of Tahiti and the Marquesas islands corresponded to the megalithic
monuments of the Tooitongas or sacred chiefs of Tonga; in fact, they were
mausoleums as well as temples. We are not at liberty to assume, with one
authority on the Polynesians, that they were mausoleums first and foremost,
and that they only developed into temples at a later time.[171] It is possible,
on the contrary, that from the outset they were temples dedicated to the
worship of the high gods, and that the custom of depositing the dead in
them was a later practice adopted for the sake of the protection which these
holy places might be expected to afford against the efforts of enemies to
carry off and desecrate the remains of the departed. Dr. Rivers propounded
a theory that the custom of building these megalithic monuments in the
form of pyramids was introduced into the Pacific by a people who brought
with them a secret worship of the sun, and he apparently inclined to regard
the monuments themselves as at least associated with that worship.[172] The
theory can hardly apply to the megalithic monuments of the Tooitongas in
Tongataboo; for the evidence which I have adduced seems to render it
certain that these monuments were erected primarily as tombs to receive the
bodies of the sacred chiefs. It is true that these tombs enjoyed a sacred
character and were the scene of worship which justly entitles them to rank
as temples; but so far as they were temples, they were devoted to the
worship, not of the sun, but of the dead.
Thus our enquiry into the meaning and origin of these interesting
monuments entirely confirms the view of the shrewd and observant Captain
Cook that the fiatookas, as the Tongans called them, were both places of
burial and places of worship.
Finally, the evidence which I have cited appears to render it highly probable
that these imposing monuments were built, not by a prehistoric people,

predecessors of the Tongans in the islands, but by the Tongans themselves;
for not only do the people affirm that the tombs were erected by their
ancestors, but they have definite traditions of some of the chiefs who built
them, and are buried in them; and they still profess to remember some of
the islands from which the huge stones were brought to Tongataboo in great
double canoes.
That the graves of the great chiefs were, like temples, regarded by the
people with religious reverence appears plainly from a statement of
Mariner. He tells us that a place called Mafanga, in the western part of
Tongataboo, being a piece of land about half a mile square, was consecrated
ground. "In this spot," he says, "are the graves where the greatest chiefs
from time immemorial have been buried, and the place is therefore
considered sacred; it would be a sacrilege to fight here, and nobody can be
prevented from landing: if the most inveterate enemies meet upon this
ground, they must look upon each other as friends, under penalty of the
displeasure of the gods, and consequently an untimely death, or some great
misfortune. There are several of these consecrated places on different
islands."[173] Thus the reverence paid to the tombs of the chiefs was like the
reverence paid to the consecrated houses and enclosures of the gods; we
have already seen what a sacrilege it was deemed to fight or to pursue an
enemy within the consecrated enclosure of a god,[174] and we now learn that
it was equally a sacrilege to fight within the ground that was hallowed by
the graves of the chiefs.
Mariner has described for us the worship paid by the king and his chiefs to
one of the sacred graves at Mafanga. One morning Finow the king,
accompanied by several of his chiefs and their ministers (the matabooles),
landed at Mafanga and immediately proceeded to his father's grave to
perform a ceremony called toogi. Mariner attended the party and witnessed
the ceremony. All who went to participate in it assumed the attire of
mourners or suppliants, that is, they wore mats instead of their usual dress
and they had wreaths, made of the leaves of the ifi tree, round their necks.
They sat down before the grave, and the king and all of them beat their
cheeks with their fists for about half a minute without speaking a word. One
of the principal ministers (matabooles) then addressed the spirit of the
king's father to the following effect: "Behold the man (meaning Finow, the
king) who has come to Tonga to fight his enemies. Be pleased with him,

and grant him thy protection. He comes to battle, hoping he is not doing
wrong. He has always held Tooitonga in the highest respect, and has
attended to all religious ceremonies with exactness." One of the attendants
then went to the king and received from him a piece of kava root, which he
laid down on the raised mount before the burial-place (fytoka). Several
others, who had pieces of kava root in their bosoms, went up to the grave in
like manner and deposited them there.[175]
Thus the king prayed to the spirit of his dead father at his grave and made
an offering at the tomb. What more could he do to a god at his temple? And
in general we are told that when a great blessing was desired, or a serious
evil deprecated, if the people wished to enjoy health or beget children, to be
successful at sea, or victorious in war, they would go to the burial grounds
of their great chiefs, clean them up thoroughly, sprinkle the floor with sand,
and lay down their offerings.[176] When Finow the king was dying, his
friends carried him on a bier, not only to the temples of the great gods Tali-
y-Toobo and Tooi-fooa-Bolotoo, where prayers for his recovery were
offered; they bore him also to the grave of a chieftainess and invoked her
spirit in like manner to pity and spare the expiring monarch.[177] Apparently
they thought that the ghost of the chieftainess was quite as able as the great
gods to heal the sick and restore the dying.
But on no occasion, perhaps, was the assimilation of dead men to gods so
conspicuous as at the annual offering of first-fruits, which seems to have
been the most impressive of all the yearly rites observed by the Tongans.
The ceremony was observed once a year just before the yams in general had
arrived at a state of maturity; the yams offered at it were of a kind which
admitted of being planted sooner than the others, and which consequently,
ripening earlier, were the first-fruits of the yam season. The object of the
offering was to ensure the protection of the gods, that their favour might be
extended to the welfare of the nation generally, and in particular to the
productions of the earth, of which in Tonga yams are the most important. At
this solemn ceremony the new yams, slung on poles, were brought from
distant islands, carried in procession to the grave of the late Tooitonga, and
deposited in front of it, their bearers sitting down beside them. Thereupon
one of the ministers (matabooles) of the living Tooitonga arose, advanced,
and sat down before the grave, a little in front of the men who had brought

the yams. Next he addressed the gods generally, and afterwards particularly,
mentioning the late Tooitonga and the names of several others. In doing so
he returned thanks for their divine bounty in favouring the land with the
prospect of a good harvest, and prayed that their beneficence might be
continued in future. In this harvest thanksgiving the spirit of the dead
Tooitonga seems to have ranked on an equality with the original or
superhuman gods; indeed, in a sense he took precedence of them, since the
offerings were presented at his grave. The first-fruits, we are told, were
offered to the gods in the person of the divine chief Tooitonga.[178]
On the whole we may conclude that, however sharp a distinction was drawn
in theory between the old gods, who had always been gods, and the new
gods, who had once been men, the line which divided them in practice was
wavering and blurred. The dead men and women were fast rising, if they
had not already risen, to an equality with the ancient deities. We may even
surmise that some of these old gods themselves were human beings, whose
original humanity was forgotten.
The tombs of the kings and sacred chiefs may be described as megalithic
monuments in so far as immense stones were often employed in the
construction either of the enclosing walls or of the high steps which led up
to the summit of the mound where the grave was dug. It is possible, and
indeed probable, that great stones were similarly employed as ornaments or
accessories of the consecrated houses or temples of the primary gods, but of
such an employment I have met with no express notice among our
authorities. So far as their descriptions allow us to judge, these megalithic
monuments of the Tongans were purely sepulchral in character; they were
dedicated only to the worship of the dead. But there exists at least one other
remarkable megalithic monument in these islands of which the original
meaning is quite uncertain, and of which consequently we cannot
confidently say that it was erected for the sake of honouring or propitiating
the spirits of the departed. The monument in question is situated near the
eastern extremity of Tongataboo, at a distance of three or four hundred
yards from the beach and facing towards the island of Eua. The land on
which it stands was the private property of the Tooitongas, whose
megalithic tombs are situated some eight or nine miles away to the west. In
the intervening country, which is perfectly flat and partly covered with
forest, partly under cultivation, there are said to be no other monuments or

ruins. It is remarkable that this imposing monument, which naturally
impresses the observer by its resemblance to the trilithons or gate-like
structures of Stonehenge, should have apparently escaped the observation
of Europeans down to the middle of the nineteenth century. It is not
mentioned by Cook and Mariner, nor even by those who, like the first
missionaries and Dumont d'Urville, described in some detail the tombs of
the Tooitongas not many miles off. Perhaps the solitariness of the
surrounding country may partly account for their ignorance and silence; for
there are said to be few inhabitants in this part of the island and none at all
in the immediate neighbourhood of the monument. It seems to have been
first discovered by Mr. Philip Hervey of Sydney in 1850 or 1851, but his
description of it was not published for some ten years. In August 1852 it
was seen by Dr. Charles Forbes, Surgeon of H.M.S. Calliope, and his
description of it was published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in
the following year. In 1865 it was seen and briefly described by Mr.
Foljambe of H.M.S. Curaçoa. Some twenty years later the passengers of the
s.s. Wairarapa, on a yachting cruise from New Zealand, visited the spot and
published an account of the structure. Still later Sir Basil Thomson
examined the monument and discussed its history.[179]
The monument in question is a structure of the type known as a trilithon;
that is, it is composed of three large stones, of which two stand upright,
while the third rests horizontally on their tops. All three stones are
monoliths of hardened coral, rough and much weathered on the surface, and
precisely similar to the coral of the neighbouring reefs. Indeed, about
halfway between the monument and the beach the coral rock is exposed in a
hollow, from which it seems probable that the great blocks were hewn and
brought to their present situation. The statement of Mr. Brenchley, that the
stone of which the monument consists is not to be found elsewhere on the
island, is erroneous. The uprights are quadrangular monoliths neatly
squared. No measurements of the stones appear to be on record, but the two
uprights are variously estimated to measure from fourteen to sixteen feet in
height; their breadth or depth from front to back is variously given as from
eight to ten or even twelve feet; but they seem to taper somewhat upwards,
for the estimate which assigns twelve feet for the depth of the uprights at
their base, mentions seven feet or probably more as their breadth at the top.
The thickness of the uprights seems to be four feet. The space between them

is variously stated at ten and twelve feet. The cross-stone, which rests on
the two uprights, is reported to measure twenty-four feet in length, by four
or five feet in depth, and two feet in thickness. Each of the uprights is
estimated by Sir Basil Thomson to weigh not less than fifty tons. The tops
of both are deeply mortised to receive the cross-stone, the ends of which are
sunk into them instead of being laid flat on the top. The cross-stone lies east
and west, so that the opening between the uprights faces north and south.
On the upper surface of the cross-stone, and at about the middle of it, is a
cup-like hollow, very carefully cut, about the size of a coco-nut shell. A
large bowl of the same material is said to have formerly stood on the cross-
stone, but the statement is not made by an eyewitness and is probably
mistaken.[180]
The name which the natives give to this megalithic monument is Haamonga
or Ho ha Mo-nga Maui, which is said to mean "Maui's burden." The name
is explained by a story that the god or hero Maui brought the massive stones
in a gigantic canoe from Uea (Wallis Island), where the great holes in the
rock from which he quarried them may still be seen. From the canoe he
bore them on his back to the spot where they now stand.[181] This story can
hardly be thought to throw much light on the origin of the monument; for
the natives are in the habit of referring the marvels which they do not
understand to the action of the god or hero Maui, just as the ancient Greeks
fathered many natural wonders on the deified hero Hercules.[182] But from
Mateialona, Governor of Haapai and cousin of the King of Tonga, Sir Basil
Thomson obtained a tradition of the origin of the stones which is at least
free from the miraculous element and connects the monument with Tongan
history. The account runs thus: "Concerning the Haamonga of Maui, they
say forsooth that a Tui Tonga (the sacred line of chiefs), named Tui-ta-tui,
erected it, and that he was so named because it was a time of assassination.
[183]
And they say that he had it built for him to sit upon during the Faikava
(ceremony of brewing kava), when the people sat round him in a circle, and
that the king so dreaded assassination that he had this lordly seat built for
himself that he might sit out of the reach of his people. And this, they say, is
the origin of the present custom of the Faikava, it being now forbidden for
any one to sit behind the king." At such wassails the presiding chief sits at
the apex of an oval. To this tradition Sir Basil Thomson adds: "Mr. Shirley
Baker told me that he believed the Haamonga to have been erected as a

fakamanatu (memorial) to the son of some Tui Tonga, a view that finds
support in the fondness of Tongan chiefs for originality in the burial
ceremonies of their near relations—witness Mariner's account of the funeral
of Finau's daughter—but on the other hand native traditions generally have
a kernel of truth, and the legend of Tui-ta-tui and its consequences finds an
analogy in our own custom of guarding against an assassin's dagger at the
drinking of the loving cup."[184] The tradition receives some confirmation
from the bowl-like hollow on the upper surface of the cross-stone; for the
hollow might have served as the king's drinking-cup to hold his kava at the
customary wassails. Indeed, Mr. Philip Hervey, the first to examine the
monument, describes the hollow in question as "a small cava bowl";[185]
and after giving an account of the monument Mr. Brenchley adds: "Its
history seems to be entirely unknown, but it is very natural to suppose from
its form that it was connected with some ancient kava ceremonies."[186]
The tradition which connects the erection of the monument with the reign
of a Tooitonga named Tui-ta-tui is further countenanced, if not confirmed,
by a list of the Tooitongas, in which the name of Tui-ta-tui occurs as the
eleventh in descent from the great god Tangaloa.[187] This Tui-ta-tui is
believed to have reigned in the thirteenth or fourteenth century of our era.
[188]
From the size and style of the masonry Sir Basil Thomson is disposed
to assign the monument to a later date. He points out that for the quarrying
and mortising of stones that weigh some fifty tons apiece the craft of stone-
cutting must have been fully developed; and from a comparison of the
megalithic tombs of the Tooitongas which can be approximately dated, he
infers that the craft of stone-cutting in Tonga reached its culmination at the
end of the seventeenth century, though it was still practised down to the
beginning of the nineteenth century; for Mariner tells us that in his time a
professional class of masons was set apart for building the stone sepulchral
vaults of chiefs.[189] Yet on the whole Sir Basil Thomson concludes that
"when one is left to choose between a definite native tradition on the one
hand and probability on the other for the assignment of a date, I would
prefer the tradition. If the Tongans had invented the story as a mere
expression for antiquity they would not have pitched upon Tui-ta-tui, about
whom nothing else is recorded, in preference to Takalaua, Kau-ulu-fonua-
fekai, or any of the kings who loom large in traditionary history. Whether
the Haamonga was built for a throne or for a memorial, doubtless it is

connected with the reign of Tui-ta-tui, who lived in the fourteenth century."
[190]

As an alternative to the view that the hollow on the cross-stone was a kava
bowl Dr. Rivers suggests that it "may have been destined to receive the
skull and other bones of the dead, so often preserved in Polynesia."[191] The
suggestion accords well with the opinion that the monument is a memorial
of the dead, and it might be supported by the Samoan practice of severing a
dead chief's head from his body and burying it separately, to save it from
being dug up and desecrated by enemies in time of war.[192] However, Dr.
Rivers is careful to add that such a practice is not recorded in Tonga and
appears to be incompatible with the mode of sepulture which prevails there.
In this connexion another megalithic monument of the Tonga islands
deserves to be considered, though it appears to have been commonly
overlooked. It was observed by Captain Cook in the island of Lefooga
(Lifuka). He says: "Near the south end of the island, and on the west side,
we met with an artificial mount. From the size of some trees that were
growing upon it, and from other appearances, I guessed that it had been
raised in remote times. I judged it to be about forty feet high; and the
diameter of its summit measured fifty feet. At the bottom of this mount
stood a stone, which must have been hewn out of coral rock. It was four feet
broad, two and a half thick, and fourteen high; and we were told by the
natives present, that not above half its length appeared above ground. They
called it Tangata Arekee;[193] and said, that it had been set up, and the
mount raised, by some of their forefathers, in memory of one of their kings;
but how long since, they could not tell."[194]
When we remember that Tongan kings were commonly buried in such
mounds as Captain Cook here describes, and further that these mounds
were commonly enclosed or faced with great blocks of hewn stone, we may
be disposed to accept as reasonable and probable the explanation which the
natives gave of this great monolith, which, if the reported measurements of
it are correct, must have been no less than twenty-eight feet high. If it was
indeed a memorial of a dead king, it might be thought to strengthen the
view that the great trilithon was also set up as a monument to a deceased
monarch or Tooitonga.

Another possible explanation of the trilithon is, as Sir Basil Thomson points
out, that it served as a gateway to some sacred spot inland. But against this
view he observes that he examined the bush for some distance in the
neighbourhood without finding any trace of ruins or stones of any kind. He
adds that the memory of sacred spots dies very hard in Tonga, and that the
natives do not believe the trilithon to have been a gateway.[195]
It is natural to compare the trilithon of Tongataboo with the famous
trilithons of Stonehenge, which it resembles in plan and to which it is
comparable in size. The resemblance struck Dr. Charles Forbes, the first to
publish a description of the monument based on personal observation. He
says: "The route we pursued led us over a country perfectly level, with the
exception of occasional mounds of earth, apparently artificial, and
reminding one very much of the barrows of Wilts and Dorset, which idea is
still more strongly impressed upon the mind on coming in sight of the
monument, which bears a most striking resemblance to the larger gateway-
looking stones at Stonehenge."[196] But at the same time, as Dr. Forbes did
not fail to note, the Tongan trilithon differs in some respects from those of
Stonehenge. In the first place the interval (ten or twelve feet) between the
uprights of the Tongan trilithon appears to be much greater than the interval
between the uprights of the trilithons at Stonehenge.[197] In the second
place, the cross-stone of the Tongan trilithon is mortised much more deeply
into the uprights than are the cross-stones at Stonehenge. For whereas at
Stonehenge these cross-stones present the appearance of being laid flat on
the top of the uprights, the cross-stone of the Tongan trilithon is sunk deeply
into the uprights by means of mortises or grooves about two feet wide
which are cut into the uprights, so that the top of the cross-stone is nearly
flush with their tops, while its ends also are nearly flush with their outside
surfaces.[198]
As the origin and purpose of Stonehenge are still unknown, its massive
trilithons can hardly be cited to explain the similar monument of
Tongataboo. The rival theories which see in Stonehenge a memorial of the
dead and a temple of the sun[199] are equally applicable or inapplicable to
the Tongan monument. In favour of the mortuary character of this solitary
trilithon it might be urged that the Tongans were long accustomed to erect
megalithic monuments, though of a different type, at the tombs of their

sacred kings, which are situated not many miles away; but against this view
it may be argued that there are no traces of burial or graves in the
immediate neighbourhood, and that native tradition, not lightly to be set
aside, assigns a different origin to the monument. Against the solar
interpretation of the trilithon it may be alleged, first, that the monument
faces north and south, not east and west, as it might be expected to do if it
were a temple of the sun or a gateway leading into such a temple; second,
that, while a circle of trilithons, as at Stonehenge, with an opening towards
the sunrise may be plausibly interpreted as a temple of the sun, such an
interpretation cannot so readily be applied to a solitary trilithon facing north
and south; and, third, that no trace of sun-worship has been discovered in
the Tonga islands. So far as I have observed, the Tongan pantheon is
nowhere said to have included a sun-god, and the Tongans are nowhere
reported to have paid any special respect to the sun. Savages in general, it
may be added, appear to be very little addicted to sun-worship; it is for the
most part among peoples at a much higher level of culture, such as the
ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Peruvians, that solar worship becomes
an important, or even the predominant, feature of the national faith.[200]
Perhaps the impulse to it came rather from the meditations of priestly
astronomers than from the random fancies of common men. Some depth of
thought was needed to detect in the sun the source of all life on earth; the
immutable regularity of the great luminary's movements failed to rouse the
interest or to excite the fear of the savage, to whom the elements of the
unusual, the uncertain, and the terrible are the principal incentives to
wonder and awe, and hence to reflexion. We are all naturally more
impressed by extraordinary than by ordinary events; the fine edge of the
mind is dulled by familiarity in the one case and whetted by curiosity in the
other.
Bearing in mind the numerous other stone monuments scattered widely
over the islands of the Pacific, from the Carolines to Easter Island, Dr.
Guillemard concludes that some race, with a different, if not a higher
civilisation preceded the Polynesian race in its present homes, and to this
earlier race he would apparently refer the erection of the trilithon in
Tongataboo.[201] He may be right. Yet when we consider, first, the native
tradition of the setting up of the trilithon by one of the sacred kings of
Tonga; second, the practice of the Tongans of building megalithic tombs for

these same sacred kings; and, third, the former existence in Tonga of a
professional class of masons whose business it was to construct stone vaults
for the burial of chiefs,[202] we may hesitate to resort to the hypothesis of an
unknown people in order to explain the origin of a monument which the
Tongans, as we know them, appear to have been quite capable of building
for themselves.

§ 11. Rites of Burial and Mourning

The only mode of disposing of the dead which was practised in the Tonga
islands seems to have been burial in the earth. So far as appears, the corpse
was not doubled up, but laid at full length in the grave; at all events I have
met with no mention of burying a corpse in a contracted posture; and
Captain Cook says that "when a person dies, he is buried, after being
wrapped up in mats and cloth, much after our manner." He adds that, while
chiefs had the special burial-places called fiatookas appropriated to their
use, common people were interred in no particular spot.[203] So far as I have
observed, none of our authorities speak of a practice of embalming the dead
or of giving the bodies any particular direction in the grave.
After a death the mourners testified their sorrow by dressing in old ragged
mats and wearing green leaves of the ifi tree round their necks. Thus attired
they would repair to the tomb, where, on entering the enclosure, they would
pull off the green twigs from their necks and throw them away; then sitting
down they would solemnly drink kava.[204] Further, they accompanied their
cries and ejaculations of grief and despair by inflicting on their own bodies
many grievous wounds and injuries. They burned circles and scars on their
bodies, beat their teeth with stones, struck shark's teeth into their heads till
the blood flowed in streams, and thrust spears into the inner part of the
thigh, into their sides below the arm-pits, and through the cheeks into the
mouth.[205] Women in wailing would cut off their fingers, and slit their
noses, their ears, and their cheeks.[206] At the funerals of the kings
especially the mourners indulged in frantic excesses of self-torture and
mutilation. Of two such funerals we have the detailed descriptions of eye-
witnesses who resided in the islands at a time when the natives were as yet
practically unaffected by European influence. King Moomōoe died in April
1797, and the first missionaries to Tonga witnessed and described his

funeral. They have told how, when the corpse was being carried in
procession to a temporary house near the royal burial-ground (fiatooka), it
was preceded by relatives of the deceased in the usual mourning garb, who
cut their heads with shark's teeth till the blood streamed down their faces. A
few days later, when the burial was to take place, the missionaries found
about four thousand people assembled at the mound where the body was to
be interred. In a few minutes they heard a great shouting and blowing of
conch-shells, and soon after there appeared about a hundred men, armed
with clubs and spears, who, rushing into the area, began to cut and mangle
themselves in a most dreadful manner. Many struck their heads such violent
blows with their clubs that the sound could be heard thirty or forty yards
off, and they repeated them till the blood ran down in streams. Others, who
had spears, thrust them through their thighs, arms, and cheeks, all the while
calling on the deceased in a most affecting manner. A native of Fiji, who
had been a servant of the late king, appeared quite frantic; he entered the
area with fire in his hand, and having previously oiled his hair, he set it
ablaze, and ran about with it all on flame. When they had satisfied or
exhausted themselves with this manner of torment, they sat down, beat their
faces with their fists, and then retired. A second party then inflicted on
themselves the same cruelties. A third party next entered, shouting and
blowing shells; four of the foremost held stones, which they used to knock
out their teeth, while those who blew the shells employed them as knives
with which they hacked their heads in a shocking manner. A man who had a
spear pierced his arm with it just above the elbow, and with it sticking fast
in his flesh ran about the area for some time. Another, who seemed to be a
principal chief, acted as if quite bereft of his senses; he ran to every corner
of the area, and at each station beat his head with a club till the blood
flowed down on his shoulders. At this point the missionary, unable to bear
the sight of these self-inflicted tortures, quitted the scene. When his
colleagues visited the place some hours later in the afternoon, they found
the natives of both sexes still at the dreadful work of cutting and mangling
themselves. In the course of these proceedings a party of mourners entered
the area, sixteen of whom had recently cut off their little fingers. They were
followed by another party with clubs and spears, who battered and wounded
themselves in the usual fashion, and also disfigured their faces with coco-
nut husks, which they had fastened to the knuckles of both hands. The
missionaries noticed that the mourners who were either related to the dead

king or had held office under him, were the most cruel to themselves; some
of them thrust two, three, and even four spears into their arms, and so
danced round the area, while others broke off the spear-heads in their flesh.
[207]

