THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE TONGANS
Sec. 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 deg. and 22 deg. South
latitude and between 173 deg. and 176 deg. 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 deg. 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 Fooeu, 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]
[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._
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]
[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.
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]
[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.
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.
[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._
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]
[16] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910),
pp. 13 _sq._
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]
[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._
Sec. 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, Reaumur, 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.
[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] Jerome 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.
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]
[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._
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]
[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.
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]
[37] This is affirmed by the Catholic missionary, Jerome 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._
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.
[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.
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 fafine_
(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]
[40] W. Mariner, _The Tonga Islands_, ii. 287. Compare _id._ ii.
124, note *; Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 410 _sq._
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]
[41] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 194; compare _id._ i.
317-320.
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.
[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 etait suivant l'ordre legal a
Tonga-Tabou, on verrait d'abord a la tete de la societe le
toui-tonga qui est le veritable souverain nominal des iles
Tonga, et qui jouit meme des honneurs divins_."
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]
[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.
Sec. 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.
[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.
According to him, the religion of the Tonga islanders rests, or rather
used to rest, on the following notions.[47]
[47] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 97 _sqq._
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.
[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.
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.
[49] As to the _matabooles_ see W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii.
84 _sqq._
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]
[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.
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]
[51] So apparently we must interpret Mariner's brief statement
"and the contrary of good" (_Tonga Islands_, ii. 98).
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.
[52] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 101.
[53] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 424, note *.
Sec. 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]
[54] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 104.
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]
[55] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 105.
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]
[56] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 105 _sq._
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]
[57] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 106 _sq._
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]
[58] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 108.
[59] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 205-208; compare _id._ 7,
note *, 108.
Another god named Moooi 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]
[60] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 112 _sq._ Compare Captain James
Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_
(London, 1799), pp. 277 _sq._ Moooi 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._
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]
[62] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 109, 114 _sq._; Horatio
Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology_, pp. 24 _sq._
[63] Jerome 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 Jerome 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.
Sec. 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]
[65] W. Mariner, _Tonga Island_, ii. 104 _sq._
[66] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii, 107 _sq._
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]
[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._
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 iaaoe 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]
[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.
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]
[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.
Sec. 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]
[73] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 80 _sq._
[74] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 136-138.
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]
[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.
Sec. 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]
[76] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 224.
[77] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 350-360.
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 Labillardiere,[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.
[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._; Jerome
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] Labillardiere, _Relation du Voyage a la recherche de la
Perouse_ (Paris, 1800), ii. 151.
[81] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 79, 268.
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]
[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._
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 Moom[=o]oe 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.
[86] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean_, pp. 238-240.
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.
[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._
Sec. 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]
[91] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 127 _sq._
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]
[92] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 419, ii. 99, 128 _sq._
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]
[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.
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]
[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.
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]
[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._
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]
[100] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 110 _sq._, 130, 131, 139,
140.
[101] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 423.
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.
[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, note^1.
Sec. 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]
[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._
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.
[106] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 110, 130 _sq._
[107] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 423 _sq._
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]
[108] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 99, 131.
[109] Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, pp. 126
_sq._
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]
[110] See below, pp. 182 _sqq._, 200 _sqq._
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.
[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._
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]
[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.
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.
[130] See below, pp. 154 _sq._
[131] E. E. V. Collocot, _op. cit._ p. 239.
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]
[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.
Sec. 10. _Temples and Tombs: Megalithic Monuments_