THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE SOCIETY ISLANDERS
Sec. 1. _The Society Islands_
The Society Islands are a large and scattered archipelago in the South
Pacific, situated within 16 deg. and 18 deg. of South latitude, and between 148 deg.
and 155 deg. of West longitude. They lie some three hundred miles from the
Hervey or Cook Islands, from which they are separated by the open sea.
The islands form a chain nearly two hundred miles in length, extending
from north-west to south-east, and fall into two groups, an eastern and
a western, which, on account of the prevailing wind, are known
respectively as the Windward and Leeward Islands. The Windward or
eastern group includes Eimeo or Mooerea in the west, Maitea in the east,
and Tahiti, the principal island of the whole archipelago, in the
centre. In the Leeward or western group the chief islands are Huahine,
Raiatea, Tahaa, and Borabora. The islands appear to have been first
discovered by the Spanish navigator Fernandez de Quiros in 1606 or 1607,
but after him they were lost sight of till 1767, when they were
rediscovered by Wallis. A few years later they were repeatedly visited
by Captain Cook, who gave the first full and accurate description of the
islands and their inhabitants.[1]
[1] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 6 _sq._; A. v.
H[uegel], "Tahiti," _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Ninth Edition,
xxiii. 22, 24; C. E. Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_,
ii. 151 _sqq._; F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. 510. As
to Wallis's discovery of the islands see J. Hawkesworth,
_Voyages_, i. (London, 1773) pp. 433 _sqq._; R. Kerr, _General
History and Collection of Voyages and Travels_, xii. (Edinburgh,
1814) pp. 164 _sqq._
The islands, with the exception of a few flat lagoon islands, are of
volcanic formation, high and mountainous, consisting for the most part
of a central peak or peaks of bold and striking outline, which descend
in steep ridges towards the sea, sometimes reaching the coast, but
oftener leaving a broad stretch of flat and very fertile land between
their last slopes and the beach. Between the ridges lie deep and
beautiful valleys, watered by winding streams and teeming with luxuriant
vegetation. The rocks of which the islands consist are all igneous,
chiefly trachyte, dolerite, basalt, and lava. They are considered by
geologists to present perhaps the most wonderful and instructive example
of volcanic rocks to be seen on the globe. Yet, though the islands are
judged to be of comparatively recent formation, there are no traces of
volcanic action in them at the present time. The craters have
disappeared: hot springs do not exist; and earthquakes are rare.[2]
[2] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 11 _sqq._; C. E.
Meinicke, _op. cit._ ii. 152 _sq._; A. v. H[uegel], _op. cit._
p. 22; F. H. H. Guillemard, _op. cit._ p. 513.
The Society Islands, and Tahiti in particular, are famous for the beauty
of their natural scenery; indeed, by general consent they appear to rank
as the fairest islands in the Pacific. Travellers vie with each other in
praise of their enchanting loveliness. Tahiti, the largest island of the
group, may be taken as typical of them all. It consists of two almost
circular islands united by a very low and narrow neck of land: the
northern and larger island is known as Tahiti the Great (Tahiti nui),
the southern and smaller island is known as Tahiti the Little (Tahiti
iti). In the centre of each island the mountains rise in craggy peaks,
sometimes in the shape of pyramids or sugar-loaves, their rocky sides
clothed with every variety of verdure, and enlivened here and there by
cataracts falling from lofty cliffs, while the shore is washed by the
white-crested waves of the Pacific breaking in foam on the coral reefs
or dashing in spray on the beach. The scene is especially striking when
beheld for the first time from the sea at sunrise on a fine morning.
Then the happy combination of land and water, of precipices and plains,
of umbrageous trees drooping their pendent boughs over the sea, and
distant mountains shown in sublime outline and richest hues, all blended
in the harmony of nature, produces in the beholder sensations of
admiration and delight. The inland scenery is of a different character,
but not less impressive. There the prospect is occasionally extensive,
but more frequently circumscribed. There is, however, a startling
boldness in the towering piles of basalt, often heaped in picturesque
confusion near the source or margin of some crystal stream that flows in
silence at their base, or plashes purling over the rocks that obstruct
its bed; and there is the wildness of romance about the deep and lonely
glens, from which the mountains rise like the steep sides of a natural
amphitheatre till they seem to support the clouds that rest upon their
summits. In the character of the teeming vegetation, too, from the
verdant moss that drapes the rocks to the rich foliage of the
bread-fruit tree, the luxuriance of the pandanus, and the waving plumes
of the coconut palm, all nurtured by a prolific soil and matured by the
genial heat of a tropical climate, there is enough to arrest the
attention and to strike the imagination of the wanderer, who, in the
unbroken silence that reigns in these pleasing solitudes, may easily
fancy himself astray in fairyland and treading enchanted ground.[3]
[3] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 14-18. Compare J.