Similar scenes were witnessed some years later by Mariner at the death and
burial of Finow, another king of Tonga; and the Englishman has described
from personal observation how on this occasion the mourners cut and
wounded their heads and bodies with clubs, stones, knives, or sharp shells.
This they did on one or other of the malais[208] or ceremonial grounds in the
presence of many spectators, vying apparently with each other in the effort
to surpass the rest in this public manifestation of their sorrow for the death
of the king and their respect for his memory. As one ran out into the middle
of the ground he would cry, "Finow! I know well your mind; you have
departed to Bolotoo, and left your people under suspicion that I, or some of
those about you, were unfaithful; but where is the proof of infidelity? where
is a single instance of disrespect?" Then, inflicting violent blows and deep
cuts on his head with a club, stone, or knife, he would again exclaim at
intervals, "Is this not a proof of my fidelity? does this not evince loyalty and
attachment to the memory of the departed warrior?" Some more violent
than others cut their heads to the skull with such heavy and repeated blows
that they reeled and lost their reason for a time.[209] The king's successor,
Finow the Second, not content with the usual instruments of torture,
employed a saw for the purpose, striking his skull with the teeth so
violently that he staggered for loss of blood; but this he did, not at the time
of the burial and in presence of the multitude, but some weeks later at a
more private ceremony of mourning before the grave.[210] At the public
ceremony the late king's fishermen varied the usual breaking of heads and
slashing of bodies by a peculiar form of self-torment. Instead of clubs they
appropriately carried the paddles of canoes, with which they battered their
heads in the orthodox style; but besides every man of them had three arrows
stuck through each cheek in a slanting direction, so that, while the points
pierced through the cheeks into the mouth, the other ends went over the
shoulder and were kept in position by another arrow, the point of which was
tied to the ends of the arrows passing over one shoulder, while the other end
was tied to the ends of the other arrows which passed over the other
shoulder. Thus each fisherman was decorated with a triangle of arrows, of

which the apex consisted of six arrow-heads in his mouth, while the base
dangled on his back. With this remarkable equipment they walked round the
grave, beating their faces and heads with their paddles, or pinching up the
skin of the breast and sticking a spear right through it.[211]
The grave of a chief's family was a vault paved with a single large stone,
while the four walls were formed each of a single block. The vault was
about eight feet long, six feet broad, and eight feet deep, and was covered at
the top by one large stone.[212] So heavy was this covering stone that, as we
have seen, from a hundred and fifty to two hundred men were required to
lift and lower it.[213] Mariner estimated that the family vault in which King
Finow was interred was large enough to hold thirty bodies. When the king's
corpse was being deposited in it, Mariner saw two dry and perfectly
preserved bodies lying in the vault, together with the bones of several
others; and he was told by old men that the well-preserved bodies had been
buried when they, his informants, were boys, which must have been
upwards of forty years before; whereas the bodies of which nothing but the
bones remained had been buried later. The natives attributed the exceptional
preservation of the two to the better constitution of their former owners;
Mariner, or more probably his editor, Dr. Martin, preferred to suppose that
the difference was due to the kind or duration of the disease which had
carried them off. Apparently the natives did not suggest that the bodies had
been embalmed, which they would almost certainly have done if they had
known of such a custom.[214] No sooner was the king's body deposited in
the grave, and the great stone lowered over it, than certain ministers
(matabooles) and warriors ran like men frantic round and round the burial-
ground, exclaiming, "Alas! how great is our loss! Finow! you are departed;
witness this proof of our love and loyalty!" At the same time they cut and
bruised their own heads with clubs, knives, and axes in the usual fashion.
[215]
Afterwards the grave was filled up with earth and strewed with sand,
which a company of women and men had brought for the purpose in
baskets from a place at the back of the island; what remained of the sand
was scattered over the sepulchral mound (fytoca), of which it was deemed a
great embellishment. The inside of the burial-ground was then spread with
mats made of coco-nut leaves.[216]

Meantime the company of mourners had been seated on the green before
the burial-ground, still wearing their mourning garb of mats, with leaves of
the ifi tree strung round their necks. They now arose and went to their
homes, where they shaved their heads and burnt their cheeks with a lighted
roll of bark-cloth, by applying it once upon each cheek-bone; next they
rubbed the place with an astringent berry, which caused it to bleed, and
afterwards they smeared the blood in a broad circle round the wound,
giving themselves a very ghastly appearance. They repeated this friction
with the berry every day, making the wound bleed afresh; and the men
meanwhile neglected to shave and to oil themselves during the day, though
they indulged in these comforts at night. Having burnt their cheeks and
shaved their heads, they built for themselves small temporary huts, where
they lived during the time of mourning, which lasted twenty days.[217]
The women who had become tabooed, that is, in a state of ceremonial
pollution, by touching the king's dead body, remained constantly within the
burial-ground for the twenty days of mourning, except when they retired to
one of the temporary huts to eat,[218] or rather to be fed by others. For it was
a rule that no ordinary person, man or woman, could touch a dead chief
without being tabooed, that is ceremonially polluted, for ten lunar months,
during which time he or she might not touch food with their own hands. But
for chiefs the period of pollution was limited to three, four, or five months,
according to the superiority of the dead chief. Only when the dead body
which they had touched was that of the sacred chief, the Tooitonga, they
were all tabooed for ten months, however high their rank; for example, the
king's wife was tabooed for that length of time during the residence of
Mariner, because she had touched the dead body of the Tooitonga. During
the time that a person was tabooed, he might not feed himself with his own
hands, but must be fed by somebody else: he might not even use a toothpick
himself, but might guide another person's hand holding the toothpick. If he
was hungry and had no one to feed him, he must go down on his hands and
knees, and pick up his victuals with his mouth; and if he infringed any of
these rules, it was firmly expected that he would swell up and die.[219]
Captain Cook observed this custom in operation at Tongataboo. On one of
his walks he met with a party of women at supper, and noticed that two of
them were being fed by others. On asking the reason, he was answered
taboo mattee, that is, "Death taboo." It was explained to him that one of the

women had washed the dead body of a chief two months before, and that
consequently she might not handle any food for five months. The other had
performed the same office for the corpse of another person of inferior rank,
and was now under the same restriction, but not for so long a time.[220] The
tabooed women at Finow's grave were supplied with food by the new king,
Finow the Second. The food was brought and placed on the ground at some
distance from the grave, or else it was deposited before the temporary house
to which the chief of the tabooed women retired to be fed. With the
provisions was also sent every day a supply of torches to light up the burial-
ground by night. The torches were held up by a woman of inferior rank,
who, when she was tired, was relieved in her office by another. During the
twenty days of mourning, if any one passed the burial-ground, he had to go
at a slow pace, with his head bowed down, and his hands clasped before
him; and if he carried a burden, he must lower it from his shoulder and
carry it in his hands or on his bended arms; but if he could not do so
conveniently, he had to make a circuit to avoid the grave.
Such were the regular observances at the death and burial of chiefs; they
were not peculiar to the obsequies of Finow the king.[221]
The twentieth day of mourning concluded the ceremonies in honour of the
deceased monarch. Early in the morning all his relations, together with the
members of his household, and also the women who were tabooed on
account of having touched his dead body in the process of oiling and
preparing it, went to the back of the island to procure a quantity of flat
pebbles, principally white, but a few black, which they brought back in
baskets to the grave. There they strewed the inside of the house and the
outside of the burial-ground (fytoca) with the white pebbles as a decoration;
the black pebbles they laid only on the top of those white ones which
covered the ground directly over the body, to about the length and breadth
of a man, in the form of a very eccentric ellipse. After that, the house on the
burial mound was closed up at both ends with a reed fencing, which
reached from the eaves to the ground; while at the front and the back the
house was closed with a sort of basket-work, made of the young branches
of the coco-nut tree, split and interwoven in a very curious and ornamental
way. These fences were to remain until the next burial, when they would be
taken down and, after the conclusion of the ceremony, replaced by new ones
of similar pattern. A large quantity of food and kava was now sent by the

chiefs and the king to the public place (malai) in front of the burial mound,
and these provisions were served out among the people in the usual way.
The company then separated and repaired to their respective houses, to
prepare for the dances and the grand wrestling-match, which were to
conclude the funeral rites.[222]
During the intervals of the dances, which followed, several warriors and
ministers (matabooles) ran before the grave, cutting and bruising their
heads with axes, clubs, and so forth as proofs of fidelity to their late chief,
the dead and buried King Finow. It was on this occasion that the deceased
king's fishermen demonstrated their loyalty and attachment to his memory
by the self-inflicted tortures which I have already described.[223] When
these exhibitions of cruelty were over, the day's ceremonies, which
altogether lasted about six hours, were terminated by a grand wrestling-
match. That being over, the people dispersed to their respective houses or
occupations, and the obsequies of Finow, king of the Tonga islands, came to
an end.[224]
The wrestling-match which wound up the funeral honours paid to the
departed monarch would seem not to have been an isolated case of athletic
sports held at this particular funeral. Apparently it was a general custom in
Tonga to conclude burial-rites with games of this kind. At least we may
infer as much from an expression made use of by the first missionaries to
Tongataboo. They say that the chief of their district, after taking to himself
a wife in the morning went in the afternoon "to finish the funeral
ceremonies for his brother, in celebrating the games usual on that occasion."
[225]
The practice, which is apt to seem to us incongruous, of holding games
at a funeral, was observed by the Greeks in antiquity and by not a few other
peoples in modern times.[226]
On the other hand the obsequies of the sacred or divine chief, the
Tooitonga, differed in certain remarkable particulars from the posthumous
honours generally paid to chiefs. It is true that his burial-place was of the
same form as that of other chiefs, and that the mode of his interment did not
differ essentially from theirs, except that it was customary to deposit some
of his most valuable property with him in the grave, including his beads,
whale's teeth, fine Samoan mats, and other articles. Hence the family
burying-place of the Tooitongas in the island of Tongataboo, where the

whole line of these pontiffs had been interred, must have become very rich
in the course of time; for no native would dare to commit the sacrilege of
stealing the treasures at the holy tomb.[227] However, the sacrifice of
property to the dead seems not to have been, as Mariner supposed, peculiar
to the funeral of the Tooitonga; for at the burial of King Moomōoe, in May
1797, the first missionaries saw files of women and men bringing bags of
valuable articles, fine mats, and bales of cloth, which they deposited in the
tomb expressly as a present for the dead.[228] Again, the mourning costume
worn for the Tooitonga was the same as that for any chief, consisting of
ragged old mats on the body and leaves of the ifi tree round the neck; but in
the case of the Tooitonga the time of mourning was extended to four
months, the mats being generally left off after three months, while the
leaves were still retained for another month; and the female mourners
remained within the burial-ground (fytoca, fiatooka) for about two months,
instead of twenty days, only retiring occasionally to temporary houses in
the neighbourhood to eat or for other necessary purposes.[229]
One very remarkable peculiarity in the mourning for a Tooitonga was that,
though he ranked above the king and all other chiefs, the mourners strictly
abstained from manifesting their grief by wounding their heads and cutting
their bodies in the manner that was customary at the funerals of all other
great men. Mariner was never able to learn the reason for this abstention.
[230]

Other peculiar features in the obsequies of a Tooitonga were the following.
In the afternoon of the day of burial, when the body of the Tooitonga was
already within the burial-ground, almost every man, woman, and child, all
dressed in the usual mourning garb, and all provided with torches, used to
sit down about eighty yards from the grave; in the course of an hour a
multitude of several thousands would thus assemble. One of the female
mourners would then come forth from the burial-ground and call out to the
people, saying, "Arise ye, and approach"; whereupon the people would get
up, and advancing about forty yards would again sit down. Two men behind
the grave now began to blow conch-shells, and six others, with large lighted
torches, about six feet high, advanced from behind the burial-ground,
descended the mound, and walked in single file several times between the
burial-ground and the people, waving their flaming torches in the air. After

that they began to ascend the mound, whereupon all the people rose up
together and made a loud crashing noise by snapping their bolatas, which
were pieces of the stem of a banana tree used to receive the ashes falling
from lighted torches. Having done so, the people followed the torch-bearers
in single file up the mound and walked in procession round about the tomb
(fytoca). As they passed at the back of the tomb, they all, torch-bearers and
people, deposited their extinguished torches on the ground; while the
female mourners within thanked them for providing these things. Having
thus marched round, the people returned to their places and sat down.
Thereupon the master of the ceremonies came forward and ordered them to
divide themselves into parties according to their districts; which being done
he assigned to one party the duty of clearing away the bushes and grass
from one side of the grave, and to another party a similar task in regard to
another side of the grave, while a third party was charged to remove
rubbish, and so forth. In this way the whole neighbourhood of the burial-
ground was soon cleared, and when this was done, all the people returned to
the temporary houses which, as mourners, they were bound to occupy.[231]
Soon after darkness had fallen, certain persons stationed at the grave began
again to sound the conches, while others chanted a song, or rather recitative,
partly in the Samoan dialect, partly in an unknown language, of which the
natives could give no account. None of them understood the words, nor
could they explain how their forefathers came to learn them. All that they
knew was that the words had been handed down from father to son among
the class of people whose business it was to direct burial ceremonies.
According to Mariner, some of the words were Tongan, and he thought that
the language was probably an old or corrupt form of Tongan, though he
could make no sense out of it. Such traditional repetition of a litany in an
unknown tongue is not uncommon among savages; it occurs, for instance,
very frequently among some of the aboriginal tribes of Australia, where the
chants or recitatives accompanying certain dances or ceremonies are often
passed on from one tribe to another, the members of which perform the
borrowed dance or ceremony and repeat by rote the borrowed chants or
recitatives without understanding a word of them.[232]
While the conches were sounding and the voices of the singers broke the
silence of night, about sixty men assembled before the grave, where they
awaited further orders. When the chanting was over, and the notes of the

conches had ceased to sound, one of the women mourners came forward,
and sitting down outside the graveyard addressed the men thus: "Men! ye
are gathered here to perform the duty imposed on you; bear up, and let not
your exertions be wanting to accomplish the work." With these words she
retired into the burial-ground. The men now approached the mound in the
dark, and, in the words of Mariner, or his editor, performed their devotions
to Cloacina, after which they withdrew. As soon as it was daylight the next
morning, the women of the first rank, wives and daughters of the greatest
chiefs, assembled with their female attendants, bringing baskets and shells
wherewith to clear up the deposit of the preceding night; and in this
ceremonious act of humility no lady of the highest rank refused to take her
part. Some of the mourners in the burial-ground generally came out to
assist, so that in a very little while the place was made perfectly clean. This
deposit was repeated the fourteen following nights, and as punctually
cleared away by sunrise every morning. No persons but the agents were
allowed to be witnesses of these extraordinary ceremonies; at least it would
have been considered highly indecorous and irreligious to pry upon them.
On the sixteenth day, early in the morning, the same women again
assembled, but now they were dressed in the finest bark-cloth and beautiful
Samoan mats, decorated with ribbons and with wreaths of flowers round
their necks; they also brought new baskets, ornamented with flowers, and
little brooms very tastefully made. Thus equipped, they approached and
acted as if they had the same task to perform as before, pretending to clear
up the dirt, and to take it away in their baskets, though there was no dirt to
remove. Then they returned to the capital and resumed their mourning dress
of mats and leaves. Such were the rites performed during the fifteen days;
every day the ceremony of the burning torches was also repeated.[233]
For one month from the day of burial, greater or less quantities of
provisions were brought every day and shared out to the people. On the first
day the quantity supplied was prodigious; but day by day the supply
gradually diminished till on the last day it was reduced to very little.[234]
Nevertheless the consumption or waste of food on such occasions was so
great that to guard against a future dearth of provisions it was deemed
necessary to lay a prohibition or taboo on the eating of hogs, fowls, and
coco-nuts for a period of eight or ten months, though two or three
plantations were exempted from this rigorous embargo, to the end that in

the meantime hogs, fowls, and coco-nuts might be furnished for occasional
religious rites, and that the higher order of chiefs might be able to partake of
these victuals. At the end of the eight or ten months' fast the taboo was
removed and permission to eat of the forbidden foods was granted by the
king at a solemn ceremony. Immense quantities of yams having been
collected and piled up in columns, and some three or four hundred hogs
having been killed, the people assembled from all quarters at the king's
malái or public place. Of the slaughtered hogs about twenty were deposited,
along with a large quantity of yams, at the grave of the deceased Tooitonga.
The rest of the provisions were shared out in definite proportions among the
gods, the king, the divine chief (the living Tooitonga), the inferior chiefs,
and the people, so that every man in the island of Tongataboo got at least a
mouthful of pork and yam. The ceremony concluded with dancing,
wrestling, and other sports, after which every person retired to his home
with his portion of food to share it with his family. The hogs and yams
deposited at the dead Tooitonga's grave were left lying till the pork stank
and the yams were rotten, whereupon the living Tooitonga ordered that they
should be distributed to all who chose to apply for a portion. In strict law
they belonged to the principal chiefs, but as these persons were accustomed
to feed on meat in a rather less advanced stage of decomposition they
kindly waived their claims to the putrid pork and rotten yams in favour of
the lower orders, who were less nice in their eating.[235]
It was customary that the chief widow of the Tooitonga should be strangled
and interred with his dead body.[236] But the practice of strangling a wife at
her husband's funeral was not limited to the widows of the Tooitongas. A
similar sacrifice seems to have been formerly offered at the obsequies of a
king; for at the funeral of King Moomöoe the first missionaries to Tonga
saw two of the king's widows being led away to be strangled.[237]
The funeral and mourning customs which we have passed in review serve
to illustrate the Tongan conceptions of the soul and of its survival after
death. The strangling of widows was probably intended here as elsewhere to
despatch their spirits to attend their dead husbands in the spirit land;[238]
and the deposition of valuable property in the grave can hardly have had, at
least in origin, any other object than to ensure the comfort of the departed in
the other world, and incidentally, perhaps, to remove from him any

temptation to return to his sorrowing friends in this world for the purpose of
recovering the missing articles. The self-inflicted wounds and bruises of the
mourners were clearly intended to impress the ghost with the sincerity of
their regret at his departure from this sublunary scene; if any doubt could
linger in our minds as to the intention of these extravagant proceedings, it
would be set at rest by the words with which, as we have seen, the mourners
accompanied them, calling on the dead man to witness their voluntary
tortures and to judge for himself of the genuineness of their sorrow. In this
connexion it is to be borne in mind that all dead noblemen, in the opinion of
the Tongans, were at once promoted to the rank of deities; so that it was in
their power to visit any disrespect to their memory and any defalcation of
their dues with the double terror of ghosts and of gods. No wonder that the
Tongans sought to keep on good terms with such mighty beings by
simulating, when they did not feel, a sense of the irreparable loss which the
world had sustained by their dissolution.

§ 12. The Ethical Influence of Tongan Religion

Surveyed as a whole, the Tongan religion presents a singular instance of a
creed which restricted the hope of immortality to the nobly born and denied
it to commoners. According to the doctrine which it inculcated, the
aristocratic pre-eminence accorded to chiefs in this world was more than
maintained by them in the next, where they enjoyed a monopoly of
immortality. And not content with sojourning in the blissful regions of
Bolotoo, their departed spirits often returned to earth to warn, to direct, to
threaten their people, either in dreams and visions of the night, or by the
mouth of the priests whom they inspired. Such beliefs involved in theory
and to some extent in practice a subjection of the living to the dead, of the
seen and temporal to the unseen and eternal. In favour of the creed it may at
least be alleged that, while it looked to spiritual powers, whether ghosts or
gods, for the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice, it did not appeal
to another life to redress the balance of justice which had been disturbed in
this one. The Tongan religion inculcated a belief that the good and the bad
alike receive a recompense here on earth, thus implicitly repudiating the
unworthy notion that men can only be lured or driven into the narrow way
of righteousness by the hope of heaven or the fear of hell. So far the creed
based morality on surer foundations than any faith which would rest the
ultimate sanctions of conduct on the slippery ground of posthumous
rewards and punishments. In this respect, if in no other, we may compare
the Tongan religion to that of the Hebrew prophets. It has been rightly
observed by Renan that whereas European races in general have found in
the assurance of a life to come ample compensation for the iniquities of this
present life, the Hebrew prophets never appeal to rewards and punishments
reserved for a future state of existence. They were not content with the
conception of a lame and laggard justice that limps far behind the sinner in
this world and only overtakes him in the next. According to them, God's
justice is swift and sure here on earth; an unjust world was in their eyes a
simple monstrosity.[239] So too, apparently, thought the Tongans, and some
Europeans may be inclined to agree with them.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Horatio Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology
(Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. (London,

1894) pp. 497, 499. As to the scarcity of running water, see Captain James Cook,
Voyages (London, 1809), iii. 206, v. 389. He was told that there was a running
stream on the high island of Kao. As to the soil of Tongataboo, see Captain
James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London,
1899), p. 280, "The soil is everywhere prolific, and consists of a fine rich mould,
upon an average about fourteen or fifteen inches deep, free from stones, except
near the beach, where coral rocks appear above the surface. Beneath this mould
is a red loam four or five inches thick; next is a very strong blue clay in small
quantities; and in some places has been found a black earth, which emits a very
fragrant smell resembling bergamot, but it soon evaporates when exposed to the
air."
[2] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 277. For descriptions of the volcano see W.
Mariner, Tonga Islands, Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 240 sq.; and
especially Thomas West, Ten Years in South-Eastern Polynesia (London, 1865),
pp. 89 sqq. Both these writers ascended the volcano.
[3] Thomas West, op. cit. pp. 79 sqq.; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among
the Islands of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), p. 120; F. H. H. Guillemard,
Australasia, ii. p. 497.
[4] T. West, op. cit. pp. 82 sqq.; George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians
(London, 1910), pp. 4 sq.
[5] T. West, op. cit. pp. 88 sq.
[6] T. West, op. cit. pp. 92-93.
[7] I infer this from the entry "Volcanic island, 1886," in Mr. Guillemard's map
of the Pacific Islands. He does not mention it in the text (Australasia, ii. p. 497).
[8] George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 6.
[9] T. West, op. cit. p. 94.
[10] George Brown, op. cit. p. 4.
[11] T. West, op. cit. 95.
[12] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 344.
[13] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 381.
[14] Captain the Hon. W. Waldegrave, R.N., "Extracts from a Private Journal,"
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, iii. (1833) p. 193.
[15] Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches, etc., during the Voyage of the
"Beagle" (London, 1912), pp. 471 sqq.; Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology,
Twelfth Edition (London, 1875), ii. 602 sqq.; T. H. Huxley, Physiography
(London, 1881), pp. 256 sqq.
[16] George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 13 sq.
[17] John Crawfurd, Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language (London,
1852), Preliminary Dissertation, p. 253, quoted by Thomas West, Ten Years in

South-Central Polynesia, pp. 248 sqq. But the more usual view is that the
starting-point of the dispersal of the Polynesian race in the Pacific was Samoa.
[18] Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands (London, 1855), pp. 134-
137; Le P. Reiter, "Traditions Tonguiennes," Anthropos, xii.-xiii. (1917-1918),
pp. 1026-1040; E. E. Collcott, "Legends from Tonga," Folk-lore, xxxii. (1921)
pp. 45-48. Miss Farmer probably obtained the story from the Rev. John Thomas,
who was a missionary in the islands for twenty-five years (from 1826 to 1850).
She acknowledges her obligations to him for information on the religion of the
natives (p. 125). For the period of Mr. Thomas's residence in Tonga, see Miss
Farmer's book, p. 161. The story is told in closely similar forms in many other
islands of the Pacific. For some of the evidence see my edition of Apollodorus,
The Library, vol. ii. p. 331 sqq.
[19] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 401 sq.
[20] Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, New
Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 10, 25.
[21] Quoted by F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. p. 488.
[22] Jérôme Grange, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) p. 8.
[23] Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology, pp. 10 sq.; Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition, iii. 25; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the
Western Pacific, pp. 116, 155. The naturalist J. R. Forster thought the Tongans
darker than the Tahitians. See his Observations made during a Voyage round the
World (London, 1778), p. 234.
[24] J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage de la corvette Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage,
iv. (Paris, 1832) p. 229.
[25] J. E. Erskine, op. cit. pp. 155 sq.; Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly
Islands, p. 140.
[26] F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. pp. 498 sq.
[27] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 264.
[28] Captain James Cook, Voyages, iii. 197.
[29] W. Mariner, The Tonga Islands, ii. 263 sqq.
[30] J. E. Erskine, op. cit. p. 132.
[31] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 396 sq.
[32] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 411 sq.
[33] Captain James Cook, Voyages, iii. 184, 195, v. 274, 316, 357, 416.
[34] Captain James Cook, Voyages, iii. 184.
[35] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 274, 357.
[36] Id. iii. 196.

