THE SOCIETY ISLANDS--_Continued_.
RELIGION.
RELIGION OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDS -- THEIR IDOLS -- PARALLEL BETWEEN
THE IDOLATRY OF MODERN POLYNESIA AND ANCIENT SYRIA -- ORO, THE GOD
OF WAR -- EXTENT OF HIS WORSHIP -- LEGEND OF A SHELL -- ORO’S MARAE,
OR TEMPLE -- THE HUMAN SACRIFICE -- HIRO, THE GOD OF THIEVES -- HIS
WORSHIP AND APOTHEOSIS -- TANE, THE CHIEF GOD OF HUAHINE -- HIS MARAE
AND HIS BED -- DRESSING TANE -- THE TREES AROUND HIS MARAE -- HIS
UNFORTUNATE TAIL -- HIS HIGH PRIEST -- AN INGENIOUS EVASION -- TANE’S
HALF-WAY HOUSE -- TANE AVERSE TO BLOODSHED, BUT NEEDING THE SACRIFICE
OF LIFE -- TANE’S STONE CANOE -- THE SHARK GOD, AND HIS WATER TEMPLE
-- APOTHEOSIS OF A LIVING MAN -- SINGULAR PERFORMANCE OF THE INSPIRED
PRIESTS -- MOVABLE SHRINES.
We now come to the somewhat complicated subject of the religious belief
of the Society Islanders. It is not an easy subject, involving, as it
does, a great variety of national customs, including the all-pervading
tapu, the burial of the dead, and the human sacrifices which accompany
a funeral or are offered on great occasions. We will begin with a brief
account of the religious system of these islanders, as far as it is
possible to reduce to a system a subject so obscure in itself, and so
little understood by the first travellers, who alone would be likely to
witness and gain information about the various religious ceremonies.
As might be expected from these islanders, their religion is pure
idolatry, or rather, it consists in the worship of certain images which
are conventionally accepted as visible representatives of the invisible
deities. The idols are of two different kinds, the one being rude
imitations of the human figure, and the other, certain combinations
of cloth, sinnet, and feathers, rolled round sticks, not having the
slightest similitude to the human form, or being recognizable as idols
except by those who understand their signification. The human figures
are held as being inferior to other idols, and are considered in much
the same light as the Lares and Penates of the ancient Romans. They are
called by the name of Tu, and are supposed to belong to some particular
family which is taken under their protection.
The other gods are, in the ideas of the natives, possessed of far more
extensive powers, sometimes being supposed to watch over particular
districts, or even particular islands. There are gods of the valleys
and gods of the hills, exactly as we read was the belief of the Syrians
nearly three thousand years ago: when Ahab had repulsed Benhadad, “the
servants of the king of Syria said unto him, their gods are gods of the
hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against
them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.” (1 Kings
xx. 23.)
Fully believing in the protection which these deities are able to
extend over their worshippers, it is no matter of wonder that the
latter consider that they have a right to the good offices of their
gods, and complain bitterly when anything goes wrong with them. So,
if a god has been worshipped in some locality, and the ground becomes
barren, or the cocoa-nut trees do not produce their full amount of
fruit, or the district is devastated by war, the people think that
their god is not doing his duty by them, and so they depose him, and
take another in his place.
Although these gods are in a manner limited in their scope, many of
them are acknowledged throughout the whole of the group of islands; and
the chief, because the most dreaded, of them is Oro, the god of war.
This terrible deity is held in the greatest awe by his worshippers, and
at one time was feared throughout the whole of the islands. His name
was associated with sundry localities, and with many objects, so that
his dreaded name was continually in the mouth of the people. There was
even a small species of scallop shell which was held in such fear that
not a native would dare to touch it. It was called tupe (pronounced
_toopeh_), and was said to be the special property of Oro. When a
man died, and was to be converted into a spirit, the body had to be
entirely consumed. This was done by Oro, who scraped the flesh from the
bones with a tupe shell, and thus ate the body.
The subsequent career of the spirit was rather peculiar. After issuing
from Oro in its new form, it betook itself to a great lake in Raiatea,
round which is a belt of trees, which from some cause are quite flat
at the top, presenting a level surface like a leafy platform. On this
place the newly enfranchised spirits danced and feasted, and after they
had passed through that stage of their existence, they were transformed
into cockroaches.
In Huahine there was an enormous marae, or sacred enclosure, dedicated
to Oro. It was a hundred and fifty-six feet long by eighteen wide, and
was built by a fence made of flat slabs of coral-rock placed on their
edges, and the intervals between them filled in with earth. One of
these blocks of stone measured nine feet by ten, so that the labor of
cutting them and conveying them to such a distance from the sea must
have been enormous.