Cook, _Voyages_, i. 172 _sqq._; G. Forster, _Voyage round the
World_ (London, 1777), i. 253 _sq._; J. Wilson, _Missionary
Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp. 321 _sqq._; D.
Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_ (London,
1831), i. 58 _sq._, 108 _sqq._, 136 _sqq._, 206 _sq._, 234
_sq._, 316 _sq._, 555 _sq._, ii. 51-53, 59-61; F. H. H.
Guillemard, _op. cit._ pp. 511 _sqq._ C. E. Meinicke, _op. cit._
ii. 152 _sq._; A. Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_ (Berlin, 1900),
pp. 29 _sqq._
Sec. 2. _The Islanders and their Mode of Life_
The islanders are, or were at the date of their discovery by Europeans,
fine specimens of the Polynesian race, being tall, well-proportioned,
and robust. Captain Cook described them as of the largest size of
Europeans. Their complexion varies from olive to bronze and
reddish-brown, frequently presenting a hue intermediate between the
yellow of the Malay and the copper-colour of the American Indians. The
hair is shining black or dark brown, usually straight, but often soft
and curly; never lank and wiry like that of the American Indians, and
only in rare cases woolly or frizzly like that of the Papuans. The men
have beards, which they used to wear in a variety of fashions, always,
however, plucking out the greater part. The shape of the face is comely,
and the facial angle is often as perpendicular as in Europeans. The
cheek-bones are not high; the nose is either straight or aquiline, often
accompanied by a fulness about the nostrils; it is seldom flat, though
it was formerly the practice of mothers and nurses to press the nostrils
of the female children, a broad flat nose being by many regarded as a
beauty. The mouth in general is well formed, though the lips are
sometimes large and protuberant, yet never so much as to resemble the
lips of negroes; the chin is usually prominent. The general aspect of
the face very seldom presents any likeness to the Tartar or Mongolian
cast of countenance; while the profile frequently bears a most striking
resemblance to that of Europeans. A roundness and fulness of figure, not
usually extending to corpulency, is characteristic of the race,
especially of the women. In general physique they resemble the Sandwich
Islanders and Tonga Islanders; according to Ellis, they are more robust
than the Marquesans, but inferior in size and strength to the Maoris.[4]
[4] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 175 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 79
_sqq._; C. E. Meinicke, _op. cit._ ii. 171; F. H. H. Guillemard,
_op. cit._ pp. 513 _sq._
Their diet is chiefly vegetable; when Captain Cook visited the islands,
the only tame animals were hogs, dogs, and poultry. Bread-fruit, taro,
yams, bananas, and coconuts are their staple food; the bread-fruit in
particular has been called their staff of life. Taro and yams are
carefully cultivated by the natives, and they also grow the sweet potato
as an article of food, though to a less extent than the other two roots;
in quality the sweet potato of Tahiti is far inferior to that of the
Sandwich Islands. The sea affords a great variety of fish and
shell-fish, which the natives catch and eat; nothing that the sea
produces is said to come amiss to them. Hogs and dogs were in olden
times the only quadrupeds whose flesh was eaten by the Tahitians; but
for the most part they rarely tasted meat, subsisting almost exclusively
on a diet of fruit, vegetables, and fish.[5]
[5] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 185 _sq._ vi. 139 _sqq._; W. Ellis,
_op. cit._ i. 36 _sqq._, 70 _sqq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages
aux Iles du Grand Ocean_ (Paris, 1837), ii. 93 _sqq._; C. E.
Meinicke, _op. cit._ ii. 171 _sq._
The common houses were of an oblong shape, usually from eighteen to
twenty-four feet in length, by eleven feet in width, the long sides
being parallel to each other, but the two ends commonly rounded,
especially in the houses of chiefs. The thatched roofs were supported on
three parallel rows of wooden posts, and there being no outer walls and
no partitions, the wind blew freely through them. The floor was covered
with mats, forming a single cushion, on which the people sat by day and
slept at night. In some houses there was a single stool appropriated to
the use of the master of the family; otherwise an ordinary dwelling
contained little or no furniture except a few small blocks of wood,
hollowed out on the upper surface so as to form head-rests or pillows.
The houses served chiefly as dormitories and as shelters in rain: the
people took their meals in the open air. Chiefs, however, often owned
houses of much larger dimensions, which were built and maintained for
them at the common expense of the district. Some of these chiefly
dwellings were two hundred feet long, thirty feet broad, and twenty feet
high under the ridge; one of them, belonging to the king, measured three
hundred and seventy feet in length. We read of houses which could
contain two or three thousand people;[6] and of one particular house in
Tahiti we are informed that it was no less than three hundred and
ninety-seven feet long by forty-eight feet broad, and that the roof was
supported in the middle by twenty wooden pillars, each twenty-one feet
high, while the sides or eaves of the roof rested on one hundred and
twenty-four pillars, each ten feet high. A wooden wall or fence enclosed
the whole. This great house was used for the celebration of feasts,
which sometimes lasted for days together, and at which nearly all the
hogs in the island were consumed.[7]
[6] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 181 _sqq._; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp.