[37] This is affirmed by the Catholic missionary, Jérôme Grange (Annales de la
Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) pp. 15 sqq.), and though he writes with a
manifest prejudice against his rivals the Protestant missionaries, his evidence is
confirmed by Commodore Wilkes, the commander of the United States
Exploring Expedition, who on his visit to Tongataboo found the Christians and
heathens about to go to war with each other. He attempted to make peace
between them, but in vain. The heathen were ready to accept his overtures, but
"it was evident that King George and his advisers, and, indeed, the whole
Christian party, seemed to be desirous of continuing the war, either to force the
heathen to become Christians, or to carry it on to extermination, which the
number of their warriors made them believe they had the power to effect. I felt,
in addition, that the missionaries were thwarting my exertions by permitting
warlike preparations during the pending of the negotiations." See Charles
Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, iii. 7 sqq. (my
quotation is from p. 16). The story is told from the point of view of the
Protestant (Wesleyan) missionaries by Miss S. S. Farmer, Tonga and The
Friendly Islands, pp. 293 sqq.
[38] John Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprise in the South Seas
(London, 1838), p. 264; Charles Wilkes, op. cit. iii. 32 sq.
[39] Captain James Cook, Voyages, iii. 199, v. 414 sq. Captain Cook says that
the only piece of iron he found among the Tongans was a small broad awl, which
had been made of a nail. But this nail they must have procured either from a
former navigator, perhaps Tasman, or from a wreck.
[40] W. Mariner, The Tonga Islands, ii. 287. Compare id. ii. 124, note *; Captain
James Cook, Voyages, v. 410 sq.
[41] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 194; compare id. i. 317-320.
[42] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 424 sqq.; W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 74
sqq., 132 sqq.; J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage,
iv. (Paris, 1832) pp. 90 sq., "Si tout était suivant l'ordre légal à Tonga-Tabou, on
verrait d'abord à la tête de la société le toui-tonga qui est le véritable souverain
nominal des îles Tonga, et qui jouit même des honneurs divins."
[43] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 424 sq., 429 sq.; W. Mariner, Tonga
Islands, ii. 83 sqq.
[44] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 426.
[45] Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology, p. 32.
[46] Mariner was captured by the Tongans on December 1, 1806, and he escaped
from the islands in 1810, apparently in November, but the exact date of his
escape is not given. See W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 43, ii. 15 sqq., 68, 69.
[47] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 97 sqq.
[48] The word is commonly spelled atua in the Polynesian languages. See E.
Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary (Wellington, N.Z. 1891),
pp. 30 sq., who gives otua as the Tongan form.

[49] As to the matabooles see W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 84 sqq.
[50] According to a later account, "on Ata were born the first men, three in
number, formed from a worm bred by a rotten plant, whose seed was brought by
Tangaloa from heaven. These three were afterwards provided by the Maui with
wives from the Underworld." See E. E. V. Collocot, "Notes on Tongan
Religion," Journal of the Polynesian Society, xxx. (1921) p. 154.
[51] So apparently we must interpret Mariner's brief statement "and the contrary
of good" (Tonga Islands, ii. 98).
[52] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 101.
[53] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 424, note *.
[54] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 104.
[55] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 105.
[56] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 105 sq.
[57] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 106 sq.
[58] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 108.
[59] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 205-208; compare id. 7, note *, 108.
[60] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 112 sq. Compare Captain James Wilson, Missionary
Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), pp. 277 sq. Móooi is the
Polynesian god or hero whose name is usually spelled Maui. See Horatio Hale,
United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology, p. 23; E.
Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 233 sqq. s.v. "Maui."
[61] Adonis, Attis, Osiris, i. 197 sqq.
[62] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 109, 114 sq.; Horatio Hale, United States
Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology, pp. 24 sq.
[63] Jérôme Grange, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) p. 11;
Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, iii. 23;
Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, p. 133. According to this last
writer it was only the low islands that were fished up by Maui; the high islands
were thrown down from the sky by the god Hikuleo.
[64] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 272, ii. 114 sq. The Catholic missionary
Jérôme Grange was told that the hook in question existed down to his time
(1843), but that only the king might see it, since it was certain death to anybody
else to look on it. See Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) p. 11.
[65] W. Mariner, Tonga Island, ii. 104 sq.
[66] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii, 107 sq.
[67] The ifi tree, of which the leaves were used by the Tongans in many religious
ceremonies, is a species of chestnut (Inocarpus edulis) which grows in
Indonesia, but is thought to be a native of America. It is supposed that the

Polynesians brought the seeds of this tree with them into the Pacific, where it is
said to be a cultivated plant. See S. Percy Smith, Hawaiki, the Original Home of
the Maori (Christchurch, etc., New Zealand, 1910), p. 146. To wear a wreath of
the leaves round the neck, and to sit with the head bowed down, constituted the
strongest possible expression of humility and entreaty. See E. E. V. Collocot,
"Notes on Tongan Religion," Journal of the Polynesian Society, xxx. (1921) p.
159.
[68] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 163 sq.
[69] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 216-219. As to the rule that nobility
descended only in the female line, through mothers, not through fathers, see id.
ii. 84, 95 sq.; J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage, iv.
239.
[70] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 220.
[71] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 194, note *; compare 434, note *.
[72] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 221.
[73] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 80 sq.
[74] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 136-138.
[75] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 99-101. Compare E. E. V. Collocot, "Notes on
Tongan Religion," Journal of the Polynesian Society, xxx. (1921) pp. 155-157.
[76] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 224.
[77] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 350-360.
[78] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 438 sq., ii. 210-212; Captain James Wilson,
Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, pp. 239, 278; John Williams,
Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, pp. 470 sq.;
Jérôme Grange, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) pp. 12, 26;
Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, p. 128.
[79] Captain James Cook, Voyages, iii. 204, v. 421 sq. However, in a footnote to
the latter passage Captain Cook gives the correct explanation of the custom on
the authority of Captain King: "It is common for the inferior people to cut off a
joint of their little finger, on account of the sickness of the chiefs to whom they
belong."
[80] Labillardière, Relation du Voyage à la recherche de la Pérouse (Paris,
1800), ii. 151.
[81] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 79, 268.
[82] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 208 sq.
[83] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 366.
[84] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 438 sq.; compare id. ii. 214.
[85] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 367 sq.

[86] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
pp. 238-240.
[87] Captain James Wilson, op. cit. p. 240.
[88] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
p. 257.
[89] Captain James Wilson, op. cit., p. 278. This Ambler was a man of very
indifferent, not to say infamous, character, but he rendered the missionaries
considerable service by instructing them in the Tongan language, which he spoke
fluently. See Captain James Wilson, op. cit. pp. 98, 244 sq.
[90] See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Third Edition, ii. 219 sqq.
[91] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 127 sq.
[92] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 419, ii. 99, 128 sq.
[93] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 423.
[94] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
pp. 278 sq.
[95] Quoted by Miss Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, p. 131.
As to Veeson, see id. pp. 78, 85 sqq. The title of his book is given (p. 87) as
Authentic Narrative of a Four Years' Residence in Tongataboo (London:
Longman & Co., 1815). I have not seen the book. The man's name is given as
Vason by (Sir) Basil Thomson in his Diversions of a Prime Minister (Edinburgh
and London, 1894), pp. 326, 327, 329, 331; but his real name seems to have
been George Veeson. See Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the
Southern Pacific Ocean, pp. 6, 230.
[96] Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, iii. 22.
[97] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 101-103.
[98] Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, pp. 132 sq. As to Hikuleo
and his long tail, see also Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States
Exploring Expedition, iii. 23, "Hikuleo is the god of spirits, and is the third in
order of time; he dwells in a cave in the island. Bulotu is most remarkable for a
long tail, which prevents him from going farther from the cave in which he
resides than its length will admit of." Here the god Hikuleo appears to be
confused with the island of Bulotu (Bulotoo) in which he resided. Tradition
wavers on the question whether Hikuleo was a god or goddess, "but the general
suffrage seems in favour of the female sex." See E. E. V. Collocot, "Notes on
Tongan Religion," Journal of the Polynesian Society, xxx. (1921) pp. 152, 153.
[99] As to a custom of putting the first-born to death, see The Dying God, pp.
178 sqq.; and for other reported instances of the custom, see Mrs. James Smith,
The Booandik Tribe of South Australia (Adelaide, 1880), pp. 7 sq.; C. E. Fox,
"Social Organisation in San Cristoval, Solomon Islands," Journal of the R.
Anthropological Institute, xlix. (1919) p. 100; E. O. Martin, The Gods of India
(London and Toronto, 1914), p. 215; N. W. Thomas, Anthropological Report on
the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria, Part i. (London, 1913) p. 12. Compare E.

Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (London, 1906), i.
458 sqq.
[100] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 110 sq., 130, 131, 139, 140.
[101] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 423.
[102] Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, iii.
23. The writer here speaks of Bulotu, where he should have said Hikuleo. See
above, p. 89, note1.
[103] W. Mariner, Tongan Islands, ii. 97, 99, 103, 109 sq. See above, pp. 64 sq.,
66.
[104] W. Mariner, ii. 130 sq.; compare id. pp. 99, 103 sq., 109 sq.
[105] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 104 sq.
[106] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 110, 130 sq.
[107] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 423 sq.
[108] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 99, 131.
[109] Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, pp. 126 sq.
[110] See below, pp. 182 sqq., 200 sqq.
[111] E. E. V. Collocot, "Notes on Tongan Religion," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, xxx. (1921) pp. 154 sq., 159.
[112] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 160, 161.
[113] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 159 sq.
[114] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 162.
[115] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 227.
[116] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 227 sq.
[117] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 231 sq.
[118] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 161, 233.
[119] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 234.
[120] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 234.
[121] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 234 sq.
[122] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 232.
[123] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 238 sq.
[124] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 229.
[125] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 230, 231, 233.

[126] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. pp. 230, 233.
[127] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 232.
[128] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 239.
[129] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 160.
[130] See below, pp. 154 sq.
[131] E. E. V. Collocot, op. cit. p. 239.
[132] We have seen (p. 70) that according to Mariner the number of the original
gods was about three hundred; but as to the deified noblemen he merely says
that "of these there must be a vast number" (Tonga Islands, ii. 109). In his
"Notes on Tongan Religion" (Journal of the Polynesian Society, xxx. (1921) p.
159) Mr. E. E. V. Collocot remarks: "The number of the gods, moreover, was
liable to constant augmentation by the deification of the illustrious or well-
beloved dead." As a notable instance he cites the case of a certain chief named
Fakailoatonga, a native of Vavau, who subdued or overran a large part of
Tongataboo. He was a leper, but for a long time did not know the true nature of
his malady. When he learned the truth, he in disgust buried himself alive, and
after his death he was elevated to the godhead. But in this deification, if Mariner
is right, there was nothing exceptional; as a chief he became a god after death in
the course of nature.
[133] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 110
[134] Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. i (London, 1904) pp. 249
sqq.
[135] Captain James Cook, Voyages, iii. 182-184.
[136] Captain James Cook, op. cit. iii. 206.
[137] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 144, note *. However, in another passage (i.
392, note *) Mariner tells us that, strictly speaking, the word fytoca applied only
to the mound with the grave in it, and not to the house upon the mound; for there
were several fytocas that had no houses on them. For other mentions of fytocas
and notices of them by Mariner, see op. cit. i. pp. 386, note *, 387, 388, 392,
393, 394, 395, 402, ii. 214-218.
[138] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 402. A little farther on (p. 424, note *)
Mariner remarks that "mourners were accustomed to smooth the graves of their
departed friends, and cover them with black and white pebbles."
[139] Captain Cook, Voyages, v. 424.
[140] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 342 sq.
[141] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
pp. 240 sq.
[142] Captain James Wilson, op. cit. p. 244.
[143] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 387 sq.

[144] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 213 sq.
[145] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 86.
[146] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
pp. 283 sq.
[147] The tomb described and illustrated by the first missionaries had four
massive and lofty steps, each of them five and a half feet broad and four feet or
three feet nine inches high. See Captain James Wilson, l.c., with the plate facing
p. 284. One such tomb, rising in four tiers, is ascribed traditionally to a female
Tooitonga, whose name has been forgotten. See (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes
upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii.
(1902) p. 88 n.2.

[148] The Tahitian chestnut (Inocarpus edulis); see above, p. 74, note2.
[149] (Sir) Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime Minister (Edinburgh and
London, 1894), pp. 379 sq.; id. "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal
of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 86. According to an earlier
authority, the Tongans could name and point out the tombs of no less than thirty
Tooitongas. See the letter of Mr. Philip Hervey, quoted in Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of London, Second Series, vol. ii. p. 77.
[150] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 86 sq., 88 n.2. As to the legend of
the tyrant Takalaua, see id. Diversions of a Prime Minister, pp. 294-302.
[151] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
p. 252. As to Futtafāihe, the Tooitonga or divine chief of their time, the
missionaries remark (l.c.) that "Futtafāihe is very superstitious, and himself
esteemed as an odooa or god." Here odooa is the Polynesian word which is
usually spelled atua. Mariner tells us (Tonga Islands, ii. 76) that the family name
of the Tooitonga was Fatafehi, which seems to be only another way of spelling
Futtafāihe, the form adopted by the missionaries. Captain Cook similarly gives
Futtafāihe as the family name of the sacred kings or Tooitongas, deriving the
name "from the God so called, who is probably their tutelary patron, and perhaps
their common ancestor." See Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 425.
[152] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
pp. 283-285. The description is accompanied by an engraved plate, which
illustrates the three types of tombs mentioned in the text. In the foreground is the
stepped pyramid, a massive and lofty structure, its flat top surmounted by a hut.
To the right, in the distance, is seen the square walled enclosure, with high
stones standing upright at the corners of the walls, and with a hut enclosed in the
middle of the square. In the background appears a mound enclosed by a wall and
surmounted by a hut. Thus a hut figures as an essential part in each type of tomb.
However, Mariner tells us that "they have several fytocas which have no houses
on them" (Tonga Islands, i. 392 note *).

[153] The Tooi-tonga-fafine (or fefine) was the Tooitonga's sister and ranked
above him. Her title means "the lady Tooi-tonga." "Her dignity is very great. She
is treated as a kind of divinity. Her rank is too high to allow of her uniting
herself in marriage with any mortal: but it is not thought wrong or degrading for
her to have a family, and in case of the birth of a daughter the child becomes the
Tamaha. This lady rises higher than her mother in rank, and is nearer the gods.
Every one approaches her with gifts and homage. Her grandfather will bring his
offerings and sit down before her, with all humility, like any of the common
people. Sick people come to her for cure" (Miss Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the
Friendly Islands, p. 145, apparently from the information of Mr. John Thomas).
Captain Cook learned with surprise that Poulaho, the Tooitonga of his time
(whom Cook speaks of as the king) acknowledged three women as his superiors.
"On our inquiring, who these extraordinary personages were, whom they
distinguish by the name and title of Tammaha, we were told that the late king,
Poulaho's father, had a sister of equal rank, and elder than himself; that she, by a
man who came from the island of Feejee, had a son and two daughters; and that
these three persons, as well as their mother, rank above Futtafaihe the king. We
endeavoured, in vain, to trace the reason of this singular pre-eminence of the
Tammahas; for we could learn nothing besides this account of their pedigree.
The mother and one of the daughters called Tooeela-Kaipa, live at Vavaoo.
Latoolibooloo, the son, and the other daughter, whose name is Moungoula-
Kaipa, reside at Tongataboo. The latter is the woman who is mentioned to have
dined with me on the 21st of June. This gave occasion to our discovering her
superiority over the king, who would not eat in her presence, though she made
no scruple to do so before him, and received from him the customary obeisance,
by touching her foot." See Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 430 sq.
[154] J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage, iv. (Paris,
1832) pp. 106-108. Singleton was an Englishman, one of the crew of the Port-
au-Prince, the ship in which Mariner sailed. When Dumont d'Urville visited
Tonga, Singleton had lived as a native among the natives for twenty-three years;
he was married and had children, and he hoped to end his days in Tongataboo.
See J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. iv. 23 sq.
[155] "Extrait du Journal de M. de Sainson," in J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage de
l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage, iv. (Paris, 1832) pp. 361 sq.
[156] Jérôme Grange, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) pp.
12 sq.
[157] J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific
(London, 1853), p. 130.
[158] Thomas West, Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia (London, 1865), pp.
268 sq.
[159] (Sir) Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime Minister, pp. 379 sq.; id.
"Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
xxxii. (1902) pp. 86-88.
[160] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 87 sq.

[161] (Sir) Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime Minister, p. 379.
[162] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 424. Elsewhere (v. 364) he speaks of "a
morai or fiatooka"; and shortly afterwards, referring to the same structure, he
mentions it as "this morai, or what I may as well call temple" (p. 365). As to the
equivalence of the words morai and marai (marae), see J. A. Moerenhout,
Voyages aux Îles du Grand Océan (Paris, 1837), i. 466; and as to the significance
of the word in its various dialectical forms, see E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary, p. 213, s.v. "malae."
[163] Captain James Cook, Voyages, i. 157 sqq.; J. R. Forster, Observations
made during a Voyage round the World (London, 1788), pp. 543 sqq.; Captain
James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, pp. 207 sqq.;
David Porter, Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific Ocean (New York, 1822),
ii. 38 sq.; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, Journal of Voyages and Travels (London,
1831), i. 240-248, 265 sqq., 271, 274, 529 sq., ii. 13 sq., 38 sq.; W. Ellis,
Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 340, 405; J. A.
Moerenhout, Voyages aux Îles du Grand Océan, i. 466-470; G. H. von
Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt (Frankfurt am Mayn, 1812), i. 115, 134; H.
Melville, Typee (London, N.D.), pp. 166-169 (Everyman's Library); Matthias G
——, Lettres sur les Îles Marquises (Paris, 1843), pp. 54 sq.; C. E. Meinicke,
Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans (Leipzig, 1875-1876), i. 49, ii. 180, 183 sq.; G.
Gerland, in Th. Waitz, Anthropologie, vi (Leipzig, 1872) pp. 376 sqq.
[164] Capt. James Cook, Voyages, i. 157 sq., "Their name for such burying-
grounds, which are also places of worship, is Morai." Compare id., i. 217, 219,
220, 224, vi. 37, 41; J. Turnbull, Voyage round the World (London, 1813), p.
151, "the morais, which serve the double purpose of places of worship and
receptacles for the dead." Compare J. R. Forster, Observations, p. 545, "To
ornament the marais and to honour by it the gods and the decayed buried there,
the inhabitants plant several sorts of trees near them."
[165] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, op. cit. i. 271.
[166] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 405. Elsewhere (p. 401), speaking of
the Tahitian burial customs, Ellis observes that "the skull was carefully kept in
the family, while the other bones, etc., were buried within the precincts of the
family temple."
[167] J. A. Moerenhout, op. cit. i. 470. As to the Tahitian custom of burying the
dead in the marais, see also C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans, ii.
183 sq., according to whom only the bodies of persons of high rank were
interred in these sanctuaries.
[168] G. H. von Langsdorff, op. cit. i. 115.
[169] G. H. von Langsdorff, op. cit. i. 134.
[170] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, Îles Marquises ou Nouka-hiva (Paris,
1843), p. 253.
[171] C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans, ii. 180.

[172] W. H. R. Rivers, "Sun-cult and Megaliths in Oceania," American
Anthropologist, N.S. xvii. (1915) pp. 431 sqq.
[173] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 88.
[174] Above, pp. 74 sqq.
[175] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 88 sq.
[176] Sarah S. Farmer, Tonga and the Friendly Islands, p. 127.
[177] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 367.
[178] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 196-202, compare p. 78. The ceremony was
also witnessed, though not understood, by Captain Cook (Voyages, v. 363 sqq.)
and by the first English missionaries (Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage
to the Southern Pacific Ocean, pp. 264 sq.).
[179] See the letter of Dr. Charles Forbes, in Archaeologia, or Miscellaneous
Tracts relating to Antiquity, xxxv. (London, 1853) p. 496 (with a woodcut);
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London [First Series], iii. 19; id.
Second Series, i. 287; letter of Philip Hervey, quoted by Kenneth R. H.
Mackenzie, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Second
Series, ii. 75-77; Julius L. Brenchley, Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S.
"Curaçoa" among the South Sea Islands in 1865 (London, 1873), p. 132 (with a
woodcut); (Sir) Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime Minister (Edinburgh and
London, 1894), pp. 380-382 (with a woodcut on p. 393); id. "Notes upon the
Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp.
81-84 (with a photograph). Views of the monument, taken apparently from
photographs, have also been published by Dr. F. H. H. Guillemard (Australasia,
vol. ii. London, 1894, p. 501), Dr. George Brown (Melanesians and Polynesians,
London, 1910, plate facing p. 410), and by Mr. S. Percy Smith (Hawaiki, Third
Edition, Christchurch, N.Z., 1910, pp. 157 sq.). Dr. W. H. R. Rivers spoke as if
there were several trilithons in Tongataboo (History of Melanesian Society, ii.
430 sq.; id. "Sun-cult and Megaliths in Oceania," American Anthropologist, N.S.
xvii., 1915, p. 444); but in this he seems to have been mistaken. So far as I can
gather, there is only one of these remarkable monuments in Tongataboo or
indeed in the whole of the Pacific.
[180] For the authorities, see the preceding note. The measurements, to some
extent discrepant, are given by Dr. Charles Forbes, Mr. Philip Hervey, and the
passengers of s.s. Wairarapa, as reported by Sir Basil Thomson Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xxxii. 82 sq.), who had unfortunately mislaid his own
notes containing the measurements. The statement that the monument was
surmounted by a large bowl is made by Mr. Brenchley, in whose sketch of the
structure the bowl figures. But Mr. Brenchley did not himself see the monument,
and nobody else appears to have seen the bowl. I suspect that the report of the
bowl may have originated in a hasty reading of Mr. Hervey's statement that "on
the centre of it [the cross-stone] a small cava bowl is scooped out," though in
Mr. Brenchley's account the bowl has seemingly increased in size. Similarly in
his report the height of the uprights has grown to about thirty feet, which appears
to be just double of their real size. Perhaps Mr. Brenchley's erroneous allegation
as to the material of the monument similarly originated in a misunderstanding of

Mr. Hervey's statement that "the material is the coral rock, or coral rag which are
formed of stone brought from Wallis's Island."
[181] Charles Forbes, in Archaeologia, xxxv. 496 (who gives Ho ha Mo-nga
Maui as the name of the stones); (Sir) Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime
Minister, p. 382; id., "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 81 (who gives Haamonga as the
native name of the stones).
[182] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 81. Maui is the great hero of
Polynesia, known in nearly every group of islands, generally regarded as a
demigod or deified man, but sometimes and in some places rising to the dignity
of full godhead. He appears, says Mr. E. Tregear, to unite the classical attributes
of Hercules and Prometheus. See E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary, p. 233, s.v. "Maui."
[183] "Tui-ta-tui, lit. 'King-strike-King.'"
[184] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 82.
[185] Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Second Series, ii. 77.
[186] Julius L. Brenchley, Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S. "Curaçoa"
among the South Sea Islands in 1865 (London, 1873), p. 132.
[187] (Sir) Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime Minister, p. 395. In this work
the author prints a list of the Tooitongas "as given by Mr. E. Tregear on the
authority of the Rev. J. E. Moulton."
[188] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 83; S. Percy Smith, Hawaiki, p.
158.
[189] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 266. As to the size of the stones, Mariner
says, "The stones used for this purpose are about a foot in thickness, and are cut
of the requisite dimensions, out of the stratum found on the beaches of some of
the islands."
[190] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 83 sq.
[191] W. H. R. Rivers, History of Melanesian Society, ii. 431.
[192] See below, p. 212.
[193] "Tangata, in their language, is man; Arekee, king."
[194] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 298 sq. To this description of the
monument Sir Basil Thomson has called attention; he rightly classes it with the
tombs of the chiefs. See his "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 85.