On this platform a smaller one was erected, so as to leave a space
of about four feet in width, and within this upper story were laid
the bones of the many victims that had been slain in the worship of
the god. The temple itself, called Fare no Oro, or the House of Oro,
was quite a small building, eight feet long by six wide, and a little
beyond this was the square stone on which the priest stood when about
to offer a sacrifice, a higher stone behind it answering as a seat
whereon the priest might rest himself when wearied.
Small as was this house, it had been the scene of many human
sacrifices, and even its erection cost a number of lives, every post
having been driven into the ground through a human body. Besides these
victims, others had been sacrificed on many occasions, fourteen of whom
were enumerated by an old man who had once officiated as the priest of
Oro. When the chief of the island became converted to Christianity,
this man tried to conceal the idol which he had so long worshipped,
and to save it from destruction, hid it in a hole in the rock. The
chief, however, very rightly feared that if the idol were allowed to
remain its worship might revive, and accordingly insisted upon its
destruction. Besides the priest who offered the sacrifice, Oro had
another officer, whose special duty it was to kill the victims. He was
officially termed the Mau-buna, or Pig-owner, a human body killed for
sacrifice being named a “long pig.” When the victim was pointed out to
him, the Mau-buna, having a round stone concealed in his hand, found
an opportunity, of getting behind him, and, with a single blow, struck
him senseless to the ground, where the murder was completed. He then
packed the body in a basket of cocoa-nut leaves, and delivered it to
the priest.
Next to Oro was Hiro, the Polynesian Mercury, or god of thieves. He
was originally a man, but was elevated to the society of the gods in
consequence of his wonderful deeds on earth, the chief of which seems
to have been his daring in taking the image of Oro and flinging it to
the ground with impunity.
The worship of Hiro extended through all ranks, from the highest chief
to the lowest cook, and his votaries always asked for his help when
they went on a plundering expedition, and promised him a share of the
spoil. This promise they always performed, but as they were careful
not to define the amount of booty which was to belong to the god, they
contrived practically to have it all to themselves. For example, a
thief would go out pig stealing, and promise Hiro a share of the stolen
pork. Accordingly, if he had been successful, he would take home his
ill-gotten booty, bake it, break off an inch of the tail, and go with
it to the shrine of Hiro, where he would offer it with as much ceremony
as if it had been half the pig, and at the same time beg the god not to
divulge the theft of a votary who had kept his promise.
The natives are quite dexterous enough in the thieving way to be worthy
of the protection of this god, having the most ingenious modes of
stealing the goods of another. For example, if the objects are small, a
hook is fastened to the end of a long bamboo, and the coveted article
is slily withdrawn by the actual thief while a confederate directs the
attention of the victim elsewhere. Sometimes the hook is tied to a
line, and the thief literally angles for the property.
The apotheosis of Hiro was a very remarkable one. After his life of
theft, rapine, and murder, in which he did not spare even the temples
of the gods, and had, as we have seen, the hardihood to fling Oro’s
image on the floor, and roll on it as if he had conquered Oro in
wrestling, he was thought to have been so superhumanly wicked that he
must have been a god. Accordingly, his skull was placed in a huge marae
which he himself had erected, while his hair was put into an image of
Oro, and both buried together, this act constituting the apotheosis.
When Messrs. Bennett and Tyerman were at the Society Islands, this
skull was still in existence, but it disappeared, together with the
idols and other relics of the old religions.
The next god is Tane (pronounced _tahneh_), who was worshipped over a
considerable range of country, and was in one or two islands considered
as their supreme god. Such was the case with Huahine, in which Tane had
a marae or malae of gigantic dimensions. I may here remark that in most
Polynesian dialects the letters _r_ and _l_ are interchangeable, so
that marae and malae are, in fact, the same word.
This marae is a hundred and twenty-four feet in length by sixteen in
breadth, and is composed, like the marae of Oro, of two stories, the
last being nearly ten feet in height, and built of coral blocks, some
of which are ten feet in width, and correspondingly long and thick, so
that their weight is enormous. As the marae is about a hundred yards
from the shore, a prodigious amount of labor must have been expended
in getting these huge stones out of the sea and fixing them in their
places. The upper story is barely a yard in height, and has at each end
an upright stone six feet high.