341 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 170 _sqq._; J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ ii. 84 _sqq._ As to the wooden head-rests see W.
Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 188 _sq._
[7] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 213 _sq._
Like all the Polynesians down to the date of their discovery by
Europeans, the inhabitants of the Society Islands were totally ignorant
of the use and even of the existence of the metals, and they had to
employ substitutes, chiefly stone and bone, for the manufacture of their
tools and weapons. Of their tools Captain Cook gives the following
account: "They have an adze of stone; a chisel, or gouge, of bone,
generally that of a man's arm between the wrist and elbow; a rasp of
coral; and the skin of a sting-ray, with coral sand, as a filer or
polisher. This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and with these
they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve,
and polish timber. The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is a
kind of basaltes, of a blackish or grey colour, not very hard, but of
considerable toughness: they are of different sizes; some, that are
intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are
used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to
sharpen both almost every minute; for which purpose, a stone and a
cocoa-nut shell full of water are always at hand. Their greatest
exploit, to which these tools are less equal than to any other, is
felling a tree; this requires many hands, and the constant labour of
several days."[8] The earliest missionaries expressed their astonishment
that with such simple tools the natives could carve so neatly and finish
so smoothly; our most ingenious workmen, they declared, could not excel
them.[9]
[8] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 204 _sq._
[9] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 400.
The principal manufacture of the Society Islanders was the making of the
cloth which they used for their garments. The material for the cloth was
furnished by the bark of several trees, including the paper-mulberry,
the bread-fruit tree, and a species of wild fig-tree. Having been
stripped from the tree and soaked in water, the bark was spread out on a
beam and beaten with heavy wooden mallets, till it was reduced to the
proper degree of thinness and flexibility. The finest and most valuable
kind of cloth was made chiefly, and sometimes entirely, from the bark of
the paper-mulberry and was bleached pure white. But vegetable dyes were
also commonly employed to stain the cloth with a variety of hues
arranged in patterns. The favourite colours were a brilliant scarlet and
a bright yellow; Captain Cook described the scarlet as exceedingly
beautiful, brighter and more delicate than any we have in Europe; it was
produced by a mixture of the juices of two vegetables, the fruit of a
species of fig and the leaves of the _Cordia sebastina_ or _etou_ tree.
The patterns were in this bright scarlet on a yellow ground; formerly
they were altogether devoid of uniformity or regularity, yet exhibited a
considerable degree of taste. The bales of bark-cloth were sometimes as
much as two hundred yards long by four yards wide; the whole bale was in
a single piece, being composed of narrow strips joined together by being
beaten with grooved mallets. A chief's wealth was sometimes estimated by
the number of bales which he possessed; the more valuable sort, covered
with matting or cloth of an inferior sort, were generally hung from the
roof of his house. The manufacture of cloth was chiefly in the hands of
women; indeed it was one of their most usual employments. Even women of
high rank did not disdain this form of industry; the wives and daughters
of chiefs took a pride in manufacturing cloth of a superior quality,
excelling that produced by common women in the elegance of the patterns
or the brilliance of the dyes. Every family had a little house where the
females laboured at the making of cloth; but in addition every district
had a sort of public factory, consisting of a spacious house where
immense quantities of cloth were produced on the occasion of festivals,
the visits of great chiefs, or other solemnities. In such a factory the
women would often assemble to the number of two or three hundred, and
the monotonous din of their hammers falling on the bark was almost
deafening; it began early in the morning, only to cease at night. Yet
heard at a distance in some lonely valley the sound was not
disagreeable, telling as it did of industry and peace.[10]
[10] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 196 _sqq._; G. Forster, _Voyage
round the World_ (London, 1777), i. 276 _sq._; J. Wilson, _op.
cit._ pp. 389-392; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 179 _sqq._; J. A.
Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 112 _sqq._
Among the other articles manufactured by the Society Islanders before
the advent of Europeans were fine mats, baskets of many different
patterns, ropes, lines, and fishing-tackle, including nets, hooks, and
harpoons made of cane and pointed with hard wood. In every expedient for
taking fish they are said to have been exceedingly ingenious.[11] They
made bows and arrows, with which, as an amusement, they shot against
each other, not at a mark, but to see who could shoot farthest. Like the
rest of the Polynesians, they never used these weapons in war.[12]
[11] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 202 _sq._
[12] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 368; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i.
217-220; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 148-150.