[195] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 81 sq.
[196] Dr. Charles Forbes, in Archaeologia, xxxv. p. 496.
[197] I have no measurements of these intervals, but write from the impression
of a recent visit to Stonehenge.
[198] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 82, quoting the anonymous
pamphlet The Wairarapa Wilderness.
[199] Lord Avebury, Prehistoric Times, Seventh Edition (London, 1913), pp. 132
sqq.; Sir Norman Lockyer, Stonehenge and other British Stone Monuments
astronomically considered (London, 1906); C. Schuchhardt, "Stonehenge,"
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xlii. (1910), pp. 963-968; id. in Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie, xliii. (1911) pp. 169-171; id., in Sitzungsberichte der königl. preuss.
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1913, pp. 759 sqq. (for the sepulchral
interpretation); W. Pastor, "Stonehenge," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xliii. (1911)
pp. 163- (for the solar interpretation).
[200] Adolph Bastian observed that "sun-worship, which people used to go
sniffing about to discover everywhere, is found on the contrary only in very
exceptional regions or on lofty table-lands of equatorial latitude." See his book,
Die Voelker des Oestlichen Asien, iv. (Jena, 1868) p. 175. Nobody, probably, has
ever been better qualified than Bastian to pronounce an opinion on such a
subject; for his knowledge of the varieties of human thought and religion,
acquired both by reading and travel, was immense. It is only to be regretted that
through haste or negligence he too often gave out the fruits of his learning in a
form which rendered it difficult to sift and almost impossible to digest them. Yet
from his storehouse he brought forth a treasure, of which we may say what
Macaulay said of the scholarship of Parr, that it was "too often buried in the
earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still
precious, massive, and splendid."
[201] F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 500.
[202] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 266.
[203] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 421.
[204] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 345 sq. As to the mourning costume of
mats and leaves, see also Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the
Southern Pacific Ocean, p. 240; W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 380, 392, 431, ii.
214 sq.
[205] Captain James Cook, Voyages v. 420.
[206] Jérôme Grange, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) p. 13.
[207] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
pp. 242-244.
[208] Mariner defines a malai as "a piece of ground, generally before a large
house, or chief's grave, where public ceremonies are principally held" (Tonga

Islands, vol. ii., "Vocabulary" s.v.). It is the same word as malae or marae,
noticed above, p. 116, note3.
[209] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 379-384.
[210] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 440-442.
[211] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 404 sq.
[212] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 144 note *.
[213] See above, p. 105.
[214] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 388 note *.
[215] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 388 sq.
[216] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 389-392.
[217] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 392 sq.
[218] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 393.
[219] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 141 note *.
[220] Captain James Cook, Voyages, v. 336. The writer does not translate the
expression taboo mattee; but mate is the regular Tongan word for "death" or "to
die." See Mariner, Tonga Islands, Vocabulary, s.v. "Mate." Compare E. Tregear,
Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 228, s.v. "Mate."
[221] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 394 sq.
[222] W. Mariner, op. cit. i. 401-403.
[223] Above, pp. 135 sq.
[224] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 403-405.
[225] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
p. 265.
[226] The Golden Bough, Part III., The Dying God, pp. 92 sqq.
[227] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 213 sq.
[228] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
p. 243.
[229] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 214 sq.
[230] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 213.
[231] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 215-217.
[232] W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-west-central
Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), pp. 117 sq.; (Sir) Baldwin
Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904),

pp. 234, 235; id., Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), p. 281
note; id., Across Australia (London, 1912), i. 244.
[233] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 217-219.
[234] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, ii. 220.
[235] W. Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 112 sq., 120-126, ii. 220.
[236] W. Mariner, op. cit. ii. 135, 209 sq., 214.
[237] Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean,
p. 240.
[238] This was the reason assigned for the strangling of widows at their
husband's funeral in Fiji. See John Williams, Narrative of Missionary
Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, pp. 478 sq.
[239] E. Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Israël, ii. 505.

CHAPTER III
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE SAMOANS

§ 1. The Samoan Islands

About three hundred and fifty or four hundred miles nearly due north of
Tonga lies Samoa, a group of islands situated between 13° 30' and 14° 30'
South latitude and between 168° and 173° West longitude. The native name
of the group is Samoa, which has this singularity, that it is apparently the
only name that designates a group of islands in the Pacific; native names for
all the other groups are wanting, though each particular island has its own
individual name. Samoa is also known to Europeans as the Navigators'
Islands, a name bestowed on them by the French explorer De Bougainville,
who visited the group in 1768. The three most easterly islands were
discovered in 1722 by Jacob Roggewein, a Dutch navigator, but he appears
not to have sighted the principal islands of the group, which lie a good deal
farther to the westward. There is no record of any visit paid by a European
vessel to the islands in the interval between the visits of Roggewein and De
Bougainville. The whole archipelago was not explored till 1787, when the
French navigator La Pérouse determined the position of all the islands.[1]
The islands are disposed in a line running from west to east. The most
westerly, Savaii, is also the largest, measuring about forty miles in length.
Next follow two small, but important islands, Apolima and Manona. Then
about three miles to the east of Manona comes Upolu, the second of the
islands in size, but the first in importance, whether we regard population,
harbours, or the extent of soil available for cultivation. The channel which
divides Upolu from Savaii is from fifteen to twenty miles broad. About
forty miles to the east, or rather south-east, of Upolu lies the island of
Tutuila, with the fine and almost landlocked harbour of Pangopango. It was
in this island that the French navigator La Pérouse lost his second in
command and twelve men in a fierce encounter with the natives. The place
where the fight took place is now known as Massacre Cove.[2] Some fifty

miles to the east of Tutuila is situated a group of three small islands, Tau,
Ofu, and Olosenga, which are collectively known as Manua.
The islands are of volcanic formation and for the most part surrounded by
coral reefs, but the intervening seas are quite free from danger, and the
possession of good harbours renders Samoa politically important. Viewed
from the sea the islands are mountainous and for the most part wooded to
the water's edge, except where a stretch of fertile plain is interposed
between the foot of the mountains and the sea. The whole group presents to
the voyager a succession of enchanting views as he sails along the coast.
The eye is delighted by the prospect of lofty and rugged mountains, their
tops sometimes lost in clouds, their slopes mantled in the verdure of
evergreen forests, varied here and there by rich valleys, by grey and lofty
cliffs, or by foaming waterfalls tumbling from heights of hundreds of feet
and showing like silvery threads against the sombre green of the woods.
Along the shore rocks of black lava alternate with white sands dazzling in
the sunlight and fringed by groves of coco-nut palms, their feathery tops
waving and dancing in the breeze, while the brilliant cobalt blue of the calm
lagoon contrasts with the olive-green of the deep sea, which breaks in a
long line of seething foam on the barrier reef. The scenery as a whole
combines romantic grandeur with wild and rank luxuriance, thus winning
for Samoa the reputation of being among the loveliest of the islands which
stud like gems the bosom of the Pacific.[3]
The island of Upolu in particular is wooded from its summit to the water's
edge, where in some places the roots of the trees are washed by the surf,
while in many places clumps of mangrove trees spread out into the lagoon.
The forests are dense and more sombre even than those of Brazil. The lofty
trees shoot up to a great height before sending out branches. At their feet
grow ferns of many sorts, while climbing vines and other creepers mantle
their trunks and sometimes even their tops. But the gloom of the tropical
forest is seldom or never relieved by flowers of brilliant tints; the few
flowers that bloom in them are of a white or greyish hue, as if bleached for
want of the sunbeams, which are shut out by the thick umbrageous foliage
overhead.[4]
Very different from the aspect presented by this luxuriant vegetation is a
great part of the interior of Savaii, the largest island of the group. Here the

desolate and forbidding character of the landscape constantly reminds the
traveller of the dreadful forces which slumber beneath his feet. Extinct
volcanoes tower above him to heights of four and five thousand feet, their
steep and almost perpendicular sides formed of volcanic ashes and denuded
of vegetation. For miles around these gloomy peaks the ground presents
nothing to the eye but black rocks, scoriae, and ashes; the forlorn wayfarer
seems to be traversing a furnace barely extinguished, so visible are the
traces of fire on the sharp-pointed stones among which he picks his painful
way, and which in their twisted and tormented forms seem still to preserve
something of the movement of the once boiling flood of molten lava. The
whole country is a barren and waterless wilderness, a solitude destitute
alike of animal and of vegetable life, alternately parched by the fierce rays
of the tropical sun and deluged by hurricanes of torrential rain. Even the
natives cannot traverse these dreary deserts; a European who strayed into
them was found, after five or six days, prostrate and almost dead on the
ground.[5]
In Samoa, as in Tonga, volcanic activity has ominously increased within
less than a hundred years. Near the island of Olosenga, in 1866 or 1867, a
submarine volcano suddenly burst out in eruption, vomiting forth rocks and
mud to a height, as it was estimated, of two thousand feet, killing the fish
and discolouring the sea for miles round.[6] Still later, towards the end of
1905, another volcano broke out in the bottom of a deep valley in the island
of Savaii, and rose till it attained a height of about four thousand feet. Down
at least to the year 1910 this immense volcano was still in full action, and
had covered many miles of country under a bed of lava some ten or twelve
feet thick, while with the same river of molten matter it completely filled up
the neighbouring lagoon and replaced the level shore by an iron-bound
coast of volcanic cliffs.[7]
A remarkable instance of these volcanic cliffs is furnished by the little
island of Apolima between Savaii and Upolu. The islet, which is in fact the
crater of an extinct volcano, is only about a mile long by half to three-
quarters of a mile in width. On every side but one it presents to the sea a
precipitous wall of basaltic rock some thousand feet high, while the interior
is scooped out in the likeness of a great cauldron. Only at one place is there
a break in the cliffs where a landing can be effected, and there the operation

is difficult and dangerous even in fine weather. In bad weather the island is
completely isolated. Thus it forms a strong natural fortress, which under the
conditions of native warfare was almost impregnable.[8]
As might be expected from their volcanic formation, the islands are subject
to frequent and sometimes severe shocks of earthquake. The veteran
missionary, J. B. Stair, has recorded that the shocks increased in number
and violence during the last years of his residence in Samoa. The last of
them was preceded by loud subterranean noises, which lasted for hours, to
the great alarm of the natives. At the north-west of Upolu also, Mr. Stair
used often to hear a muffled sound, like the rumble of distant thunder,
proceeding apparently from the sea under the reef. This curious noise
always occurred on hot, sultry days, and seemed to strike a note of warning,
which filled natives and Europeans alike with a sense of awe and insecurity.
[9]
Thus if, beheld from some points of view, the Samoan islands appear an
earthly paradise, from others they present the aspect, and emit the sounds,
of an inferno.
And with all their natural beauty and charm the islands cannot be said to
enjoy a healthy climate. There is much bad weather, particularly during the
winter months, when long and heavy rains, attended at times with high
winds and gales, are frequent. The air is more moist than in Tahiti, and the
vegetation in consequence is more rank and luxuriant. Decaying rapidly
under the ardent rays of a tropical sun, it exhales a poisonous miasma. But
the heat, oppressive and exhausting at times, is nevertheless tempered by
the sea and land breezes, which blow daily, alternating with intervals of
calm between them. Besides these daily breezes the trade wind blows
regularly from the east during the fine season, when the sky is constantly
blue and cloudless. Yet with all these alleviations the climate is enervating,
and a long residence in it is debilitating to the European frame.[10] Nor are
the natives exempt from the noxious effects of an atmosphere saturated with
moisture and impregnated with the fumes of vegetable decay. The open
nature of their dwellings, which were without walls, exposed them to the
heavy night dews and rendered them susceptible to diseases of the chest and
lungs, from which they suffered greatly; consumption in its many forms,
coughs, colds, inflammation of the chest and lungs, fevers, rheumatism,
pleurisy, diarrhœa, lumbago, diseases of the spine, scrofula, and many other

ailments are enumerated among the disorders which afflicted them. But the
prevailing disease is elephantiasis, a dreadful malady which attacks
Europeans and natives alike. There are many cases of epilepsy, and though
idiots are rare, lunatics are less infrequent. Hunchbacks are very common in
both sexes, and virulent ophthalmia is prevalent; many persons lose the
sight of one eye, and some are totally blinded; not less than a fifth part of
the population is estimated to suffer from this malady.[11] Curiously enough,
hunchbacks, who are said to be very numerous on account of scrofula, used
to be looked on as special favourites of the spirits, and many of them, on
growing to manhood, were accordingly admitted to the priesthood.[12]
During the stormy season, which lasts from December to April, hurricanes
sometimes occur, and are greatly dreaded by the natives on account of the
havoc which they spread both among the crops and the houses. A steady
rain, the absence of the sun, a deathlike stillness of the birds and domestic
animals, and above all the dark and lowering aspect of the sky, are the
premonitory symptoms of the coming calamity and inspire general
consternation, while the thunderous roar of the torrents and waterfalls in the
mountains strike on the ear with redoubled distinctness in the prevailing
silence which preludes the storm. Warned by these ominous signs, the
natives rush to secure their property from being swept away by the fury of
the blast. Some hurry their canoes inland to places of comparative safety;
others pile trunks of banana-trees on the roofs of their houses or fasten
down the roofs by hanging heavy stones over them; while yet others bring
rough poles, hastily cut in the forest, and set them up inside the houses as
props against the rafters, to prevent the roof from falling in. Sometimes
these efforts are successful, sometimes futile, the hurricane sweeping
everything before it in its mad career, while the terrified natives behold the
fruits of months of toil, sometimes the growth of years, laid waste in an
hour. On such occasions the shores have been seen flooded by the invading
ocean, houses carried clean away, and a forest turned suddenly into a bare
and treeless plain. Men have been forced to fling themselves flat on the
ground and to dig their hands into the earth to save themselves from being
whirled away and precipitated into the sea or a torrent. In April 1850 the
town of Apia, the capital of the islands, was almost destroyed by one of
these cyclones. When the rage of the tornado is spent and calm has
returned, the shores of a harbour are apt to present a melancholy scene of

ruin and desolation, their shores strewn with the wrecks of gallant ships
which lately rode there at anchor, their pennons streaming to the wind. So it
happened in the harbour of Apia on March 16th, 1889. Before the tempest
burst, there were many ships of various nations anchored in the bay, among
them five or six American and German warships. When it was over, all
were wrecked and their shattered fragments littered the reefs. One vessel
alone, the British man-of-war, Calliope, was saved by the courage and skill
of the captain, who, seconded by the splendid seamanship of the crew,
forced his ship, in the very teeth of the hurricane, out into the open sea,
where he safely weathered the storm.[13]
A special interest attaches to Samoa in so far as it is now commonly
believed to be the original seat of the Polynesian race in the Pacific, from
which their ancestors gradually dispersed to the other islands of that vast
ocean, where their descendants are settled to this day. Polynesian traditions
point to such a dispersal from Samoa as a centre, and they are confirmed by
the name which the various branches of the race give to their old ancestral
home. The original form of that name appears to have been Savaiki, which
through dialectical variations has been altered to Hawaiki in New Zealand,
to Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands, to Havaii in Tahiti, to Havaiki in the
Marquesas, and to Avaiki in Rarotonga. In the Samoan dialect, which of all
the Polynesian dialects alone retains the letter S, the word presumably
appears as Savaii, the name of the largest island of the group, which
accordingly may be regarded, with some probability, as the cradle-land of
the Polynesians in the Pacific; though native traditions indicate rather
Upolu or Manua as the place from which the canoes started on their long
and adventurous voyages. On the other hand in favour of Savaii it has been
pointed out that the island holds a decided superiority over the other islands
of the group in respect of canoe-building; for it possesses extensive forests
of hard and durable timber, which is much sought after for the keels and
other parts of vessels; indeed, the large sea-going canoes were generally, if
not always, built on Savaii, and maritime expeditions appear sometimes to
have started from its shores.[14] In proof that the Samoans have long been
settled in the islands which they now occupy, it may be alleged that they
appear to have no tradition of any other home from which their ancestors
migrated to their present abode. With the single exception of a large village
called Matautu in Savaii, the inhabitants of which claim that they came

originally from Fiji, all the Samoans consider themselves indigenous.[15]
The Samoans and Tongans, says Mr. S. Percy Smith, "formed part of the
first migration into the Pacific, and they have been there so long that they
have forgotten their early history. All the numerous legends as to their
origin seem to express their own belief in their being autochthones, created
in the Samoan Islands."[16]

§ 2. The Samoan Islanders, their character

In spite of the many diseases prevalent among them, the Samoans are
commonly reckoned among the finest, as well as the purest, specimens of
the Polynesian race. Like the Tongans, whom they closely resemble, they
are generally tall and shapely, with full rounded faces and limbs, but
without that grossness and laxity of fibre common in the Tahitians. The
average height of the men is said to be five feet ten inches, but some of
them are over six feet with the thews and sinews of a Hercules. Their
features, though not always regular, are commonly pleasing; and in
particular the forehead is remarkable for its ample development, which,
with the breadth between the eyes, gives to the countenance an expression
of nobleness and dignity. Some of the young men especially are models of
manly beauty; we read of one who, having decked his hair with the flowers
of the scarlet hibiscus, might have sat for an Antinous. The women are
comely enough, but strikingly inferior to the men in point of personal
beauty. The prevailing colour is a light copper or olive brown, but the shade
varies a good deal, deepening somewhat in fishermen and others who are
much exposed to the sun; but it never approaches the dark chocolate tint, or
Vandyke brown, of the Melanesians. Their hair is usually black and wavy,
sometimes curly; but hardly a vestige is to be seen among them of the
crisped and woolly hair and dusky complexion of the Melanesians, their
neighbours on the west.[17]
The prepossessing appearance of the Samoans on the whole does not belie
their character. They are reputed to be the most refined and civilised of all
the native races of the Pacific, and this superiority is said to manifest itself
in their social and domestic life.[18] The Samoans, we are told, are a nation
of gentlemen and contrast most favourably with the generality of the
Europeans who come among them.[19] They are said to carry their habits of

cleanliness and decency to a higher point than the most fastidious of
civilised nations;[20] and the Samoan women appear to be honourably
distinguished by their modest behaviour and fidelity in marriage, qualities
which contrast with the profligacy of their sex in other branches of the
Polynesian race.[21] Equally honourable to the men are the respect and
kindness which, according to the testimony of observers, they pay to their
women, whom they are said to regard as their equals.[22] The aged were
treated with respect and never abandoned; and strangers were always
received in the best house and provided with food specially prepared for
them.[23] Infanticide, which was carried to an appalling and almost
incredible extent among some of the Polynesians,[24] was unknown in
Samoa; abortion, indeed, was not uncommon, but once born children were
affectionately cared for and never killed or exposed.[25] Wives and slaves
were never put to death at a chief's burial, that their souls might attend their
dead lord to the spirit land[26], as was the practice in some of the other
islands, even in Tonga. Again, human sacrifices were not offered by the
Samoans to the gods within the time during which the islands have been
under the observation of Europeans; but in some of the more remote
traditions mention is made of such sacrifices offered to the sun. Thus it is
said that in the mythical island of Papatea, somewhere away in the east, the
sun used to call for two victims every day, one at his rising and another at
his setting. This lasted for eighty days. At such a rate of consumption the
population of the island was rapidly wasting away. To escape the threatened
doom, a brother and sister, named Luama and Ui, fled from Papatea to
Manua, the most easterly of the Samoan islands, but they found to their
consternation that there too, the sun was demanding his daily victims. Every
house had to supply a victim in succession, and, when all had yielded the
tribute, it came to the first house in turn to renew the sacrifice. The victim
was laid out on a pandanus tree, and there the sun devoured him or her.
When the lot fell on Luama, his heroic sister Ui insisted on taking his place,
and lying down, she cried, "O cruel sun! come and eat your victim, we are
all being devoured by you." But the amorous sun fell in love with her and
took her to wife, at the same time putting an end to the human sacrifices.
Another story affirms that the heroine was a daughter of the King of Manua,
and that he yielded her up as an offering to the sun in order to end the
sacrifices by making her the saviour of the people.[27]

The Samoans, when they became known to Europe in the nineteenth
century, did not habitually indulge in cannibalism; indeed, according to
John Williams, one of the earliest missionaries to the islands, they spoke of
the practice with great horror and detestation.[28] But we have the testimony
of other early missionaries that in their wars they occasionally resorted to it
as a climax of hatred and revenge, devouring some portion of an enemy
who had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious by his cruelty or his
provocations. Traditions, too, are on record of chiefs who habitually killed
and devoured their fellow-creatures. A form of submission which a
conquered party used to adopt towards their conquerors has also been
interpreted as a relic of an old custom of cannibalism. Representatives of
the vanquished party used to bow down before the victors, each holding in
his hands a piece of firewood and a bundle of leaves, such as are used in
dressing a pig for the oven. This was as much as to say, "Kill us and cook
us, if you please." Criminals, too, were sometimes bound hand and foot,
slung on a pole, and laid down before the persons they had injured, like pigs
about to be killed and cooked. Combining these and other indications we
may surmise that cannibalism was formerly not infrequent among the
ancestors of the Samoans, though among their descendants in the nineteenth
century the practice had almost wholly died out.[29] It is further to the credit
of the Samoans that their public administration of justice was on the whole
mild and humane. Torture was never employed to wring the truth from
witnesses or the accused, and there seems to be only a single case on record
of capital punishment inflicted by judicial sentence. At the same time
private individuals were free to avenge the adultery of a wife or the murder
of a kinsman by killing the culprit, and no blame attached to them for so
doing. The penalties imposed by the sentence of a court or judicial
assembly (fono) included fines, banishment, and the destruction of houses,
fruit-trees, and domestic animals. But a criminal might also be condemned
by a court to suffer corporal punishment in one form or another. He might,
for example, be obliged to wound himself by beating his head and chest
with a stone till the blood flowed freely; if he seemed to spare himself, he
would be ordered by the assembled chiefs to strike harder, and if he still
faltered, the prompt and unsparing application of a war club to his person
effectually assisted the execution of the sentence. Again, he might be
condemned to bite a certain acrid and poisonous root (called in the native
language tevi) which caused the mouth to swell and the culprit to suffer

intense agony for a considerable time afterwards. Or he might have to throw
up a spiny and poisonous fish into the air and to catch it in his naked hand
as it fell; the sharp-pointed spines entered into the flesh and inflicted acute
pain and suffering. Or he might be suspended by hands and feet from a pole
and in this attitude exposed to the broiling sun for many hours together; or
he might be hung by the feet, head downward, from the top of a tall coco-
nut tree and left there to expiate his crime for a long time. For certain
offences the culprit was condemned to have his nose tattooed or his ears
split. In sentences of banishment the term of exile was never specified, but
when the sentence had been pronounced in full assembly, and the offence
was great, the culprit might live in exile for years. When the punishment
consisted in the destruction of houses, plantations, and live stock, it was
immediately inflicted by the whole force of the district, under the direction
and superintendence of the leading men, who had taken part in the assembly
and passed the sentence. A whole family might suffer in this way for the
offence of one of its members, and be driven into exile, after witnessing the
burning of their house, the killing of their pigs, and the barking of their
breadfruit trees.[30] If such penalties seem to us in some cases needlessly
severe, they at least testify to a strong sense of public justice developed
among the Samoans, who had thus advanced far enough to transfer, in some
measure, the redress of wrongs to judicial assemblies instead of leaving it to
the caprice of the injured individuals. Nevertheless the transference was but
imperfect: the administration of justice was loose and irregular: for the most
part every man was a law to himself, and did what was right in his own
eyes. An aggrieved party would become his own judge, jury, and
executioner. The thirst for vengeance was slaked only by the blood of a
victim.[31]
It is another sign of the intellectual enlightenment of the Samoans that they
rose apparently superior to that system of malignant magic, which kept their
neighbours the Melanesians in lifelong bondage. The experienced
missionary, Dr. George Brown, could not find in Samoa any trace of the
practice of that particular form of the black art with which he was familiar
in New Britain and other Melanesian islands, the practice of procuring
some object which has belonged to an enemy or been touched by him, and
taking it to a sorcerer, that he may perform over it a ceremony for the
purpose of injuring the person from whom the object has been obtained.