In the middle of the principal part is the idol’s bed, which he
occupies once annually, and in which he ought to feel comfortable, as
it is twenty-four feet long by thirteen wide. It is built, like the
marae, of stone and earth, and is only eighteen inches high. This is
a very ancient structure, as is shown by the trees that surround and
spread their arms over it. Near the bed is a small house about twelve
feet by six, in which rests the god Tane, together with lesser gods,
each of whom is set over a district.
Tane himself--burned in 1817--was carved out of a great block of wood,
and was about as large as a tall man. He was not remarkable for an
elegant shape, having no neck and no legs, the body terminating in a
cone. The head was furnished with apologies for eyes, mouth, nose, and
ears, and the whole was covered with sinnet.
Once in every year, Tane had a new dress, and was invested with great
solemnity. He was brought out of his house by his priest and laid on
his bed, having four lesser gods on either side of him. The chiefs of
the district stood each in front of his own god, and the priests stood
round Tane as being the great god of them all. The old garments were
then removed, and examination made into the interior of the idol, which
was hollow, and contained various objects, such as scarlet feathers,
beads, bracelets, and other valuables. Those that began to look shabby
were removed, and others inserted to take their place, and the idols
were then invested in their new robes.
Meanwhile, a vast amount of kava was prepared--the natives saying that
it was equal in cubic measure to the marae--and a scene of drunken
debauch took place, lasting for several days, even the priests being
so intoxicated that they were unable to stand while performing their
duties, but had to chant their incantations while lying on the ground.
This stage of the idol-dressing is represented in the fine engraving on
the opposite page. At the expiration of the three days a special god
called Moorai was produced and stripped, and, as soon as his garments
were removed, violent rain showers fell, as a signal for all the idols
to be removed to their respective houses. The greatest care was taken
that no woman should witness this ceremony, and if a female of any age
had been detected coming within a certain distance of the marae, she
would be at once killed, and even her father, husband, or brother,
would have been among the first to strike her down.
The trees which decorated this marae are the banyans (_Ficus Indica_),
one of which is described by Mr. Bennett as being seventy feet in girth
at the principal stem, and throwing out vast horizontal branches, each
of which is supported by a root which looks more like the trunk than
the root of a tree. “More than forty of these we counted, standing like
a family of earth-born giants about their enormous parent. A circle
drawn round all these auxiliary stems measured a hundred and thirty-two
feet in circumference, while a circle embracing the utmost verge of
their lateral ramification was not less than four hundred and twenty
feet.
“The upper stories (if such we may call them) of this multiform
tree presented yet more singular combination of interesting and
intertwisting boughs, like Gothic arches, circles, and colonnades,
propped as by magic in mid-air. These were occasionally massy or light,
and everywhere richly embellished with foliage, through which the
flickering sunshine gleamed in long rays that lost themselves in the
immensity of the interior labyrinth, or danced in bright spots upon
the ground black with the shadows of hundreds of branches, rising tier
above tier, and spreading range above range, aloft and around.”
This tree was one of the places in which the bodies of human beings
were offered, being packed in leaf baskets and hung to the branches.
One branch, which was hugely thick and strong, and ran horizontally
at a small height from the ground, was pointed out as the principal
gibbet, on which human sacrifices, thousands in number, have been
offered century after century.
Tane, all powerful though he was, labored under one disadvantage. He
had a very long tail, and whenever he wished to leave his house, rise
into the air, and dart through the sky on some errand of mischief, he
was restrained by his long tail, which was sure to become entangled
in some object, which from that time became sacred to the god. For
example, the magnificent tree which has just been described was
several times the means of detaining Tane on earth, and the several
branches round which his tail was twisted became tapu at once. On one
side of his house there was a large stone, which had become sacred in
consequence of having arrested the flight of the god.
[Illustration: SOCIETY ISLANDERS DRESSING THE IDOLS. (See page 1066.)]
This idea of the long and streaming tail has evidently been derived
from meteors and comets, which are supposed to be the gods passing
through the air, and whenever a native saw one of them, he always threw
off his upper garments, and raised a shout in honor of the passing god.
Mr. Bennett suggests that the permanent tail attached to Tane is in all
probability a commemoration of some very magnificent comet with a tail
measuring eighty or ninety degrees in length.
So sacred was the idol that everything which was touched by it became
tapu, and might not be touched by profane hands. There was only one man
who was allowed to carry it, and he was called from his office, “Te amo
attua,” _i. e._ the god-bearer. His task was not an easy one, and his
office, though it caused him to be viewed with nearly as much reverence
as the god of whom he was the special servant, must have deprived
him of many comforts. The god-bearer was not even allowed to climb a
cocoa-nut tree, because, if he did so, the tree would be so sacred that
no one might ascend it after him; indeed, every action of his life was
fenced about with some similar restriction. He could not marry, as, in
the first place, no woman could be deserving of the honor, and, in the
second place, he would be defiled and unfitted for his office if he
were to take any woman to wife.