The proceeding is one of the commonest forms of sympathetic magic, but
the Samoans appear to have ignored or despised it.[32] Again, the silence of
our authorities on the subject of amulets and talismans leaves us to infer
that the Samoans were equally indifferent to that branch of magic which
seeks to ensure the safety and prosperity of the individual by attaching a
miscellaneous collection of rubbish to his person, a system of ensurance
against evil and misfortune which has attained a prodigious development
among some savages, notably in Africa,[33] and is very far from being
unknown in Europe at the present day. Again, unlike most savages, the
Samoans were close observers of the stars, not only reckoning the time of
night by the rising of particular stars, but steering by them when they were
out of sight of land.[34]
Against these amiable and enlightened traits in the Samoan character must
be set their cruelty in war. If they opened hostilities with a great deal of
formal politeness, they conducted them with great ferocity. No quarter was
given to men in battle, and captives were ruthlessly slaughtered. Women
were sometimes spared for the use of their captors. Nor did death save the
conquered from the insults and outrages of the insolent victors. The slain on
the battlefield were treated with great indignity. Their heads were cut off
and carried in triumph to the village, where they were piled up in a heap in
the place of public assembly, the head of the most important chief being
given the place of honour on the top of the pile. However, they were not
kept as trophies, but after remaining for some hours exposed to public gaze
were either claimed by the relatives or buried on the spot. The headless
trunks were given to children to drag about the village and to spear, stone,
or mutilate at pleasure.[35] The first missionary to Samoa was told in Manua
that the victors used to scalp their victims and present the scalps, with kava,
either to the king or to the relatives of the slain in battle, by whom these
gory trophies were highly prized. He mentions as an example the case of a
young woman, whose father had been killed. A scalp of a foe having been
brought to her, she burnt it, strewed the ashes on the fire with which she
cooked her food, and then devoured the meat with savage satisfaction.[36]
But the climax of cruelty and horror was reached in a great war which the
people of A‛ana, in Upolu, waged against a powerful combination of
enemies. After a brave resistance they were at last defeated, and the
surviving warriors, together with the aged and infirm, the women and

children, fled to the mountains, where they endeavoured to hide themselves
from their pursuers in the caves and the depths of the forest. But they were
hunted out and brought down to the seashore; and an immense pit having
been dug and filled with firewood, they were all, men, women, and
children, thrown into it and burnt alive. The dreadful butchery went on for
days. Four hundred victims are said to have perished. The massacre was
perpetrated at the moment when the first missionaries were landing in
Samoa. From the opposite shore they beheld the mountains enveloped in
the flames and smoke of the funeral pile. The decisive battle had been
fought that very morning. For many years a great black circle of charcoal
marked the scene and preserved the memory of the fatal transaction.[37]

§ 3. Houses, Agriculture, and Industries

Like all the Polynesians, the Samoans are not nomadic, but live in settled
villages. The typical Samoan house is commonly described as oval or
elliptical, though in fact it would seem to be of oblong shape with
semicircular ends. But many houses were circular in shape, and with their
conical thatched roofs resembled gigantic beehives. From the Tongans the
Samoans also borrowed the custom of building oblong quadrangular
houses, which were called afolau. The best houses, in particular those of
important chiefs, were built on raised platforms of stones about three feet
high. One of the circular houses would measure about thirty-five feet in
diameter by a hundred in circumference. Two or three posts in the centre of
the house, some twenty feet high, supported the roof, the lower end of
which rested on a series of short posts, four or five feet high, placed at
intervals of about four feet all round the house. The intervals between these
posts were sometimes closed by thatch neatly tied to sticks, which were
planted upright in the ground and fastened to the eaves; but more
commonly, it would seem, the intervals between the posts were left open
and only closed at night by blinds made of coco-nut leaves, which could be
let down or pulled up like Venetian blinds. During the day these blinds were
drawn up, so that there was a free current of air all through the house. The
roofs of the best houses were made of bread-fruit wood carefully thatched
with leaves of the wild sugar-cane; when well made, the thatch might last
seven years. The circular roofs were so constructed that they could be lifted
clean off the posts and removed anywhere, either by land or on a raft of

canoes. The whole house could also be transported; and as Samoan houses
were often bartered, or given as presents, or paid as fines, it frequently
happened that they were removed from place to place. In the whole house
there was not a single nail or spike: all joints were made by exactly
corresponding notches and secured by cinnet, that is cordage made from the
dried fibre of the coco-nut husk. The timber of the best houses was the
wood of the bread-fruit tree; and, if protected against damp, it would last
fifty years. The floor of the house was composed of stones, overlaid with
fine gravel and sand. In the centre of the floor was the fire-place, a circular
hollow two or three feet in diameter and a few inches deep, lined with
hardened clay. It was not used for cooking, but for the purpose of lighting
up the house by night. The cooking was never done in the house, but always
in the open air outside on an oven of hot stones. An ordinary Samoan house
consisted of a single apartment, which served as the common parlour,
dining-room, and bedroom of the family. But at night small tents made of
bark-cloth were hung from the ridge-pole, and under them the various
members of the family slept separately, the tents serving them at the same
time as curtains to protect them against the mosquitoes. Formerly, the
houses of the principal chiefs were surrounded with two fences; the outer of
the two was formed of strong posts and had a narrow zigzag entrance,
several yards long, leading to an opening in the inner fence, which was
made of reeds. But with the advent of a more peaceful epoch these fortified
enclosures for the most part disappeared. Houses constructed on the Tongan
model were often very substantially built: a double row of posts and cross-
beams supported the roof. These houses were found better able to resist the
high winds which prevail at one season of the year.[38]
Like the rest of the Polynesians, the Samoans are an agricultural people,
and subsist mainly by the fruits of the earth, though the lagoons and reefs
furnish them with a large supply of fish and shell-fish, of which they are
very fond. They all, but especially persons of rank, occasionally regaled
themselves on pigs, fowls, and turtle. But bread-fruit, taro, yams, bananas,
and coco-nuts formed the staff of life in Samoa. As the soil is very rich and
the hot, damp climate is eminently favourable to the growth of vegetation,
food was always abundant, and the natives could procure the necessaries
and even the luxuries of life at the cost of very little labour; if they tilled the
soil, it was rather to vary their diet than to wring a scanty subsistence from

a niggardly nature. Coco-nut palms, bread-fruit and chestnut trees, and wild
yams, bananas, and plantains abound throughout the islands, and require
little attention to make them yield an ample crop. For about half the year the
Samoans have a plentiful supply of food from the bread-fruit trees: during
the other half they depend principally upon their taro plantations. While the
bread-fruit is in season, every family lays up a quantity of the ripe fruit in a
pit lined with leaves and covered with stones. The fruit soon ferments and
forms a soft mass, which emits a very vile smell every time the pit is
opened. In this state it may be kept for years, for the older and more rotten
the fruit is, the better the natives like it. They bake it, with the juice of the
coco-nut, into flat cakes, which are eaten when the ripe fruit is out of season
or when taro is scarce. For taro is on the whole the staple food of the
Samoans; it grows all the year round. The water of the coco-nut furnishes a
cool, delicious, slightly effervescing beverage, which is peculiarly welcome
to the hot and weary wayfarer far from any spring or rivulet.[39]
To obtain land for cultivation the Samoans went into the forest and cut
down the brushwood and creeping vines with small hatchets or large knives.
The large forest-trees they destroyed by chopping away the bark in a circle
round the trunk and then kindling a fire of brushwood at the foot of the tree.
Thus in the course of a few days a fair-sized piece of ground would be
cleared, nothing of the forest remaining but charred trunks and leafless
branches. Then followed the planting. The agricultural instruments
employed were of the simplest pattern. A dibble, or pointed stick of hard
wood, was used to make the hole in which the plant was deposited. This
took the place of a plough, and a branch served the purpose of a harrow.
Sometimes the earth was dug and smoothed with the blade of a canoe
paddle. The labour of clearing and planting the ground was done by the
men, but the task of weeding it generally devolved on the women. The first
crop taken from a piece of land newly cleared in the forest was yams, which
require a peculiar culture and frequent change of site, two successive crops
being seldom obtained from the same land. After the first crop of yams had
been cleared off, taro was planted several times in succession; for this root
does not, like yams, require a change of site. However, we are told that a
second crop of taro grown on the same land was very inferior to the first,
and that as a rule the land was allowed to remain fallow until the trees
growing on it were as thick as a man's arm, when it was again cleared for

cultivation. In the wet season taro was planted on the high land from one to
four miles inland from the village; other kinds of taro were planted in the
swamps, and these were considered more succulent than the taro grown on
the uplands. The growing crops of taro were weeded at least twice a year.
The natives resorted to irrigation, when they had the means; and they often
dug trenches to drain away the water from swampy ground. Yams also
required attention; for sticks had to be provided on which the plants could
run. The fruit ripens only once a year, but it was stored up, and with care
would keep till the next season. The natives found neither yams nor bread-
fruit so nourishing as taro.[40]
The degree of progress which any particular community has made in
civilisation may be fairly gauged by the degree of subdivision of labour
among its members; for it is only by restricting his energies to a particular
craft that a man can attain to any perfection in it. Judged by this standard
the Samoans had advanced some way on the road to civilisation, since
among them the division of labour was carried out to a considerable extent:
in their native state they had not a few separate trades or professions, some
of which may even be said to have developed the stability and organisation
of trade guilds. Among them, for example, house-building, canoe-building,
tattooing, and the making of nets and fish-hooks were distinct crafts, which,
though not strictly hereditary, were usually confined to particular families.
Thus by long practice and experience handed down from generation to
generation a considerable degree of skill was acquired, and a considerable
degree of reputation accrued to the family. Every trade had its particular
patron god and was governed by certain well-known rules. The members
formed, indeed, we are told, a trade union which was remarkably effective.
Thus they had rules which prescribed the time and proportions of payment
to be made at different stages of the work, and these rules were strictly
observed and enforced by the workmen. For example, in the house-building
trade, it was a standing custom that after the sides and one end of a house
were finished, the principal part of the payment should be made. If the
carpenters were dissatisfied with the amount of payment, they simply left
off work and walked away, leaving the house unfinished, and no carpenter
in the whole length and breadth of Samoa would dare to finish it, for it
would have been as much as his business or even his life was worth to
undertake the job. Anyone so foolhardy as thus to set the rules of the trade

at defiance would have been attacked by the other workmen and robbed of
his tools; at the best he would receive a severe thrashing, at the worst he
might be killed. A house might thus stand unfinished for months or even
years. Sooner or later, if he was to have a roof over his head, the
unfortunate owner had to yield to the trade union and agree to such terms as
they might dictate. If it happened that the house was almost finished before
the fourth and final payment was made, and the builder at that stage of the
proceedings took offence, he would remove a beam from the roof before
retiring in dudgeon, and no workman would dare to replace it. The rules in
the other trades, such as canoe-building and tattooing, were practically the
same. In canoe-building, for example, five separate payments were made to
the builders at five stages of the work; and if at any stage the workmen were
dissatisfied with the pay, they very unceremoniously abandoned the work
until the employer apologised or came to terms. No other party of workmen
would have the temerity to finish the abandoned canoe upon pain of
bringing down on their heads the wrath of the whole fraternity of canoe-
builders; any such rash offenders against the rules of the guild would be
robbed of their tools, expelled from their clan, and prohibited from
exercising their calling during the pleasure of the guild. Such strides had the
Samoans made in the direction of trade unionism.[41]
In addition to their household duties women engaged in special work of
their own, particularly in the manufacture of bark-cloths and of fine mats;
but among them there seems to have been no subdivision of labour and
consequently no professional guilds. In all families the making of bark-
cloth and mats was carried on by the women indifferently, though some no
doubt excelled others in the skill of their handiwork. The cloth was made
from the bark of the paper-mulberry (Morus papyrifera), which was beaten
out on boards with a grooved beetle. The sound of these beetles ringing on
the boards, though not very musical, was a familiar sound in a Samoan
village. The fine mats, on the manufacture of which the Samoans
particularly prided themselves, were worn as dresses on ceremonial
occasions. They were made from the leaves of a large plant which the
natives call lau ie; the leaves closely resemble those of the pandanus, but
are larger. These mats were of a straw or cream colour, and were sometimes
fringed with tufts of scarlet feathers of the paroquet. They were thin and
almost as flexible as calico. Many months, sometimes even years, were

spent over the making of a single mat. Another kind of fine mat was made
from the bark of a plant of the nettle tribe (Hibiscus tiliaceus), which grows
wild over the islands. Mats of the latter sort were shaggy on one side, and,
being bleached white, resembled fleecy sheep-skins. These fine mats,
especially those made from the leaves of the pandanus-like plant, were
considered by the Samoans to be their most valuable property; they were
handed down as heirlooms from father to son, and were so much coveted
that wars were sometimes waged to obtain possession of them. The
pedigrees of the more famous mats, particularly those fringed with red
feathers, were carefully kept, and when they changed hands, their history
was related with solemn precision. Age enhanced their value; and their
tattered condition, deemed a proof of antiquity, rather added to than
detracted from the estimation in which they were held. The wealth of a
family consisted of its mats; with them it remunerated the services of
carpenters, boat-builders, and tattooers. The mats formed, indeed, a sort of
currency or medium of exchange; for while the Samoans were not in
general a trading people, and there was little or no actual buying and selling
among them, there was nevertheless a considerable exchange of property on
many occasions; at marriage, for example, it was customary for the bride's
family to give mats and bark-cloth as her dowry, while the bridegroom's
family provided a house, canoes, and other articles. But though the fine
mats were thus paid away or given in exchange, they had no fixed
negotiable value, and thus did not serve the purpose of money.[42]

§ 4. Rights of Property

In Samoa the rights of private property, both personal and landed, were
fully recognised, but with certain limitations. The lands were owned alike
by chiefs and by heads of families; the laws regulating their possession
were very definite. In no case did the whole of the land belong to the chiefs.
Every family owned portions of land not only in the village and adjoining
gardens, but far away in the unreclaimed forests of the interior. The title,
which passed by inheritance, generally vested in the family; but the family
was represented by the head, who often claimed the right to dispose of it by
sale or otherwise. Yet he dared not do anything without consulting all
concerned; were he to persist in thwarting the wishes of the rest, they would
take his title from him and give it to another. Sometimes, however, the title

to landed property vested in individual owners. The legitimate heir was the
oldest surviving brother, but occasionally he waived his right in favour of
one of the sons. Women might hold land when the male side of a family
was extinct. The boundaries of land were well defined, being marked by
pathways, natural limits, such as a river, or by trenches and stones half
buried in the ground. Every inch of ground had its owner, even to the tops
of the mountains. Trespass by a neighbouring village would be resisted, if
necessary, by force of arms.[43]
In regard to personal property it may be said that, like landed property, it
belonged rather to the family than to the individual; for no Samoan could
refuse to give, without an equivalent, anything which any member of his
family asked for. In this way boats, tools, garments, and so forth passed
freely from hand to hand. Nay, a man could enter the plantation of a relative
and help himself to the fruit without asking the owner's leave; such an
appropriation was not considered to be stealing. Under this communistic
system, as it has been called, accumulation of property was scarcely
possible, and industry was discouraged. Why should a diligent man toil
when he knew that the fruit of his labour might all be consumed by lazy
kinsfolk? He might lay out a plantation of bananas, and when they were
full-grown, bunch after bunch might be plucked and eaten by his less
industrious relations, until, exasperated beyond endurance, the unfortunate
owner would cut down all the remaining trees. No matter how hard a man
worked, he could not keep his earnings; they all soon passed out of his
hands into the common stock of the clan. The system, we are told, ate like a
canker-worm at the roots of individual and national progress.[44]

§ 5. Government, Social Ranks, Respect for Chiefs

The native government of Samoa was not, like that of Tonga, a centralised
despotism. Under the form of a monarchy and aristocracy the political
constitution was fundamentally republican and indeed democratic. The
authority of the king and chiefs was limited and more or less nominal;
practically Samoa consisted of a large number of petty independent and
self-governing communities, which sometimes combined for defence or
common action in a sort of loose federation.[45]

To a superficial observer the aristocratic cast of Samoan society might at
first sight seem very marked. The social ranks were sharply divided from
each other, and the inferior orders paid great formal deference to their
superiors. At the head of all ranked the chiefs (alii); but even among them
the ordinary chiefs were distinct from the sacred chiefs (alii paia), who
enjoyed the highest honours. These sacred chiefs preserved their pedigrees
for twenty or more generations with as great care as the oldest and proudest
families in Europe, and they possessed many feudal rights and privileges
which were as well known and as fully acknowledged as are, or were, those
of any lord of a manor in England. The task of preserving a record of a
chief's pedigrees was entrusted to his orator or spokesman, who belonged to
a lower social rank (that of the tulafales).[46] The influence of chiefs was
supported by the belief that they possessed some magical or supernatural
power, by which they could enforce their decisions.[47] Their persons were
sacred or taboo. They might not be touched by any one. No one might sit
beside them. In the public assemblies a vacant place was left on each side of
the seat of honour which they occupied. Some chiefs were so holy that they
might not even be looked at by day. Their food might not be handed to
them, but was thrown to them, and it was so sacred that no one might eat
any of it which they had left over.[48]
"The sacredness attributed to many chiefs of high rank gave rise to
observances which were irksome to their families and dependents, since
whatever they came in contact with required to undergo the ceremony of
lulu‛u, or sprinkling with a particular kind of cocoanut-water (niu-ui); both
to remove the sanctity supposed to be communicated to the article or place
that had touched the chief, and also to counteract the danger of speedy
death, which was believed to be imminent to any person who might touch
the sacred chief, or anything that he had touched; so great was the mantle of
sanctity thrown around these chiefs, although unconnected with the
priesthood. Thus the spot where such a chief had sat or slept was sprinkled
with water immediately he had left it, as were also the persons who had sat
on either side of him when he received company, as well as all the
attendants who had waited upon him.
"This remarkable custom was also observed on other occasions. It was
always used on the occasion of deposing a chief, and depriving him of his

Ao, or titles, in which case the ceremony was performed by some of those
who had either conferred the titles or had the power to do so. In the case of
O le Tamafainga, the usurper who was killed in A‛ana in 1829, his body
was first sprinkled with cocoanut-water, and his title of O le Tuia‛ana
recalled from him, before he was hewn in pieces. The ceremony consisted
of sprinkling the body with cocoanut-water, and the officiating chief or
Tulafale saying, 'Give us back our Ao,' by which means the title was
recalled, and the sacredness attaching to it was dispelled. It was also used
over persons newly tattooed, and upon those who contaminated themselves
by contact with a dead body. In each of these cases the ceremony was
carefully observed, and reverently attended to, as very dire consequences
were considered certain to follow its omission."[49] Thus the sacredness of a
chief was deemed dangerous to all persons with whom he might come,
whether directly or indirectly, into contact; it was apparently conceived as a
sort of electric fluid which discharged itself, it might be with fatal effect, on
whatever it touched. And the sacredness of a chief was clearly classed with
the uncleanness of a dead body, since contact with a dead body involved the
same dangerous consequences as contact with the sacred person of a chief
and had to be remedied in precisely the same manner. The two conceptions
of holiness and uncleanness, which to us seem opposite and even
contradictory, blend in the idea of taboo, in which both are implicitly held
as it were in solution. It requires the analytic tendency of more advanced
thought to distinguish the two conceptions, to precipitate, as it were, the
components of the solution in the testing-tube of the mind.
The profound respect which the Samoans entertained for their chiefs
manifested itself in yet another fashion. A special form of speech was
adopted in addressing a chief, in conversing in his presence, or even in
alluding to him in his absence. Thus there arose what is called a chiefs'
language, or polite diction, which was used exclusively in speaking to or of
a chief, whether the speaker was a common man or a chief of lower rank.
But it was never used by a chief when he was speaking of himself. Persons
of high rank, in addressing others and alluding to themselves, always
employed ordinary language and sometimes the very lowest terms; so that it
was often amusing to listen to expressions of feigned humility uttered by a
proud man, who would have been indignant indeed if the same terms which
he applied to himself had been applied to him by others. Thus, for example,

the actions of sitting, talking, eating, sleeping, and dying were expressed by
different terms according as the agent was a chief or a common man. The
ordinary word for a house was fale; but a chief's house was called maota.
The common word for anger was ita; the polite term was toasa. To sleep in
ordinary language was moe, but in polite language it was tofā or toá. To be
sick in common speech was mai, but in polite language it was ngasengase,
faatafa, pulu pulusi. To die was mate or pe (said of animals), or oti (said of
men); but the courtly expressions for death were maliu ("gone"), folau
("gone on a voyage"), fale-lauasi, ngasololo ao, and a number of others.
The terms substituted in the court language sometimes had a meaning the
very opposite of that borne by the corresponding terms in the ordinary
language. For example, in the court language firewood was called polata,
which properly means the stem of the banana plant, a wood that is
incombustible. If the use of an ordinary word in the presence of a chief
were unavoidable, it had to be prefaced by the apologetic phrase veaeane,
literally "saving your presence," every time the word was spoken. Nay, the
courtly language itself varied with the rank of the chief addressed or alluded
to. For example, if you wished to say that a person had come, you would
say alu of a common man; alala of a head of a household or landowner
(tulafale); maliu of a petty chief; susu of a chief of the second class; and
afiu of a chief of the highest rank.[50] The same respect which was shown in
the use of words descriptive of a chief's actions or possessions was naturally
extended to his own name, when he belonged to the class of sacred chiefs.
If his name happened to be also the name of a common object, it ceased to
be used to designate the thing in question, and a new word or phrase was
substituted for it. Henceforth the old name of the object was dropped and
might never again be pronounced in the chief's district nor indeed anywhere
in his presence. In one district, for example, the chief's name was Flying-
fox; hence the ordinary word for flying-fox (re'a) was dropped, and that
species of bat was known as "bird of heaven" (manu langi).[51] Again, when
the chief of Pango-pango, in the island of Tutuila, was called Maunga,
which means "mountain," that word might never be used in his presence,
and a courtly term was substituted for it.[52] This is only one instance of the
ways in which the dialects of savages tend to vary from each other under
the influence of superstition.

Yet despite the extraordinary deference thus paid to chiefs in outward show,
the authority which they possessed was for the most part very limited;
indeed in the ordinary affairs of life the powers and privileges of a chief
were little more than nominal, and he moved about among the people and
shared their everyday employments just like a common man. Thus, for
example, he would go out with a fishing party, work in his plantation, help
at building a house or a canoe, and even lend a hand in cooking at a native
oven. So strong was the democratic spirit among the Samoans. The ordinary
duties of a chief consisted in administering the law, settling disputes,
punishing transgressors, appointing feasts, imposing taboos, and leading his
people in war. It was in time of war that a chief's dignity and authority were
at their highest, but even then he could hardly maintain strict discipline.[53]
However, the influence of chiefs varied a good deal and depended in great
measure on their personal character. If besides his hereditary rank a chief
was a man of energy and ability, he might become practically supreme in
his village or district. Some chiefs even used their power in a very
tyrannical manner.[54]
But for the abuse of power by their nominal rulers the Samoans had a
remedy at hand. When a chief rendered himself odious to his people by
tyranny and oppression, the householders or gentry (tulafales) and
neighbouring chiefs would not uncommonly depose him and transfer his
office to another; in extreme cases they might banish him or even put him to
death. The place of banishment for exiled chiefs was the island of Tutuila.
Thither the fallen potentate was conveyed under custody in a canoe, and on
landing he was made to run the gauntlet between two rows of the
inhabitants, who belaboured him with sticks, pelted him with stones, or
subjected him to other indignities. He was lucky if he escaped with nothing
worse than bruises, for sometimes the injuries inflicted were severe or
actually fatal.[55] Chieftainship was hereditary in the male line, but did not
necessarily pass from father to son; the usual heir would seem to have been
the eldest surviving brother, and next to him one of the sons. But a dying
chief might nominate his successor, though the final decision rested with
the heads of families. Failing a male heir, a daughter might be appointed to,
or might assume, the prerogative of chieftainship.[56]

In addition to their hereditary nobility chiefs might be raised to higher rank
by the possession of titles (ao), which were in the gift of certain ruling
towns or villages. When four or, according to another account, five of these
titles were conferred upon a single chief, he was called o le tupu, or King of
Samoa. But if the constituencies were not unanimous in their choice of a
candidate, the throne might remain vacant for long periods. Thus the
monarchy of Samoa was elective; the king was chosen by a hereditary
aristocracy, and his powers were tempered by the rights and privileges of
the nobility. Yet under the show of a limited monarchy the constitution was
essentially a federal republic.[57] The ceremony of anointing a King of
Samoa in ancient times appears to have curiously resembled a similar
solemnity in monarchical Europe. It took place in presence of a large
assembly of chiefs and people. A sacred stone was consecrated as a throne,
or rather stool, on which the king stood, while a priest, who must also be a
chief, called upon the gods to behold and bless the king, and pronounced
denunciations against such as should fail to obey him. He then poured
scented oil from a native bottle over the head, shoulders, and body of the
king, and proclaimed his several titles and honours.[58]
Next below the chiefs ranked an inferior order of nobility called tulafales or
faipules, who are variously described as householders, councillors, and
secondary chiefs. They formed a very powerful and influential class; indeed
we are told that they generally exercised greater authority than the chiefs,
and that the real control of districts often centred in their hands. They
usually owned large lands: they were the principal advisers of the chiefs:
the orators were usually selected from their number: the ao or titles of
districts were always in their gift; and they had the power, which they did
not scruple to use, of deposing and banishing an unpopular chief.
Sometimes a chief contrived to bring them into subjection to himself; but as
a rule they were a sturdy class, who did not shrink from speaking out their
minds to their social superiors, often uttering very unpalatable truths and
acting with great determination when the conduct of a chief incurred their
displeasure. In short, they made laws, levied fines, and generally ruled the
village.[59]
Below the tulafales ranked the faleupolu or House of Upolu, and the
tangata nuu or Men of the Land. The former were considerable landowners

and possessed much influence; the latter were the humblest class, bearing
arms in time of war, and cultivating the soil, fishing, and cooking in time of
peace. But they were far from being serfs; most of them were eligible for
the position of head of a family, if, when a vacancy occurred, the choice of
the family fell upon them.[60] For the title of head of a family was not
hereditary. A son might succeed his father in the dignity; but the members
of the family would sometimes pass over the son and confer the title on an
uncle, a cousin, or even a perfect stranger, if they desired to increase the
numerical strength of the family.[61]
The villages of the Samoans were practically self-governing and
independent communities, though every village was more or less loosely
federated with the other villages of its district. Each district or
confederation of villages had its capital (laumua) or ruling town. These
federal capitals, however, possessed no absolute authority over the other
villages of the district; and though great respect was always shown to them,
the people of the district, or even of a particular village, would often dissent
from the decisions of the capital and assert their independence of action.[62]
Of this independence a notable instance occurred when the Catholic
missionaries first settled in Samoa. Under the influence of the Protestant
missionaries a federal assembly had passed a decree strictly forbidding the
admission of Roman Catholics to the islands, and threatening with war any
community that should dare to harbour the obnoxious sect. The better to
enforce the decree, prayers were publicly offered up in the chapels that God
would be pleased to keep all Papists out of Samoa. To these charitable
petitions the deity seems to have turned a deaf ear; for, in spite of prayers
and prohibitions, two Catholic priests and a lay brother landed and were
hospitably received and effectually protected by the people of a village,
who paid no heed either to the remonstrances of the chiefs or to the
thunders of the federal assembly.[63]
The population of a village might be from two to five hundred persons, and
there might be eight or ten villages in a district. Throughout the Samoan
islands there were in all eight of these separate districts. The union of the
villages in a district was voluntary; they formed by common consent a petty
state for their mutual protection. When war was threatened by another
district, no single village acted alone; the whole district, or state, assembled

at their capital and held a special parliament to concert the measures to be
taken.[64] The boundaries of the districts were well known and zealously
guarded, if necessary, by force of arms against the aggression of a
neighbouring state. The wardenship of the marches was committed to the
two nearest villages on either side, the inhabitants of which were called
Boundary-Keepers. Between two such villages in former days mutual ill-
feeling constantly existed and border feuds were frequent.[65]
The form of government both of the village and of the district was
parliamentary. Affairs were discussed and settled in a representative
assembly (fono), composed of the leading men of each village or district.
These representatives included the chiefs, together with the householders or
landowners (tulafales) and the inferior gentry (the faleupolu). The more
weighty affairs, such as declaring war or making peace, or any matters of
importance which concerned the whole district, were debated in the general
parliament of the district, while business of purely local interest was
transacted in the parliament of the village. It was the privilege of the capital
to convene the district parliament, to preside over its deliberations, to settle
disputed points, to sum up the proceedings, and to dismiss the assembly.
These meetings were usually conducted with much formality and decorum.
They were always held in the large public place (malae or marae) of the
village or town. It was an open green spot surrounded by a circle of trees
and houses. The centre was occupied by a large house which belonged to
the chief and was set apart as a caravansary for the entertainment of
strangers and visitors. Members of all the three orders which composed the
parliament had the right to address it; but the speaking was usually left to
the householders or landowners (tulafales). Each chief had generally
attached to him one of that order who acted as his mouthpiece; and in like
manner each settlement retained the services of a member of the order, who
was the leading orator of the district. Decisions were reached not by voting
but by general consent, the discussion being prolonged until some
conclusion, satisfactory to the greater part of the members, and particularly
to the most influential, was arrived at. One of the principal prerogatives of
the king seems to have been that of convoking a parliament; though, if he
refused to do so, when circumstances seemed to require it, the assembly
would undoubtedly have met without him. The functions of these
assemblies were judicial as well as legislative and deliberative. Offenders

were arraigned before them and, if found guilty, were condemned and
punished.[66]
It says much for the natural ability of the Samoans that they should have
attained to a level of culture so comparatively high with material resources
so scanty and defective. Nature, indeed, supplied them with abundance of
food and timber, but she denied them the metals, which were unknown in
the islands until they were introduced from Europe. In their native state,
accordingly, the Samoans were still in the Stone Age, their principal tools
being stone axes and adzes, made mainly from a close-grained basalt which
is found in the island of Tutuila. Of these axes the rougher were chipped,
but the finer were ground. Shells were used as cutting instruments and as
punches to bore holes in planks; and combs, neatly carved out of bone, were
employed as instruments in tattooing. A wooden dibble served them instead
of a plough to turn up the earth. The only skins they prepared were those of
sharks and some other fish, which they used as rasps for smoothing
woodwork. The art of pottery was unknown.[67] Food was cooked in ovens
of hot stones;[68] fire was kindled by the friction of wood, the method
adopted being what is called the stick-and-groove process.[69]
We now pass to a consideration of the religion of these interesting people,
especially in regard to the human soul and its destiny after death.

§ 6. Religion: Gods of Families, Villages, and Districts

The first missionary to Samoa, John Williams, was struck by the contrast
between the religion of the Samoans and the religion of the other
Polynesian peoples whom he had studied. "The religious system of the
Samoans," he says, "differs essentially from that which obtained at the
Tahitian, Society, and other islands with which we are acquainted. They
have neither maraes, nor temples, nor altars, nor offerings; and,
consequently, none of the barbarous and sanguinary rites observed at the
other groups. In consequence of this, the Samoans were considered an
impious race, and their impiety became proverbial with the people of
Rarotonga; for, when upbraiding a person who neglected the worship of the
gods, they would call him 'a godless Samoan.' But, although heathenism
was presented to us by the Samoans in a dress different from that in which

we had been accustomed to see it, having no altars stained with human
blood, no maraes strewed with the skulls and bones of its numerous
victims, no sacred groves devoted to rites of which brutality and sensuality
were the most obvious features, this people had 'lords many and gods
many';—their religious system was as obviously marked as any other with
absurdity, superstition, and vice."[70]
This account of the Samoan religion, written at a time when the islands
were not yet fully opened up to Europeans, must be modified by the
testimony of later writers, in particular with regard to the alleged absence of
temples and offerings; but in its broad outlines it holds good, in so far as the
Samoan ritual was honourably distinguished from that of many other
islands in the Pacific by its freedom from human sacrifice and from the
gross and licentious practices which prevailed in other branches of the
Polynesian race. The notion of the Rarotongans that the Samoans were a
godless people has proved to be totally mistaken. On closer acquaintance it
was found that they lived under the influence of a host of imaginary deities
who exercised their faith and demanded their obedience. Among these
deities the most numerous and perhaps the most influential were the aitu,
which were the gods of individuals, of families, of towns or villages, and of
districts.[71] These gods were supposed to appear in some visible
embodiment or incarnation, and the particular thing, or class of things, in
which his god was in the habit of appearing, was to the Samoan an object of
veneration, and he took great care never to injure it or treat it with
contempt. In the great majority of cases the thing in which the deity
presented himself to his worshippers was a class of natural objects, most
commonly a species of animal, bird, or fish, less frequently a tree or plant
or an inanimate object, such as a stone, the rainbow, or a meteor. One man,
for example, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the
turtle, another in the owl, another in the lizard, and so on throughout all the
fish of the sea, the birds, the four-footed beasts, and creeping things. In
some of the shell-fish, such as the limpets on the rocks, gods were supposed
to be present. It was not uncommon to see an intelligent chief muttering
prayers to a fly, an ant, or a lizard, which chanced to alight or crawl in his
presence. A man would eat freely of the incarnation of another man's god,
but would most scrupulously refrain from eating of the incarnation of his
own particular god, believing that death would be the consequence of such

sacrilege. The offended god was supposed to take up his abode in the body
of the impious eater and to generate there the very thing which he had
eaten, till it caused his death. For example, if a man, whose family god was
incarnate in the prickly sea-urchin (Echinus), were to eat of a sea-urchin, it
was believed that a prickly sea-urchin would grow in his body and kill him.
If his family god were incarnate in the turtle, and he was rash enough to eat
a turtle, the god would enter into him, and his voice would be heard from
within the sinner's body, saying, "I am killing this man; he ate my
incarnation." Occasionally, however, the penalty exacted by the deity was
less severe. If, for instance, a man's god was in cockles, and he ate one of
these shell-fish, a cockle would grow on his nose; if he merely picked up a
cockle on the shore and walked away with it, the shell-fish would appear on
some part of his person. But in neither case, apparently, would the kindly
cockle take the life of the offender. It was not a bloodthirsty deity. Again, a
man whose god was in coco-nuts would never drink the refreshing beverage
which other people were free to extract from the nuts. But the worshipper
who shrank from eating or drinking his god in the shape, say, of an octopus
or of coco-nut water, would often look on with indifference while other
people partook of these his divinities. He might pity their ignorance or envy
their liberty, but he would not seek to enlighten the one or to restrain the
other.[72] Indeed this indifference was sometimes carried to great lengths.
For example, a man whose god was incarnate in the turtle, though he would
not himself dare to partake of turtle, would have no scruple in helping a
neighbour to cut up and cook a turtle; but in doing so he took the precaution
to tie a bandage over his mouth to prevent an embryo turtle from slipping
down his throat and sealing his doom by growing up in his stomach.[73]
Sometimes the incarnate deity, out of consideration perhaps for the
weakness of the flesh, would limit his presence to a portion of an animal, it
might be the left wing of a pigeon, or the tail of a dog, or the right leg of a
pig.[74] The advantages of such a restriction to a worshipper are obvious. A
man, for instance, to whom it would have been death to eat the right leg of a
pig, might partake of a left leg of pork with safety and even with gusto. And
so with the rest of the divine menagery.
However, even if the worst had happened, that is to say, if the deity had
been killed, cooked and eaten, the consequences were not necessarily fatal
to his worshippers; there were modes of redeeming the lives of the sinners

and of expiating their sin. Suppose, for example, that the god of a
household was the cuttle-fish, and that some visitor to the house had, either
in ignorance or in bravado, caught a cuttle-fish and cooked it, or that a
member of the family had been present where a cuttle-fish was eaten, the
family would meet in conclave to consult about the sacrilege, and they
would select one of their number, whether a man or a woman, to go and lie
down in a cold oven and be covered over with leaves, just as in the process
of baking, all to pretend that the person was being offered up as a burnt
sacrifice to avert the wrath of the deity. While this solemn pretence was
being enacted, the whole family would engage in prayer, saying, "O bald-
headed cuttle-fish, forgive what has been done. It was all the work of a
stranger." If they did not thus abase themselves before the divine cuttle-fish,
they believed that the god would visit them and cause a cuttle-fish to grow
internally in their bodies and so be the death of some of them.[75] Similar
modes of appeasing the wrath of divine eels, mullets, stinging ray fish,
turtles, wild pigeons, and garden lizards were adopted with equal success.
[76]

Apparently the Samoans were even more concerned to defend their village
gods or district gods against injury and insult than to guard the deities of
simple individuals. We are told that all the inhabitants of a district would
thus unite for the protection of the local divinity.[77] For example, it
happened that in a village where the first native Christian teachers settled
one of them caught a sea-eel (Muraena) and cooked it, and two of the
village lads, who were their servants, ate some of the eel for their supper.
But the eel was the village god, and when the villagers heard that the lads
had eaten the god, they administered a sound thrashing to the culprits, and
dragged them off to a cooking-house where they laid them down in the
oven pit and covered them with leaves in the usual way, as if the lads had
been killed and were now to be cooked as a peace-offering to avert the
wrath of the deity.[78] When John Williams had caused some Christian
natives to kill a large sea-snake and dry it on the rocks to be preserved as a
specimen, the heathen fishermen of the island at sight of it raised a most
terrific yell, and, seizing their clubs, rushed upon the Christian natives,
saying, "You have killed our god! You have killed our god!" It was with
difficulty that Mr. Williams restrained their violence on condition that the
reptile should be immediately carried back to the boat from which the

missionary had landed.[79] The island in which this happened belonged to
the Tongan group, but precisely the same incident might have occurred in
Samoa. In some parts of Upolu a goddess was believed to be incarnate in
bats, and if a neighbour chanced to kill one of these creatures, the indignant
worshippers of the bat might wage a war to avenge the insult to their deity.
[80]
If people who had the stinging ray fish for the incarnation of their god
heard that their neighbours had caught a fish of that sort, they would go and
beg them to give it up and not to cook it. A refusal to comply with the
request would be followed by a fight.[81]
Accordingly, when the Samoans were converted to Christianity, they gave
the strongest proof of the genuineness of their conversion by killing and
eating their animal gods. Thus when a chief named Malietoa renounced
heathenism, he caused an eel to be publicly caught, cooked, and eaten by
many persons who had hitherto regarded the eel as their god. His own sons
had a different sort of fish, called anae, for their private deity, and to
demonstrate their faith in the new religion they had a quantity of the fish
caught, cooked, and served up in the presence of a large party of friends and
relations. There, with trembling hearts, they partook of the once sacred
morsel; but, their fears getting the better of them, they immediately retired
from the feast and swallowed a powerful emetic, lest the divine fish should
lie heavy on their stomachs and devour their vitals.[82] As nothing particular
happened after these daring innovations, the people took heart of grace, and
concerted further plans for the destruction of their ancient deities. Among
these was a certain Papo, who was nothing more or less than a piece of old
rotten matting, about three yards long and four inches wide; but being a god
of war and, in that capacity, always attached to the canoe of the leader when
they went forth to battle, he was regarded with great veneration by the
people. At the assembly convoked to decide on his fate, the first proposal
was to throw him into the fire. But the idea was too shocking to the general
sense of the community, and by way of making death as little painful as
possible to the deity, they decided to take him out to sea in a canoe and
there consign him to a watery grave. Even from this mitigated doom Papo
was rescued by the efforts of the missionaries, and he now adorns a
museum.[83]

But even when the career of one of these animal gods was not prematurely
cut short by being killed, cooked, and eaten, he was still liable to die in the
course of nature; and when his dead body was discovered, great was the
sorrow of his worshippers. If, for example, the god of a village was an owl,
and a dead owl was found lying beside a road or under a tree, it would be
reverently covered up with a white cloth by the person who discovered it,
and all the villagers would assemble round the dead god and burn their
bodies with firebrands and beat their foreheads with stones till the blood
flowed. Then the corpse of the feathered deity would be wrapped up and
buried with as much care and ceremony as if it were a human body.
However, that was not the death of the god. He was supposed to be yet alive
and incarnate in all the owls in existence.[84]

The offerings to these deities consisted chiefly of cooked food,[85] which
was apparently deemed as essential to the sustenance of gods as of men,
and that even when the gods were not animals but stones. For example, two
oblong smooth stones, which stood on a platform of loose stones near a
village, were regarded as the parents of the rain-god, and when the people
were making ready to go off to the woods for the favourite sport of pigeon-
catching, they used to lay offerings of cooked taro and fish on the stones,
accompanied by prayers for fine weather and no rain. These stone gods
were also believed to cause yams to grow; hence in time of dearth a man
would present them with a yam in hope of securing their favour.[86]
At the feasts the first cup of kava was dedicated to the god, the presiding
chief either pouring it out on the ground or waving it towards the sky.
Afterwards all the chiefs drank from the same cup according to their rank;
then the food brought as an offering was divided and eaten there before the
god.[87] Even within the circle of the family it was customary to pour out on
the ground a little kava as an offering to the family god before any one else
drank of it.[88]
Annual feasts were held in honour of the gods, and the season of the feast
was often in May, but sometimes in April or June.[89] In some cases the
feasts were regulated by the appearance of the bird which was believed to
be the incarnation of the god. Whenever the bird was seen, the priest would
say that the god had come, and he would fix upon a day for the

entertainment of the deity.[90] At these festivals all the people met in the
place of public assembly, where they had collected heaps of cooked food.
First, they made their offerings to the god and prayed to him to avert
calamity and grant prosperity; then they feasted with and before their god,
and after that any strangers present might eat. Some of the festivals
included games, such as wrestling, spear-throwing, club exercises, sham-
fights, and nocturnal dances; and they lasted for days.[91] At one of these
annual festivals held in the month of June, the exercise with clubs assumed
a serious and indeed sanguinary form. All the people, old and young, men,
women, and children, took part in it, and battered their scalps till the blood
streamed down over their faces and bodies. This proof of their devotion was
supposed to be acceptable to the deity, who, gratified by the sight of their
flowing blood, would answer their prayers for health, good crops, and
victory in war.[92] At the feast of the cockle god in May prayers were
offered up to the divine shell-fish that he would be pleased to cure the
coughs and other ailments usually prevalent at that season, which in Samoa
forms the transition from the wet to the dry months.[93] At the festival of an
owl god, which fell about the month of April, the offerings and prayers
were particularly directed towards the removal of caterpillars from the
plantations; for these insects were believed to be the servants of the owl
god, who could send them as his ministers of vengeance to lay waste the
fields and orchards of the impious.[94] Elsewhere the owl was a war god,
and at the beginning of the annual fish festivals the chiefs and people of the
village assembled round the opening of the first oven and gave the first fish
to the god.[95] A family, who had the eel for their household god, showed
their gratitude to him for his kindness by presenting him with the first fruits
of their taro plantation.[96] Another family believed their deity to be
incarnate in centipedes; and if a member of the family fell ill or was bitten
by a centipede, they would offer the divine reptile a fine mat and a fan, with
a prayer for the recovery of the patient.[97] The utility of a fine mat and a
fan to a centipede is too obvious to be insisted on. Sometimes offerings
were made to a god, not to persuade him to come, but to induce him to go
away. For example, where gods or spirits were believed to voyage along the
coast, offerings of food were often set down on the beach as an inducement
to the spirits to take the victuals and pass on without calling at that
particular place.[98]

Formal prayers were offered to the god by the head of a family, and public
prayer was put up when the men were setting out for war. On such
occasions they prayed that stones, stumps of trees, and other obstacles
might be taken out of the way of the warriors, and that their path might be
wet with the blood of their foes. All their prayers were for temporal
benefits, such as protection against enemies, plenty of food, and other
desirable objects. They attached great importance to confession of
wrongdoing in times of danger, but, so far as appears, they expressed no
repentance, promised no amendment, and offered no prayer for forgiveness.
If, for example, a canoe, crossing the channel between Savaii and Upolu,
were caught in a squall and seemed likely to be swamped, the steersman
would head the canoe to the wind, and every man on board would make a
clean breast of his sins. One would say, "I stole a fowl at such and such a
village." Another would confess an intrigue with a married woman
somewhere else; and so on. When all had either confessed their guilt or
declared their innocence, the helmsman would put the helm about and scud
before the wind, in perfect confidence of bringing the canoe and crew safe
to land.[99]
When a god was believed to be incarnate in a species of birds or animals or
fish, omens were naturally drawn from the appearance and behaviour of the
creatures. This happened particularly in time of war, when hopes and fears
were rife among the people. Thus, if their war god was an owl, and the bird
fluttered above the troops on the march, the omen was good; but if the owl
flew away in the direction of the enemy, it was an evil omen, the god had
deserted them and joined the foe;[100] if it crossed the path of the warriors or
flew back on them, it was a warning to retreat.[101] So in places where the
war-god was a rail-bird, if the bird screeched and flew before the army, the
people marched confidently to battle; but if it turned and flew back, they
hesitated. If the plumage of the rail showed glossy red, it was a sign to go to
war; but if the feathers were dark and dingy, it was a warning to stay at
home. And if the bird were heard chattering or scolding, as they called it, at
midnight, it prognosticated an attack next day, and they would at once send
off the women and children to a place of safety.[102] In like manner omens
were drawn from the flight of herons, kingfishers, the Porphyris Samoensis,
and flying-foxes, where these creatures were supposed to incarnate the war
god.[103] People who saw their war god in the lizard used to take omens

from a lizard before they went forth to fight. They watched the movements
of a lizard in a bundle of spears. If the creature ran about the outside of the
bundle and the points of the spears, the omen was favourable; but if it crept
into the bundle for concealment, it was an evil sign.[104] The inhabitants of
several villages looked upon dogs, especially white dogs, as the incarnation
of their war god; accordingly if the dog wagged his tail, barked, and dashed
ahead in sight of the enemy, it was a good omen; but if he retreated or
howled, their hearts failed them.[105] Again, where the cuttle-fish was the
war god, the movements of that fish at sea were anxiously observed in time
of war. If the fish swam inshore while the people were mustering for battle,
it augured victory; but if it swam far away, it portended defeat.[106]
When a god was supposed to dwell in some inanimate object, the art of
divination was similarly employed to elicit a knowledge of the future from
an observation of the object, whatever it might be. In several villages, for
example, the people viewed a rainbow as the representative of their war
god. If, when they were going to battle by land or sea, a rainbow appeared
in the sky right in front of them, with the arch, as it were, straddling across
the line of march or the course that the fleet was steering, it was a warning
to turn back. But if the bow shone on the right or left of the army or of the
fleet, it meant that the god was marching with them, and cheering on the
advance.[107] Another village revered its god in the lightning. When
lightning flashed frequently in time of war, it was believed that the god had
come to help and direct his people. A constant play of lightning over a
particular spot was a warning that the enemy was lurking there in ambush.
A rapid succession of flashes in front meant that the foe was being driven
back; but if the lightning flashed from front to rear, it was a signal to retreat.
[108]
In one large village the war god resided in two teeth of the sperm
whale, which were kept in a cave and observed by a priest in time of war. If
the teeth were found lying east and west, it was a good omen; but if they lay
north and south, it prognosticated defeat.[109] In another place the war god
was present in a bundle of shark's teeth, and the people consulted the bundle
before they went out to fight. If the bundle felt heavy, it foreboded ill; but if
it was light, it was an omen of victory, and the troops marched with hearts
correspondingly light.[110]

When the god was incarnate in a live creature, it was an obvious advantage
to ensure his constant presence and blessing by owning a specimen of his
incarnation and feeding it. Hence some folk kept a tame god on their
premises. For instance, some people possessed a war god in the shape of a
pet owl;[111] others had a divine pigeon, which was carefully kept and fed
by the different members of the family in turn.[112] Yet others were so
fortunate as to capture the thunder god and to keep him in durance, which
effectually prevented him from doing mischief. Having caught him, they
tied him up with pandanus leaves and frightened him by poking firebrands
at him. And lest, as an old offender, he should attempt to break prison and
relapse into his former career of crime, they filled a basket with pandanus
leaves and charred firebrands and hung it up on a tree in terrorem, to signify
what he might expect to get if he took it into his head to strike houses again.
[113]

Vegetable gods were much less plentiful than animal gods in Samoa. Still
they occurred. Thus, the god of one family lived in a large tree (Hernandia
peltata); hence no member of the family dared to pluck a leaf or break a
branch of that tree.[114] The household deity of another family dwelt in a
tree of a different sort (Conanga odorata), which has yellow and sweet-
scented flowers.[115] In Savaii the special abode of a village god called
Tuifiti or "King of Fiji" was a grove of large and durable trees (Afzelia
bijuga). No one dared to cut that timber. It is said that a party of natives
from another island once tried to fell one of these trees; but blood flowed
from the trunk, and all the sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.[116] One
family saw their god in the moon. On the appearance of the new moon all
the members of the family called out, "Child of the moon, you have come."
They assembled also, presented offerings of food, feasted together, and
joined in praying, "Oh, child of the moon! Keep far away disease and
death." And they also prayed to the moon before they set out on the war
path.[117] But in Samoa, as in Tonga, there seems to be no record of a
worship of the sun, unless the stories of human sacrifices formerly offered
to the great luminary be regarded as reminiscences of sun-worship.[118]