A celibate life does not seem to us to entail such self-denial as
seems to be implied by the prominence given to the celibacy of the
god-bearer, who appears to have been the only bachelor in the whole
group of islands. But among most savage nations a man’s wealth and
consequence are regulated by the number of his wives, who do all the
work of the household, and in fact keep their husband in idleness.
The house in which the god lived was a small hut elevated on posts
twenty feet high, and there were no means of access except by climbing
one of these posts. The god-bearer, therefore, had no easy task in
climbing up these posts with the great wooden image fastened to his
back.
In the illustration on the 1084th page we see the chief priest of
Tane--the god-bearer--ascending the pole of the sacred house, with the
unwieldy idol slung on his back. A gust of wind has risen, and has
wafted Tane’s long tail into the air, so that it has been entangled in
a neighboring tree. One of the principal priests is running to ascend
the tree and free the god’s tail, and from that time the tree will be
tapu, and no one of lower rank than the priest who freed the tail will
be allowed to ascend the tree.
Sometimes Tane paid a visit to a marae at some distance, and when
he did so, his bearer was naturally fatigued with the weight of his
burden. It was, however, thought derogatory to the character of the god
to say that his bearer could by any possibility be tired of carrying
him, and so, by an ingenious evasion, the god himself was thought to
be fatigued with the journey, and was laid to rest for a while on a
flat stone about half a mile from the sacred tree. This stone was tapu
to women, and if a woman had sat upon it, or even touched it with her
finger, she would have been at once killed.
The stone was not a large one, being only four feet long, one foot
broad, and nine inches thick. It is a singular fact that this sacred
stone, which had so often been the witness of idolatrous rites,
should also have witnessed the destruction of the idol to whom it was
consecrated. After Christianity had been fairly established in the
island, the chief men who adhered to the worship of Tane made war
upon the Christians, who repelled them, so that they were obliged to
bring out their idol and lay him on the sacred stone. The two bodies
of warriors met face to face close to the idol, and the struggle was
about to commence when the chief of the Christians made a speech to
the enemy, laying before them the distinctions between idolatry and
Christianity, and recommended peace instead of war.
His voice prevailed, and those who came to fight against the Christians
renounced their idols, and, as a proof of their sincerity, they built
a large fire on the spot, threw Tane into it, and then held a great
feast, at which the men and women ate together. They then proceeded to
Tane’s house, burned it down, and dismantled his great marae.
The feathers attached to these idols and placed within their hollow
bodies are mostly the two long tail-feathers of the tropic bird, white
and broad toward the base, and narrow and scarlet for the remainder
of their length. When the gods are newly dressed, it is considered
a meritorious act for any one to present fresh feathers in lieu of
those which have been deteriorated by age. After the old garments are
unrolled, the feathers are placed inside the image, and a corresponding
number of old feathers taken out and presented to the devotee, who
values them beyond all things, as partaking of the sanctity which
surrounds the original idol. These feathers are then carefully wrapped
with sinnet, so as to cover them, with the exception of a little
portion of both ends, and they are then laid before the idol, while
the priest recites a prayer, in which he beseeches the god to transfer
his sanctity to these feathers, which from that moment become minor
gods.
The happy devotee has already provided himself with bamboo tubes, in
each of which he places one of the feathers, and from which he never
takes them except to pray to them. Sometimes he has a smaller idol
made, and places the feathers within it; but in this case, he has to
take the new idol to be laid before the original one, so that the
transfer of sanctity may be guaranteed to them. This mode of honoring
the sacred feathers is usually employed when the devotee has enjoyed
some piece of good fortune after he has received them, and in most
cases he not only encloses them in a new idol, but builds a small
temple in which that idol lives.
Formerly, when animals were brought to be sacrificed to Tane, no blood
was shed, but they were laid upon a stone and strangled by pressing
their necks between two sticks. Food of all kinds was presented to him,
part of which he was supposed to consume himself, part was taken by the
priests, and the remainder was consumed by the worshippers. All first
fruits went to Tane, a peasant being supposed to offer him two of the
earliest fruits, while a _raatira_ or gentleman offered ten, and the
chiefs still more, according to their rank and wealth.