§ 7. Priests and Temples

The father of a family acted as the priest of the household god. He usually
offered a short prayer at the evening meal, begging the deity to guard them
all from war, sickness, death, and the payment of fines. Sometimes he
would direct the family to hold a feast in honour of their god, and on these
occasions a cup of kava was poured out as a libation to the divinity. Such
simple domestic rites were celebrated in the house, where the whole family
assembled; for the gods were believed to be present with men in a spiritual
and invisible form as well as in the material objects which were regarded as
their visible embodiments. Often the deity spoke through the father or other
members of the family, telling them what to do in order to remove a present
evil or avert a threatened one.[119]
But while every head of a family might thus act as a domestic priest and
mouthpiece of the deity, there was also a professional class of priests set
apart for the public worship of the gods, particularly of the war gods, who
in their nature did not differ essentially from the gods of families, of
villages, and of districts, being commonly embodied either in particular
material objects or in classes of such objects, especially in various species
of birds, animals, and fish, such as owls, rails, kingfishers, dogs, lizards,
flying-foxes, and cuttle-fish. Sometimes the ruling chiefs acted as priests;
but in general some one man in a particular family claimed the dignity of
the priesthood and professed to declare the will of the god. His office was
hereditary. He fixed the days for the annual feasts in honour of the deity,
received the offerings, and thanked the people for them. He decided also
whether the people might go to war.[120] The priests possessed great
authority over the minds of the people, and they often availed themselves of
their influence to amass wealth.[121] The gods were supposed from time to
time to take possession of the priests and to speak through their mouths,
answering enquiries and issuing commands. Thus consulted as an oracle the
priest, or the god through him, might complain that the people had been
slack in making offerings of food and property, and he would threaten them
with vengeance if they did not speedily bring an ample supply to the human
representative of the deity. At other times the god required a whole family
to assemble and build him a large canoe or a house, and such a command
was always obeyed with alacrity and a humble apology tendered for past
neglect. The priests were also consulted oracularly for the healing of the
sick, the recovery of stolen property, and the cursing of enemies. Thus they

kept the people in constant fear by their threats and impoverished them by
their exactions.[122]
The outward signs of divine inspiration or possession were such as priests
or prophets have manifested in many lands and ages as conclusive evidence
of their being the vehicles of higher powers. The approach or presence of
the god was indicated by the priest beginning to gape, yawn, and clear his
throat; but soon his countenance changed, his body underwent violent
contortions, and in loud, unearthly tones, which the trembling and awe-
stricken hearers interpreted as the voice of an indwelling deity, he delivered
his message of exhortation or warning, of menace, or comfort, or hope.[123]
Spirit-houses (fale-aitu) or temples were erected for some, but not all, of the
class of deities (aitu) which we are now considering. It was chiefly the war
gods who were thus honoured. Such temples were built with the same
materials and in the same style as the houses of men, with nothing to
distinguish them from ordinary dwellings, except that they almost always
stood on platforms of stones, which varied in height and size with the
respect felt for the particular deity. They were usually situated on the
principal public place or green (malae) of the village and surrounded by a
low fence. Sometimes they were mere huts; yet being viewed as the abode
of gods they were held sacred and regarded with great veneration by the
Samoans in the olden time. Whatever emblems of deity were in possession
of the village were always placed in these houses under the watchful care of
keepers.[124] In one temple, for instance, might be seen a conch shell hung
from the roof in a basket. This shell the god was supposed to blow when he
wished the people to go to war. In another a cup made of the shell of a
coco-nut was suspended from the roof, and before it prayers were uttered
and offerings presented. The cup was also used in an ordeal for the
detection of theft. In a trial before chiefs the cup would be sent for, and each
of the suspected culprits would lay his hand on it and say, "With my hand
on this cup, may the god look upon me, and send swift destruction, if I took
the thing which has been stolen." They firmly believed that it would be
death to touch the cup and tell a lie.[125]
The temples were always built by the united exertions of a whole family,
village, or district.[126] For example, when the inhabitants of a village
whose god was the cuttle-fish erected a new temple to that deity, every man,

woman, and child in the village contributed something to it, if it was only a
stick or a reed of thatch. While some of the villagers were drafted off to put
up the house, the rest engaged in a free fight, which appears to have been
considered as a necessary part of the proceedings. On this occasion many
old scores were settled, and he who got most wounds was believed to have
earned the special favour of the deity. With the completion of the temple the
fighting ended, and ought not to be renewed for a year, till the anniversary
of the building of the temple came round, when the worshippers were again
at liberty to break each other's heads in honour of the divine cuttle-fish.[127]
At one place in Savaii there was a temple in which a priest constantly
resided. The sick used to be carried to him in the temple and there laid
down with offerings of fine mats. Thereupon the priest stroked the diseased
part, and the patient was supposed to recover.[128] We hear of another
temple in which fine mats were brought as offerings to the priests and
stored up in large numbers among the temple treasures. Thus in time the
temples might have amassed a considerable degree of wealth and might
even, if economic progress had not been arrested by European intervention,
have developed into banks. However, when the people were converted to
Christianity, they destroyed this particular temple and dissipated the
accumulated treasures in a single feast by way of celebrating their adhesion
to the new faith.[129] Where the bat was the local deity, many bats used to
flock about the temple in time of war.[130] Where the kingfisher received the
homage of the people as the god of war, the old men of the village were
wont to enter his temple in times of public emergency and address the
kingfisher; and people outside could hear the bird replying, though,
singularly enough, his voice was that of a man, and not that of a bird. But as
usual the god was invisible.[131] In one place a temple of the great god
Tangaloa was called "the House of the Gods," and it was carefully shut up
all round, the people thinking that, if this precaution were not taken, the
gods would get out and in too easily and be all the more destructive.[132]
Such a temple might be considered rather as a prison than a house of the
gods.
To the rule that Samoan temples were built of the same perishable materials
as ordinary houses a single exception is known. About ten miles inland
from the harbour of Apia, in the island of Upolu, are the ruins of a temple,

of which the central and side posts and the rafters were all constructed of
stone. The ground plan seems to have resembled that of an ordinary
Samoan house of the best style, forming an ellipse which measured fifty
feet in one direction by forty feet in the other. Two central pillars appear to
have supported the roof, each fashioned of a single block of stone some
thirteen feet high, twelve inches thick one way and nine inches the other.
The rafters were in lengths of twelve feet and six feet, by four inches
square. Of the outside pillars, which upheld the lower edge of the sloping
roof, eighteen were seen standing by Pritchard, who has described the ruins.
Each pillar stood three feet high and measured nine inches thick in one way
by six inches in the other. Each had a notch or shoulder on the inner side for
supporting the roof. Pillars and rafters were quarried from an adjoining
bluff, distant only some fifty yards from the ruins. Some squared stones
lying at the foot of the bluff seem to show that the temple was never
completed. The site of the ruins is a flat about three acres in area. The
natives call the ruins Fale-o-le-Fe‛e, that is, the House of the Fe‛e. This
Fe‛e was a famous war god of A‛ana and Faleata, two native towns of
Upolu; he was commonly incarnated in the cuttle-fish. As the Samoans
were unacquainted with the art of cutting stones, and had no tools suitable
for the work, they thought that this temple, with its columns and rafters of
squared stone, must have been built by the gods, and they explained its
unfinished state by alleging that the divine builders had quarrelled among
themselves before they had brought the work to completion.[133]
For the sake of completeness I will mention another stone monument, of
more imposing dimensions, which has been discovered in Samoa, though
its origin and meaning are unknown. It stands on a tableland in the high
mountainous interior of Upolu and appears to be not altogether easy of
access. The discoverer, Mr. H. B. Sterndale, reached it by clambering up
from what he describes as a broad and dangerous ravine. In making his way
to the tableland he passed through a gap which from a distance he had
supposed to be a natural fissure in the rocks; but on arriving at it he
discovered, to his surprise, that the gap was in fact a great fosse formed by
the hand of man, being excavated in some places and built up at others,
while on one side, next to the rise of the hill, it was further heightened by a
parapet wall. When, passing through the fosse, he issued upon the tableland,
which is a level space of some twenty acres in extent, he perceived the

monument, "a truncated conical structure or Heidenmauer of such huge
dimensions as must have required the labour of a great multitude to
construct. So little did I expect," he says, "in this neighbourhood to meet
with any example of human architecture, and so rudely monstrous was the
appearance of this cyclopean building, that from its peculiar form, and from
the vegetation with which it was overgrown, I might have passed it by,
supposing it to have been a volcanic hillock, had not my attention been
attracted by the stonework of the fosse. I hastened to ascend it. It was about
twenty feet high by one hundred in diameter. It was circular with straight
[perpendicular?] sides; the lower tiers of stone were very large, they were
lava blocks, some of which would weigh at least a ton, which must have
been rolled or moved on skids to their present places. They were laid in
courses; and in two places near the top seemed to have been entrances to
the inside, as in one appeared a low cave choked with rocks and tree roots.
If there had been chambers within, they were probably narrow and still
existing, as there was no sign of depression on the crown of the work,
which was flat and covered with flat stones, among which grew both trees
and shrubs. It is likely that it was not in itself intended as a place of
defence, but rather as a base or platform upon which some building of
importance, perhaps of timber, had been erected, no doubt in the centre of a
village, as many foundations of a few feet high were near it. The fosse,
when unbroken, and its inner wall entire, was probably crossed by a foot-
bridge, to be withdrawn on the approach of an enemy; and the little gap, by
which I had entered, closed, so that this must have been a place of great
security. The Samoan natives, as far as I have been able to learn, have no
tradition of what people inhabited this mountain fastness."[134]
On an adjoining tableland, approached by a steep and narrow ridge, Mr.
Sterndale saw a great number of cairns of stone, apparently graves,
disposed in rows among huge trees, the roots of which had overturned and
destroyed very many of the cairns. Here, within the numerous trunks of a
great spreading banyan tree, Mr. Sterndale found what he calls an inner
chamber, or cell, about ten feet square, the floor being paved with flat
stones and the walls built of enormous blocks of the same material, while
the roof was composed of the twisted trunks of the banyan tree, which had
grown into a solid arch and, festooned by creepers, excluded even the faint
glimmer of twilight that dimly illuminated the surrounding forest. Disturbed

by a light which the traveller struck to explore the gloomy interior, bats
fluttered about his head. In the centre of the chamber he discovered a cairn,
or rather cromlech, about four feet high, which was formed of several
stones arranged in a triangle, with a great flat slab on the top. On the flat
slab lay a large conch shell, white with age, and encrusted with moss and
dead animalculae. The chamber or cell, enclosed by the trunks of the
banyan-tree, might have been inaccessible, if it were not that, under the
pressure of the tree-trunks, several of the great slabs composing the wall
had been displaced, leaving a passage.[135]
What were these remarkable monuments? Mr. Sterndale believed the stone
chamber to be the tomb of some man of authority in ancient days, the
antiquity of the structure being vouched for by the great banyan-tree which
had so completely overgrown it. This view is likely enough, and is
confirmed by the large number of cairns about it, which appear to be
sepulchral. But what was the massive circular monument or platform, built
of huge blocks of lava laid in tiers? From Mr. Sterndale's description it
would seem that the structure closely resembled the tombs of the sacred
kings of Tonga, though these tombs are oblong instead of circular. But they
often supported a house or hut of wood and thatch; and Mr. Sterndale may
well be right in supposing that the circular Samoan monument in like
manner served as a platform to support a wooden building. In this
connexion we must not forget that the typical Samoan house was circular or
oval in contrast to the typical Tongan house, which was oblong. The
openings, which seemed to lead into the interior of the monument, may
have given access to the sepulchral chamber where the bodies of the dead
were deposited.
Slight as are these indications, they apparently point to the use of the
monument as a tomb. There is nothing, except perhaps its circular shape, to
suggest that it was a temple of the sun. As no such stone buildings have
been erected by the Samoans during the time they have been under
European observation, it may be, as Mr. Sterndale supposed, that all the
ruins described by him were the work of a people who inhabited the islands
before the arrival of the existing race.[136]

§ 8. Origin of the Samoan Gods of Families, Villages, and Districts:
Relation to Totemism

If we ask, What was the origin of the peculiar Samoan worship of animals
and other natural objects? the most probable answer seems to be that it has
been developed out of totemism. The system is not simple totemism, for in
totemism the animals, plants, and other natural objects are not worshipped,
that is, they do not receive offerings nor are approached with prayers; in
short, they are not gods, but are regarded as the kinsfolk of the men and
women who have them for totems. Further, the local distribution of the
revered objects in Samoa, according to villages and districts, differs from
the characteristic distribution of totems, which is not by place but by social
groups or clans, the members of which are usually more or less intermixed
with each other in every district. It is true that in Samoa we hear of family
or household gods as well as of gods of villages and districts, and these
family gods, in so far as they consist of species of animals and plants which
the worshippers are forbidden to kill or eat, present a close analogy to
totems. But it is to be observed that these family gods were, so to say, in a
state of unstable equilibrium, it being always uncertain whether a man
would inherit his father's or his mother's god or would be assigned a god
differing from both of them. This uncertainty arose from the manner of
determining a man's god at birth. When a woman was in travail, the help of
several gods was invoked, one after the other, to assist the birth; and the god
who happened to be invoked at the moment when the child saw the light,
was his god for life. As a rule, the god of the father's family was prayed to
first; so that generally, perhaps, a man inherited the god of his father. But if
the birth was tedious and difficult, the god of the mother's family was next
invoked. When the child was born, the mother would call out, "To whom
were you praying?" and the god prayed to just before was carefully
remembered, and his incarnation duly acknowledged throughout the future
life of the child.[137] Such a mode of selecting a divine patron is totally
different from the mode whereby, under pure totemism, a person obtains his
totem; for his totem is automatically determined for him at birth, being, in
the vast majority of cases, inherited either from his father or from his
mother, without any possibility of variation or selection. Lastly, the Samoan
system differs from most, though not all, systems of totemism, in that it is

quite independent of exogamy; in other words, there is no rule forbidding
people who revere the same god to marry each other.
Thus, while the Samoan worship of certain classes of natural objects,
especially species of animals, is certainly not pure totemism, it presents
points of analogy to that system, and might easily, we may suppose, have
been developed out of it, the feeling of kinship for totemic animals and
plants having been slowly transformed and sublimated into a religious
reverence for the creatures and a belief in their divinity; while at the same
time the clans, which were originally intermixed, gradually sorted out from
each other and settled down in separate villages and districts. This gradual
segregation of the clans may have been facilitated by a change from
maternal to paternal descent of the totem; for when a man transmits his
totem to his offspring, his descendants in the male line tend naturally to
expand into a local group in which the totem remains constant from
generation to generation instead of alternating with each successive
generation, as necessarily happens when a man's children take their totem
not from him but from their mother. That the Samoan worship of aitu was
developed in some such way out of simple totemism appears to have been
the view of Dr. George Brown, one of our best authorities on Samoan
society and religion; for he speaks without reserve of the revered objects as
totems.[138] A similar derivation of the Samoan aitu was favoured by Dr.
Rivers, who, during a visit to Samoa, found some evidence confirmatory of
this conclusion.[139]

§ 9. The High Gods of Samoa

But besides these totemic gods of Samoa, as we may term them, which
were restricted in the circle of their worshippers to particular families,
villages, or districts, there were certain superior deities who were
worshipped by all the people in common and might accordingly be called
the national divinities of Samoa; indeed the worship of some of them was
not confined to Samoa, but was shared by the inhabitants of other groups of
islands in Polynesia. These high gods were considered the progenitors of
the inferior deities, and were believed to have formed the earth and its
inhabitants. They themselves dwelt in heaven, in the sea, on the earth, or
under the earth; but they were invisible and did not appear to their

worshippers in the form of animals or plants. They had no temples and no
priests, and were not invoked like their descendants.[140]
Among these high gods the chief was Tangaloa, or, as he was sometimes
called, Tangaloa-langi, that is, Tangaloa of the Skies. He was always spoken
of as the principal god, the creator of the world and progenitor of the other
gods and of mankind.[141] It is said that after existing somewhere in space
he made the heavens as an abode for himself, and that wishing to have also
a place under the heavens he created this lower world (Lalolangi, that is,
"Under the heavens"). According to one account, he formed the islands of
Savaii and Upolu by rolling down two stones from the sky; but according to
another story he fished them up from the depths of the sea on a fishing-
hook. Next he made the Fee or cuttle-fish, and told it to go down under the
earth; hence the lower regions of sea or land are called Sa he fee or "sacred
to the cuttle-fish." In its turn the cuttle-fish brought forth all kinds of rocks,
including the great one on which we live.[142] Another myth relates how
Tangaloa sent down his son or daughter in the likeness of a bird called turi,
a species of plover or snipe (Charadrius fulvus). She flew about, but could
find no resting-place, for as yet there was nothing but ocean; the earth had
not been created or raised above the sea. So she returned to her father in
heaven and reported her fruitless search; and at last he gave her some earth
and a creeping plant. These she took down with her on her next visit to
earth; and after a time the leaves of the plant withered and produced swarms
of worms or maggots, which gradually developed into men and women.
The plant which thus by its corruption gave birth to the human species was
the convolvulus. According to another version of the myth, it was in reply
to the complaint of his daughter or son that the sky-god Tangaloa fished up
the first islands from the bottom of the sea.[143]
Another of the national gods of Samoa was Mafuie, who was supposed to
dwell in the subterranean regions and to cause earthquakes by shaking the
pillar on which the earth reposes. In a tussle with the hero Ti'iti'i, who
descended to the lower world to rob Mafuie of his fire, the earthquake god
lost one of his arms, and the Samoans considered this as a very fortunate
circumstance; for otherwise they said that, if Mafuie had had two arms, he
would have shaken the world to pieces.[144] It is said that during a shock of
earthquake the natives used to rush from their houses, throw themselves

upon the ground, gnaw the grass, and shriek in the most frantic manner to
Mafuie to desist, lest he should shake the earth to bits.[145]
It seems to be doubtful whether among the Samoan gods are to be
numbered the souls of deceased ancestors. Certainly the evidence for the
practice of a worship of the dead is far less full and clear in Samoa than in
Tonga. On this subject Dr. George Brown writes as follows: "Traces of
ancestor worship are few and indistinct. The word tupua is supposed by
some to mean the deified spirits of chiefs, and to mean that they constituted
a separate order from the atua, who were the original gods. The word itself
is the name of a stone, supposed to be a petrified man, and is also generally
used as the name of any image having some sacred significance, and as
representing the body into which the deified spirit was changed. What
appears certain is that ancestor worship had amongst the Samoans gradually
given place to the worship of a superior order of supernatural beings not
immediately connected with men, but having many human passions and
modes of action and life. There are, however, some cases which seem to
point to ancestor worship in olden days, as in the case of the town of
Matautu, which is said to have been settled by a colony from Fiji. Their
principal deity was called Tuifiti, the King of Fiji. He was considered to be
the head of that family, and a grove of trees, ifilele (the green-heart of
India), was sacred to him and could not be cut or injured in any way."[146]
This god was supposed to be incarnate in a man who walked about, but he
was never visible to the people of the place, though curiously enough he
could be seen by strangers.[147]

However, another experienced missionary, J. B. Stair, who knew Samoa a
good many years before Dr. Brown arrived in it, speaks apparently without
hesitation of the tupua as being "the deified spirits of chiefs, who were also
supposed to dwell in Pulotu," where they became posts in the house or
temple of the gods. Many beautiful emblems, he says, were chosen to
represent the immortality of these deified spirits; among them were some of
the heavenly bodies, including the Pleiades and the planet Jupiter, also the
rainbow, the marine rainbow, and many more. He adds that the embalmed
bodies of some chiefs were worshipped under the significant title of "sun-
dried gods"; and that people prayed and poured libations of kava at the
graves of deceased relatives.[148]

§ 10. The Samoan Belief concerning the Human Soul: Funeral Customs

Whether the Samoans practised the worship of the dead in a developed
form or not, they certainly possessed the elements out of which the worship
might under favourable circumstances be evolved. These elements are a
belief in the survival of the human soul after death, and a fear of
disembodied spirits or ghosts.
The Samoans believed that every man is animated by a soul, which departs
from the body temporarily in faints and dreams and permanently at death.
The soul of the dreamer, they thought, really visited the places which he
saw in his dream. At death it departed to the subterranean world of the dead
which the Samoans called Pulotu, a name which clearly differs only
dialectically from the Tongan Bolotoo or Bulotu. Some people professed to
see the parting soul when it had quitted its mortal body and was about to
take flight to the nether region. It was always of the same shape as the body.
Such apparitions at the moment of death were much dreaded, and people
tried to drive them away by shouting and firing guns. The word for soul is
anganga, which is a reduplicated form of anga, a verb meaning "to go" or
"to come." Thus apparently the Samoans did not, like many people, identify
the soul with the shadow; for in Samoan the word for shadow is ata.[149]
However, they seem to have in a dim way associated a man's soul with his
shadow. This appears from a remarkable custom which they observed in the
case of the unburied dead. The Samoans were much concerned for the lot of

these unfortunates and stood in great dread of their ghosts. They believed
that the spirits of those who had not received the rites of burial wandered
about wretched and forlorn and haunted their relatives everywhere by day
and night, crying in doleful tones, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Hence
when the body of a dead kinsman was lost because he had been drowned at
sea or slain on a battlefield, some of his relatives would go down to the
seashore or away to the battlefield where their friend had perished; and
there spreading out a cloth on the ground they would pray to some god of
the family, saying, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the
spirit of the young man!" After that the first thing that lighted on the cloth
was supposed to be the spirit of the dead. It might be a butterfly, a
grasshopper, an ant, a spider, or a lizard; whatever it might be, it was
carefully wrapt up and taken to the family, who buried the bundle with all
due ceremony, as if it contained the body of their departed friend. Thus the
unquiet spirit was believed to find rest. Now the insect, or whatever it
happened to be, which thus acted as proxy at the burial was supposed to be
the ata or shadow of the deceased. The same word ata served to express
likeness; a photographer, for example, is called pue-ata, "shadow-catcher."
The Samoans do not appear to have associated the soul with the breath.[150]
They attributed disease and death to the anger of a god, to the agency of an
evil spirit, or to the ghost of a dead relative who had entered into the body
of the sufferer. Epilepsy, delirium, and mania were always thus explained
by the entrance into the patient of a god or demon. The Samoan remedy for
all such ailments was not medicine but exorcism. Sometimes a near relative
of the sick person would go round the house brandishing a spear and
striking the walls to drive away the spirit that was causing the sickness.[151]
Hence when a member of a family fell seriously ill, his friends did not send
for a doctor, but repaired to the high priest of the village to enquire of him
the cause of the sickness, to learn why the family god (aitu) was angry with
them, and to implore his mercy and forgiveness. Often the priest took
advantage of their anxiety to demand a valuable piece of property, such as a
canoe or a parcel of ground, as the best means of propitiating the angry
deity and so ensuring the recovery of the patient. With all these demands
the anxious and unsuspecting relatives readily complied. But if the priest
happened not to want anything in particular at the time, he would probably
tell the messengers to gather the family about the bed of the sufferer and

there confess their sins. The command was implicitly obeyed, and every
member of the family assembled and made a clean breast of his or her
misdeeds, especially of any curse which he or she might have called down
either on the family generally or on the invalid in particular. Curiously
enough, the curse of a sister was peculiarly dreaded; hence in such cases the
sister of the sick man was closely questioned as to whether she had cursed
him and thus caused his illness; if so, she was entreated to remove the
curse, that he might recover. Moved by these pleadings, she might take
some coco-nut water in her mouth and spurt it out towards or upon the body
of the sufferer. By this action she either removed the curse or declared her
innocence; a similar ceremony might be performed by any other member of
the family who was suspected of having cursed the sick man.[152]
When an illness seemed likely to prove fatal, messengers were despatched
to friends at a distance that they might come and bid farewell to the dying
man. Every one who came to visit the sufferer in his last moments brought a
present of a fine mat or other valuable piece of property as a token of
regard, and to defray the cost of the illness and funeral. The best of the mats
would be laid on the body of the dying man that he might have the comfort
of seeing them before he closed his eyes for ever. Dr. George Brown
thought that the spirits of the mats thus laid on the body of the dying chief
were supposed to accompany his soul to the other world. It is possible that
their spirits did so, but it is certain that their material substance did not; for
after the funeral all the mats and other valuables so presented were
distributed among the mourners and friends assembled on the occasion, so
that every one who had brought a gift took away something in return on his
departure.[153]
If the dying man happened to be a chief, numbers crowded round him to
receive a parting look or word, while in front of the house might be seen
men and women wildly beating their heads and bodies with great stones,
thus inflicting on themselves ghastly wounds, from which the blood poured
as an offering of affection and sympathy to their departing friend or lord. It
was hoped that, pleased and propitiated by the sight of their devotion, the
angry god might yet stay his hand and spare the chief to his people. Above
all the tumult and uproar would rise the voice of one who prayed aloud for
the life then trembling in the balance. But if the prayer seemed likely to
prove ineffectual, it was exchanged for threats and upbraiding. "O thou

shameless spirit," the voice would now be heard exclaiming, "could I but
grasp you, I would smash your skull to pieces! Come here and let us fight
together. Don't conceal yourself, but show yourself like a man, and let us
fight, if you are angry."[154]
Immediately after death, all the mats on the floor of the house were thrown
outside, and the thatched sides of the house were either torn down or
knocked in with clubs; while the relatives and assembled crowds wrought
themselves up to frenzy, uttering loud shrieks, rending their garments,
tearing out their hair by handfuls, burning their bodies with firebrands,
beating their faces and heads with clubs and stones, or gashing themselves
with shells and shark's teeth, till the blood ran freely down. This they called
an offering of blood for the dead. In their fury some of the mourners fell on
the canoes and houses, breaking them up and tearing them down, felling the
bread-fruit trees, and devastating the plantations of yams and taro.[155]
As decomposition is rapid in the hot moist climate of Samoa, it was
customary to bury commoners a few hours after death. The body was laid
out on a mat, anointed with scented oil, and the face tinged with turmeric, to
soften the cadaverous look. It was then wound up in several folds of native
cloth and the chin propped up, the head and face being left uncovered,
while for some hours longer the body was surrounded by weeping relatives,
who kept constant watch over it, so long as it remained in the house. These
watchers were always women, and none of them might quit her post under
any pretext till she was relieved by another. A fire was kept burning brightly
in the house all the time. If the deceased had died of a complaint which had
previously carried off other members of the family, they would probably
open the body to "search for the disease." Any inflamed substance which
they happened to find they would take away and burn, thinking thus to
prevent any other member of the family from being similarly afflicted. Such
a custom betrays an incipient sense of death from natural, instead of
supernatural, causes, and must have contributed to diffuse a knowledge of
human anatomy.[156]
So long as a corpse remained in the house no food might be eaten under the
roof; the family had their meals outside or in another house. Those who had
attended to the deceased or handled the corpse were taboo: they might not
feed themselves or touch food with their hands. For days they were fed by

others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were
supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household god for a breach
of the rule. Many people fasted at such times, eating nothing during the day,
but taking a meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of purification.
The tabooed persons then washed their faces and hands with hot water and
were clean; after that they were free to eat at the usual time and in the usual
manner.[157]
The ordinary mode of disposing of the dead was by interment either in a
stone vault or in a shallow grave. But occasionally other modes were
adopted, such as embalming, putting the corpse in a canoe and setting it
adrift on the sea, or exposing it on a stage erected in the forest, where it was
left to decay, the bones being afterwards collected and buried. Upon the
death of a chief his body was generally deposited in a family vault, the sides
and bottom of which were lined with large slabs of sandstone or basalt,
while another large slab of the same material formed the roof. Such vaults
were sometimes large and massive. The stones used in their construction
were found in various parts of the islands. Commoners were buried in
shallow graves.[158]
Ordinary people were usually buried the day after they died. As many
friends as could be present attended the funeral. Every one brought a
present, but on the day after the funeral all these presents, like those which
had previously been made to the dying man, were distributed again, so that
none went empty-handed away. The corpse was generally buried without a
coffin; but chiefs were laid in hollow logs or canoes. However, even the
bodies of common people were sometimes interred in rude coffins similarly
constructed. There were no common burying-grounds; all preferred to bury
their dead on their own land. Often the grave was dug close to the house.
The body was laid in it with the head to the east and the feet to the west.
When it had been thus committed to its last resting-place, a near relative of
the deceased, a sister, if one survived, seated herself at the grave, and
waving a white cloth over the corpse, began an address to the dead.
"Compassion to you," she said, "go with goodwill, and without bearing
malice towards us. Take with you all our diseases, and leave us life." Then
pointing to the west, she exclaimed, "Misery there!" Next pointing to the
east, she cried, "Prosperity there!" Lastly, pointing to the grave, she said,
"Misery there; but leave happiness with us!" With the body they deposited

in the grave several things which had been used by the deceased during his
illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup, and his bamboo pillow. The
wooden pickaxes and coco-nut shells employed as shovels in digging the
grave were also carefully buried with the corpse. It was not, we are told,
because the people believed these things to be of use to the dead; but
because it was supposed that, if they were left and handled by others,
further disease and death would be the consequence. Valuable mats and
other articles of property were sometimes buried with the corpse, and the
grave of a warrior was surrounded with spears stuck upright in the ground.
Graves were sometimes enclosed with stones and strewn with sand or
crumbled coral.[159]
The obsequies of a chief of high rank were more elaborate. The body was
kept unburied for days until his clansfolk had assembled from various parts
of the islands and paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village,
chanting a melancholy dirge.[160] The mourning and ceremonies lasted from
ten to fifteen days. All that time the house of death was watched night and
day by men appointed for the purpose. After the burial, and until the days of
mourning were ended, the daytime was generally spent in boxing and
wrestling matches, and sham-fights, while the nights were occupied with
dancing and practising a kind of buffoonery, which was customary at these
seasons of mourning for the dead. The performance was called O le tau-
pinga. The performers amused themselves by making a variety of ludicrous
faces and grimaces at each other, to see who could excite the other to laugh
first. Thus they whiled away the hours of night till the days of mourning
were expired.[161] So long as the funeral ceremonies and feasts lasted no
work might be done in the village, and no strangers might approach it. The
neighbouring lagoon and reefs were taboo: no canoe might pass over the
lagoon anywhere near the village, and no man might fish in it or on the reef.
[162]
For a chief or man of distinction fires were kept burning day and night
in a line from the house to the grave; these fires were maintained for ten
days after the funeral. The reason assigned for this custom, according to
Ella, was to keep away evil spirits. Even common people observed a similar
custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and they
were careful to clear the intervening ground so that a stream of light went
forth from the house to the grave. The account which the Samoans gave of
the custom, according to Turner, was that it was merely a light burning in

honour of the departed, and a mark of their tender regard for him. Dr.
George Brown believed that the original motive for the custom was to warm
the ghost, and probably at the same time to protect the mourners against
dangerous spirits.[163]
The head was deemed a very sacred part, and in olden days the bodies of
chiefs were often buried near their houses until decomposition had set in,
when the head was cut off and interred in some family burying-place
inland, to save it from insult in time of war. This interment of the head was
accompanied with feasts, dances, and sham-fights. The skull was borne to
the appointed place on a kind of stage, attended by a troop of armed men.
With these sham-fights Dr. George Brown, who records the custom,
compares the sham-fights which used to take place among the Melanesians
of the Duke of York Island when the body of a chief was laid on a high
platform in front of his house, one company of warriors striving to deposit
the corpse on the platform, while their adversaries attempted to prevent
them from doing so.[164] The meaning of these curious sham-fights is
obscure. Perhaps the attacking party represented a band of evil spirits, who
endeavoured to snatch away the chief's body, but were defeated in the
nefarious attempt.
One or two families of chiefs in the island of Upolu used to practise a rude
kind of embalming. The work was done exclusively by women. The viscera
having been removed and buried, the women anointed the body daily with a
mixture of oil and aromatic juices. To let the fluids escape, they punctured
the body all over with fine needles. Finally, wads of native cloth, saturated
with oil or resinous gums, were inserted in the abdomen, the apertures were
closed up, and the body wrapt in native cloth. The face, hands, and feet
were left exposed, and were repeatedly anointed with oil, mixed with
turmeric powder, to give a fresh and life-like appearance to the mummy.
The whole process lasted about two months. On its completion the mummy
was placed in a house built specially for the purpose, where, loosely
covered with a sheet of native cloth, it rested on a raised platform. Strangers
were freely admitted to see it. Four of these mummies, laid out in a house,
were to be seen down to about the year 1864. They were the bodies of a
chief, his wife, and two sons. Dr. George Turner judged that they must have
been embalmed upwards of thirty years, and although they had been
exposed all that time, they were in a remarkably good state of preservation.

The people assigned no particular reason for the practice, further than that it
sprang from an affectionate desire to keep the bodies of their departed
friends with them, as if they were still alive.[165]

§ 11. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death

With regard to the fate of human souls after death the Samoans appear to
have believed in their immortality, or at all events in their indefinite
survival. On this subject Dr. Brown observes: "All souls survived after
death, and so far as I know they had no idea of their dying a second death or
being destroyed. I do not think that a Samoan could give any reason for his
belief that the soul does not perish with the body, but he certainly does
believe this, and I never heard any one question the fact."[166] Thus,
according to Dr. Brown the Samoans, unlike the Tongans, drew no
invidious distinction between the souls of noblemen and the souls of
commoners, but liberally opened the doors of immortality to gentle and
simple alike. So far, they carried their republican or democratic spirit into
the world beyond the grave.
However, according to the American ethnologist, Horatio Hale, some of the
Samoans agreed with the Tongans in taking an aristocratic view of the
destiny of souls after death; and as he had good opportunities for
acquainting himself with the Samoan religion during the prolonged stay of
the American Exploring Expedition at Samoa in 1839, when the islands
were as yet but little affected by European influence, I will quote his
account. He says: "All believe in the existence of a large island, situated far
to the north-west called Pulótu, which is the residence of the gods. Some
suppose that while the souls of the common people perish with their bodies,
those of the chiefs are received into this island, which is described as a
terrestrial elysium, and become there inferior divinities. Others hold
(according to Mr. Heath) that the spirits of the departed live and work in a
dark subterraneous abode, and are eaten by the gods. A third, and very
common opinion is, that the souls of all who die on an island, make their
way to the western extremity, where they plunge into the sea; but what then
becomes of them is not stated. The rock from which they leap, in the island
of Upolu, was pointed out to us; the natives term it 'Fatu-asofia,' which was
rendered the 'jumping-off stone.'"[167]

Of these various opinions described by Hale the third would seem to have
been by far the most prevalent. It was commonly believed that the
disembodied spirit retained the exact resemblance of its former self, by
which we are probably to understand the exact resemblance of its former
body. Immediately on quitting its earthly tabernacle it began its solitary
journey to Fafa, which was the subterranean abode of the dead, lying
somewhere to the west of Savaii, the most westerly island of the group.
Thus, if a man died in Manua, the most easterly of the islands, his soul
would journey to the western end of that island, then dive into the sea and
swim across to Tutuila. There it would walk along the beach to the extreme
westerly point of the island, when it would again plunge into the sea and
swim across to the next island, and so on to the most westerly cape of
Savaii, where it finally dived into the ocean and pursued its way to the
mysterious Fafa.[168]
At the western end of Savaii, near the village of Falealupo, there are two
circular openings among the rocks, not far from the beach. Down these two
openings the souls of the dead were supposed to go on their passage to the
spirit-world. The souls of chiefs went down the larger of the openings, and
the souls of common people went down the smaller. Near the spot stood a
coco-nut tree, and if a passing soul chanced to collide with it, the soul could
not proceed farther, but returned to its body. When a man recovered from a
deep swoon, his friends supposed that his soul had been arrested in its
progress to the other world by knocking against the coco-nut tree, and they
rejoiced, saying, "He has come back from the tree of the Watcher," for that
was the name by which the coco-nut tree was known. So firmly did the
people of the neighbourhood believe in the passage of the souls near their
houses, that at night they kept down the blinds to exclude the ghosts.[169]
The "jumping-off stone" at the west end of Upolu was also dreaded on
account of the passing ghosts. The place is a narrow rocky cape. The
Samoans were much astonished when a Christian native boldly built
himself a house on the haunted spot.[170] According to one account, the
souls of the dead had not to make their way through the chain of islands by
the slow process of walking and swimming, but were at once transported to
the western end of Savaii by a band of spirits, who hovered over the house
of the dying man, and catching up his parting spirit conveyed it in a straight
course westward.[171]

The place down which the spirits of the dead were supposed to descend to
the nether world was called by a native name (Luaō), which means "hollow
pit." "May you go rumbling down the hollow pit" was a common form of
cursing. At the bottom of the pit was a running stream which floated the
spirits away to Pulotu. All alike, the handsome and the ugly, old and young,
chiefs and commoners, drifted pell-mell on the current in a dazed, semi-
conscious state, till they came to Pulotu. There they bathed in "the Water of
Life" and recovered all their old life and vigour. Infirmity of every kind fled
away; even the aged became young again. The underworld of Pulotu was
conceived on the model of our upper world. There, as here, were heavens
and earth and sea, fruits and flowers; there the souls of the dead planted and
fished and cooked; there they married and were given in marriage, all after
the manner of life on earth.[172]
However, it appears that according to a widespread belief the world of the
dead was sharply discriminated into two regions, to wit, an Elysium or
place of bliss called Pulotu, and a Tartarus or place of woe named Sā-le-
Fe'e. The title for admission to one or other of these places was not moral
worth but social rank, chiefs going to Elysium and commoners to Tartarus.
The idea of the superiority of the chiefs to the common people was thus
perpetuated in the land of the dead.[173] The king of the lower regions was a
certain Saveasiuleo, that is, Savea of the Echo. He reclined in a house in the
company of the chiefs who gathered round him: the upper part of his body
was human, the lower part was like that of a fish and stretched away into
the sea. This royal house of assembly was supported by the erect bodies of
chiefs, who had been of high rank on earth, and who, before they died,
anticipated with pride the honour they were to enjoy by serving as pillars in
the temple of the King of Pulotu.[174]
But the souls of the dead were not permanently confined to the lower world.
They could return to the land of the living by night to hold converse with
members of their families, to warn and instruct them in dreams, and to
foretell the future. They could cause disease and death by entering into the
bodies of their enemies and even of their friends, and they produced
nightmare by sitting on the chests of sleepers. They haunted some houses
and especially burying-grounds. Their apparitions were visible to the living
and were greatly dreaded; people tried to drive them away by shouts,

noises, and the firing of guns. But the ghosts had to return to the nether
world at daybreak. It was because they feared the spirits of the dead that the
Samoans took such great pains to propitiate dying people with presents; this
they did above all to persons whom they had injured, because they had most
reason to dread the anger of their ghosts.[175] However, the souls of the
departed were also thought of in a more amiable light; they could help as
well as harm mankind. Hence prayers were commonly offered at the grave
of a parent, a brother, or a chief. The suppliant, for example, might pray for
health in sickness; or, if he were of a malignant turn, he might implore the
ghost to compass the death of some person at whom he bore a grudge. Thus
we are told that a woman prayed for the death of her brother, and he died
accordingly.[176] In such beliefs and practices we have, as I have already
observed, the essential elements of a regular worship of the dead. Whether
the Samoans were on the way to evolve such a religion or, as Dr. George
Brown preferred to suppose,[177] had left it behind them and made some
progress towards a higher faith, we hardly possess the means of
determining.
But while the Samoans thought that the dead return to earth to make or mar
the living, they did not believe that the spirits come back to be born again in
the form of men or animals or to occupy inanimate bodies; in other words
they had no belief in the transmigration of souls.[178] The absence of such a
belief is significant in view of Dr. Rivers's suggestion that Melanesian
totemism may have been evolved out of a doctrine of metempsychosis,
human souls being supposed to pass at death into their totem animals or
plants.[179] We have seen that the Samoan system of family, village, and
district gods bears strong marks of having been developed out of totemism;
and if their totemism had in turn been developed out of a doctrine of
transmigration, we should expect to find among them a belief that the souls
of the dead appeared in the shape of the animals, plants, or other natural
objects which were regarded as the embodiments of their family, village, or
district gods. But of such a belief there is seemingly no trace. It appears,
therefore, unlikely that Samoan totemism was based on a doctrine of
transmigration. Similarly we have seen reason to think that the Tongan
worship of animals may have sprung from totemism, though according to
the best authorities that worship was not connected with a theory of
metempsychosis.[180] Taken together, the Samoan and the Tongan systems

seem to show that, if totemism ever flourished among the Polynesians, it
had not its roots in a worship of the dead.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, New
Edition (New York, 1851), ii. 117; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa (London, 1897), pp. 21
sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. (London, 1894) p. 500; G. Brown,
Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 1, 360.
[2] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 27 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, op. cit. pp. 500, 504.
[3] J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific
(London, 1853), p. 110; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the
Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 40; J. L. Brenchley, Jottings during the
Cruise of H.M.S. "Curaçoa" among the South Sea Islands in 1865 (London,
1873), pp. 37-39, 61 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 502 sq.; John B.
Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 26 sqq.
[4] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 31 sq., 52 sq.
[5] Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions
Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 71 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 502 sq.;
J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 34; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 1
sqq.
[6] F. H. H. Guillemard, op. cit. ii. 504; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 43.
[7] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 3.
[8] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 33 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians,
p. 171.
[9] T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific
(Edinburgh, 1863), p. 145; J. B. Stair, op. cit. pp. 41 sq.
[10] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 118;
Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions
Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 72 (who, however, affirms that the climate is not
unhealthy); T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western
Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 144 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 16, 35 sqq.
[11] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 124 sq.;
J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 165 sq., 169 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and
Polynesians, pp. 180 sqq.
[12] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian
Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in
January 1892, p. 622.

[13] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 72;
Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions
Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 72; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 504; J. B.
Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 38-41.
[14] Horatio Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 119 sqq.; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise
among the Islands of the Western Pacific, pp. 102 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp.
271 sqq. (compare id. p. 34 as to the timber and canoe-building of Savaii); G.
Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 358, 371 sq.; A. C. Haddon, The
Wanderings of Peoples (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36; A. H. Keane, Man Past and
Present (Cambridge, 1920), p. 552. That the Samoan language, alone of the
Polynesian dialects, retains the S sound, is affirmed by Ch. Wilkes (Narrative of
the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 123). In some of the islands the name
of the ancient fatherland of the race (Hawaiki, etc.) has been applied or
transferred to the spirit-land to which the souls of the dead are supposed to pass
as their final abode. See S. Percy Smith, Hawaiki, pp. 46 sqq.; E. Tregear,
Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 56 sqq., s.v. "Hawaiki."
[15] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 360 sq. As to the Fijian
colony in Savaii, compare T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in
the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 117 sq.
[16] S. Percy Smith, Hawaiki, pp. 114 sq.
[17] Horatio Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition, pp. 10 sq.; Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition, ii. 125 sq.; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of
the Western Pacific, pp. 41, 51; C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans
(Leipzig, 1875-1876), ii. 110 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 3; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa,
p. 58; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 55 sq.
[18] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian
Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in
January 1892, p. 634.
[19] T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific
(Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 59 sq.
[20] J. E. Erskine, op. cit. p. 110
[21] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 125; J. E. Erskine, op. cit. p. 110
[22] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 148; Violette, " Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel
de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 156; J. L. Brenchley, op. cit.
p. 77; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 628 sq.; G. Brown, op. cit. pp. 43, 410.
[23] G. Brown, op. cit. p. 410.
[24] For some evidence of the practice see John Turnbull, Voyage round the
World (London, 1813), pp. 363 sq.; C. S. Stewart, Journal of a Residence in the
Sandwich Islands (London, 1828), pp. 251 sqq.; P. Dillon, Voyage in the South
Seas (London, 1829), ii. 134; William Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second
Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 248 sqq.; J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary

Enterprises in the South Sea Islands (London, 1838), pp. 479-486. According to
Stewart, in those parts of Hawaii to which the influence of the missionaries had
not penetrated, two-thirds of the infants born were murdered by their parents
within the age of two years. In Tahiti three women, questioned by Mr. Williams,
acknowledged that they had killed twenty-one of their children between them.
Another, at the point of death, confessed to him, in an anguish of remorse, that
she had destroyed sixteen of her children.
[25] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 79. Compare J. Williams, op. cit. p. 479; S. Ella, op.
cit. p. 621; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 47.
[26] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 219.
[27] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 201 sq. Compare G. Brown, Melanesians and
Polynesians, pp. 230 sq.; J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the
South Sea Islands, p. 471; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 210.
[28] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands,
p. 456.
[29] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 108-111; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians,
pp. 149 sq., 290; J. E. Erskine, op. cit. pp. 39, 101 sq.; W. T. Pritchard,
Polynesian Reminiscences (London, 1866), pp. 125 sq.; Violette, "Notes d'un
Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p.
168; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 240 sq.
[30] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 91 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and
Polynesians, pp. 288-291. Compare Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur
l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 119, 120.
[31] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian
Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in
January 1892, p. 633.
[32] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 245. Compare S. Ella, op. cit.
p. 638.
[33] See, for example, E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, The Ila-speaking Peoples of
Northern Rhodesia (London, 1920), i. 252 sqq.
[34] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 348.
[35] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 456; Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 150 sq.; W. T. Pritchard,
Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 61; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 247 sqq.; G.
Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 170, 172 sq. Dr. Brown here speaks as
if captive women were regularly spared and married by the victors. As to the
elaborate civilities which passed between the vanguards of two hostile armies at
their first meeting, see Dr. Brown, op. cit. pp. 166 sq.
[36] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 458.
[37] J. Williams, op. cit. pp. 286 sq., 456; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 254-258.
[38] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit.. ii. 145 sqq.; J. E. Erskine, op. cit. pp. 45-47; T. H.
Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh,

1863), p. 32; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les
Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 135; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 152 sqq.; S. Ella,
op. cit. pp. 634 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 105 sqq., 153 sqq.; G. Brown,
Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 24 sqq.
[39] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 147; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences
(London, 1866), pp. 126-128; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel
de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 87 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa,
pp. 105-107; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 53-55; G. Brown, Melanesians and
Polynesians, pp. 130 sqq. According to Dr. Brown, there are generally three
crops of bread-fruit in the year, one of them lasting about three months.
[40] Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions
Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 188; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 635; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp.
54 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 130 sqq., 338 sqq.
[41] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 157 sqq., 162 sqq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 141
sqq., 145 sqq., 153 sqq., 157 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp.
268, 305-308. Compare Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 143 sqq.; Violette, op. cit. pp. 134
sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 635 sq.
[42] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 142 sq.;
J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, pp.
109 sq.; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 129-132; Violette,
"Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques,
iii. (1870) p. 135; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 119-121; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of
the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of
Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 636; J. B. Stair, Old
Samoa, pp. 143 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 304 sq., 305,
315, 434.
[43] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 176 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 83 sq.; G. Brown,
Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 287 sq., 314, 339.
[44] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 160 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians,
pp. 247, 262 sq., 434.
[45] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands,
p. 454; H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition, p. 29; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the
Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 118; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 173; S. Ella,
"Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 631; J.
B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 83 sq., 89; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p.
333.
[46] H. Hale, op. cit. p. 28; Violette, op. cit. p. 168; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 173
sqq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 65 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and
Polynesians, pp. 283, 430.
[47] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 431.
[48] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 280, 283, 285; Violette, op.
cit. p. 168 (as to chiefs too holy to be seen by day).

[49] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 127 sq. Compare Violette, op. cit. p. 168; G.
Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 231, 280, 285. In this work Dr. Brown
remarks (p. 231) that there is no clear explanation of the custom of sprinkling
coco-nut water as a purificatory rite. But the explanation given by Stair, which I
have quoted in the text, is clear and satisfactory, and elsewhere (p. 285) Dr.
Brown implicitly adopts the same explanation, where he says that the man who
had served kava to a sacred chief "sprinkled himself all over to wash away the
sacredness (paia)."
[50] H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition, pp. 28 sq.; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de
Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 190; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp.
67 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 380 sq. Compare G.
Turner, Samoa, p. 175.
[51] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 280, 381.
[52] J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific,
p. 44.
[53] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 174 sq.; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth
Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at
Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, pp. 631 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 70;
G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 286.
[54] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 70; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p.
286.
[55] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands,
p. 454; H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition, p. 28; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa,"
Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 119; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 177; J. B.
Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 71 sqq.
[56] Violette, op. cit. p. 119; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 174; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 631; G.
Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 282, 286, 430.
[57] Violette, op. cit. pp. 118 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 65 sqq.; G. Brown,
Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 283. Compare H. Hale, Ethnography and
Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 29.
[58] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian
Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in
January 1892, p. 631.
[59] H. Hale, op. cit. p. 28; Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 152; Violette, op. cit. p. 119;
S. Ella, op. cit. p. 629; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 70 sq.; G. Brown,
Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 285 sq., 287.
[60] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 74 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians,
p. 432.
[61] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 173.
[62] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 180; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 333.

[63] Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions
Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 119 sq.
[64] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 173, 180 sq. A third local division, intermediate
between the village and the district, is mentioned by Stair, who calls it a
settlement (Old Samoa, p. 83); but the other authorities whom I have consulted
appear not to recognise such an intermediate division.
[65] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 83.
[66] H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring
Expedition, p. 29; Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition, ii. 153 sq.; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de
Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 119; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 177
sqq., 180 sqq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 632 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 84 sqq.; G.
Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 286 sq., 288 sqq.
[67] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 319; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 158;
J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 146, 149, 154, 159. As to the wooden dibbles, see
Ella, op. cit. p. 635 (above, p. 166).
[68] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 111 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p.
130.
[69] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 129.
[70] John Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea
Islands, pp. 465 sq.
[71] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences (London, 1866), pp. 106 sqq.; T.
H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific, p. 141; G.
Turner, Samoa, pp. 16 sqq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 211, 215 sqq.
[72] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands,
p. 468; Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 131
sq.; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific, p.
141; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 106 sqq.; Violette, "Notes
d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870)
p. 111; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 16 sqq., 40, 50 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 211,
216 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 137, 218. The account of
these deities given by Dr. G. Turner is by far the fullest and best.
[73] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 67 sq.
[74] W. T. Pritchard, op. cit. p. 107. Similarly some people had pig's heart for
their god, or the embodiment of their god, and they scrupulously avoided eating
pigs' hearts lest pigs' hearts should grow in their bodies and so cause their death.
See G. Turner, Samoa, p. 72.
[75] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 31 sq.
[76] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 38, 58, 59, 69 sq., 72.
[77] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 216 sq.