Not very far from the sacred stone was a marae containing a very sacred
object, no less, in fact, than a piece of Tane’s own canoe. According
to the people, it was a very miraculous canoe, for it was made of
stone, and yet floated as well as if it were made of wood. In proof of
this statement, they placed the fragment in water, where it floated, as
it was likely to do, being nothing more than a piece of pumice stone.
No one knew where the stone had been obtained, but they said that there
were more pieces in different parts of the island.
Besides the idol gods, there are gods which are symbolized by living
creatures, of which the shark is the chief, being worshipped for the
same reason that crocodiles and venomous serpents are worshipped in
some parts of the world, viz. on account of its destructive powers. Mr.
Bennett saw a large marae which had been consecrated to a shark god
on account of a miraculous event which was said to have happened some
time previously. In one particular spot the ground begun to shake and
tremble, and, as the people were flying in terror, the ground opened,
and a huge shark forced his head through the cleft in the soil.
The formation of the maraes has already been mentioned. Some time
before Mr. Bennett arrived at the place, a shark had contrived to
force its way through the sand into the marae, which was situated
on the shore of the lagoon. The water flowed in with the fish, and
the natives, feeling delighted that their god had actually come to
take possession of his temple, blocked up the passage by which he had
entered, cleared out the marae, and kept the shark in it for the rest
of his life, feeding him abundantly with fish and meat.
Indeed, in one bay the sharks were regularly fed by the priests, and
the consequence was that they became quite familiar, and would swim to
the beach to be fed with fish and pork. They would also accompany the
canoes, knowing well that the natives always threw overboard some of
the fish which they had caught, for the sake of propitiating the shark
gods. The latter, however, were so little sensible of the kindness
bestowed upon them, that had one of their worshippers fallen overboard
they would have eaten him, in spite of all his propitiatory offerings.
Sometimes a living man has been elected to the rank of a god, and
worshipped as such during his lifetime. This was done at Raiatea, the
king, Tamatoa, having been reckoned among the gods by means of a series
of ceremonies which might have been very appropriate in assigning him
a place among the very worst and vilest of demons, but were singularly
unsuitable to an apotheosis. After this ceremony, the king was
consulted as an oracle, prayers and sacrifices were offered to him, and
he was treated as reverently as if he had been Tane himself.
It is a most remarkable fact that Tamatoa became a Christian in
his later life, and afforded most valuable information respecting
the religious belief of the Society Islanders. He corroborated, as
having been an eye-witness, the accounts that have been given of the
astonishing deeds done by the heathen priests while in a state of
inspiration. They have been seen to dash their hands against the ground
with such violence that they imbedded the whole arm up to the shoulder.
Captain Henry, the son of one of the missionaries, states that he has
seen one of these priests plunge his arm into the solid earth as if it
were water, and that he would perform the feat on any ground wherever
he chanced to be.
“The infuriated priest, on that occasion, foamed at the mouth,
distorted his eyeballs, convulsed his limbs, and uttered the most
hideous shrieks and howlings. After he had seemingly buried his arm
like a spear stuck suddenly in the ground, he held it there for a
considerable time; then, drawing it out uninjured, he rushed toward the
shore, and, laying hold upon a large canoe, which ordinarily required
three or four men to launch, he shoved it before him with apparent
ease, and sent it adrift.
“He afterward threw himself into the sea, wallowed about in it, and
kept his head under water for a long time. When this act of the
tragical pantomime was finished, he sat among the waves, and delivered
his prophecies in very figurative and hyperbolical language, at the
same time sufficiently ambiguous to be fulfilled in one of two senses,
whatever might happen.”
Portable shrines of the gods were once used in the Society Islands, but
so complete and rapid has been the demolition of everything connected
with idolatry, that Mr. Bennett, who was eye-witness of many idolatrous
practices, was only able to procure one specimen, which is now in the
museum of the London Missionary Society.
In form it resembles a house, with sloping roof, and is about a yard
in length. It is supported on four short legs, and underneath there
is a round hole through which the idol was passed into its shrine, a
door exactly fitting and closing the aperture. The idol which was in
this shrine represented a female god greatly venerated by the people,
because she was so very mischievous, and had killed thousands of
people, gaining from her bloodthirsty propensities the name of Tii
Vahine, or Queen Tii. The idol is a horribly repulsive example of the
ugliness with which savages invariably invest their deities.
The shrine, with the idol within it, was hidden in a rock cave by
priests of Tii Vahine when idolatry was overthrown by Christianity, and
was not discovered for a considerable time, when it was brought from
its place of concealment and sold.