Society among these islanders was divided into three ranks; first the
royal family and nobility (_hui arii_); second, the landed proprietors,
or gentry and farmers (_bue raatira_); and third, the common people
(_manahune_). Of these, the landed gentry and farmers were the most
numerous and influential class, constituting at all times the great body
of the people and the strength of the nation, as well as of the army.
The petty farmers owned from twenty to a hundred acres. Some of the
great landowners possessed many hundreds of acres, and being surrounded
by retainers they constituted the aristocracy of the country and imposed
a restraint upon the king, who, without their co-operation, could carry
but few of his measures. They also frequently acted as priests in their
family temples. The common people comprised slaves and servants. The
slaves were captives taken in war. Their treatment was in general mild,
and if peace continued, they often regained their freedom and were
allowed to return to their own country.[13]
[13] W. Ellis, _op. cit._. iii. 94-98. Compare J. Cook,
_Voyages_, i. 225 _sq._
The government of the Society Islands, like that of Hawaii, was at least
in form an arbitrary monarchy. The supreme authority was vested in the
king and was hereditary in his family. It partook of a sacred character,
for in these islands government was closely interwoven with religion;
the king sometimes personated the god and received the homage and
prayers of the worshippers; at other times he officiated as high-priest
and transmitted the vows and petitions of the people to the superior
deities. The genealogy of the reigning family was usually traced back to
the first ages of the world: in some of the islands the kings were
believed to be descended from the gods: their persons were always
sacred, and their families constituted the highest rank recognised by
the people.[14]
[14] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iii. 93 _sq._
Indeed, everything in the least degree connected with the king or
queen--the cloth they wore, the houses in which they dwelt, the canoes
in which they voyaged, the men who carried them when they journeyed by
land--became sacred and could not be converted to common use. The very
sounds in the language which composed their names could no longer be
appropriated to ordinary significations. If on the accession of a king
any words in the language were found to resemble his name, they were
abolished and changed for others; and if any man were bold enough to
continue to use them, not only he but all his relations were immediately
put to death; and the same severity was exercised on any who should dare
to apply the sacred name to an animal. Thus in process of time the
original names of most common objects in the language underwent
considerable alterations. No one might touch the body of the king or
queen; nay, any person who should so much as stand over them, or pass
his hand over their heads, was liable to pay for the sacrilege with the
forfeiture of his life. The very ground on which the king or queen even
accidentally trod became sacred; and any house belonging to a private
person which they entered must for ever be vacated by the owner and
either set apart for the use of the royal personages or burnt down with
every part of its furniture. Hence it was a general rule that the king
and queen never entered any dwellings except such as were specially
dedicated to their use, and never trod on the ground in any part of the
island but their own hereditary districts. In journeying they were
always carried on men's shoulders.[15]
[15] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 155 _sq._; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p.
329; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iii. 101 _sq._
The inauguration of a king consisted in girding him with a sacred girdle
(_maro ura_) of red, or red and yellow, feathers, which not only raised
him to the highest earthly station, but identified him with the gods.
The red feathers were taken from the images of the gods and interwoven
with feathers of other colours. A human victim was sacrificed when they
began to make the girdle, and another was sacrificed when it was
finished; sometimes others were slaughtered at intermediate stages, one
for each fresh piece added to the girdle. The blood of the victims was
supposed to consecrate the belt.[16]
[16] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iii. 108 _sqq._ Compare J. Wilson,
_op. cit._ pp. 327 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 22
_sq._; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and
Travels_, i. 526 _sq._, ii. 56. Another singular ceremony
observed at the installation of a king was this. The king
advanced into the sea and bathed there. Thither he was followed
by the priest of Oro bearing a branch plucked from a sacred tree
that grew within the precincts of the temple. While the king was
bathing, the priest struck him on the back with the holy bough,
at the same time invoking the great god Taaoroa. This ceremony
was designed to purify the monarch from any defilement or guilt
he might previously have contracted. See W. Ellis, _op. cit._
iii. 110.
The deification of kings in their lifetime would seem not to have been
confined to Tahiti, but to have prevailed in the other islands of the
Society Archipelago. We hear particularly of the divinity of the kings
of Raiatea. In that island a place called Opoa is said to have been the
metropolis of idolatry for all the South Pacific Islands within a
compass of five hundred miles. Hither, from every shore, human victims,
already slain, were sent to be offered on the altar of the war-god Oro,
whose principal image was there worshipped. There, too, was the
residence of the kings of the island, "who, beside the prerogatives of
royalty, enjoyed divine honours, and were in fact living idols among the
dead ones, being deified at the time of their accession to political
supremacy here. In the latter character, we presume, it was, that these
sovereigns (who always took the name of Tamatoa) were wont to receive
presents from the kings and chiefs of adjacent and distant islands,
whose gods were all considered tributary to the Oro of Raiatea, and
their princes owing homage to its monarch, who was Oro's hereditary
high-priest, as well as an independent divinity himself."[17] Of one
particular monarch of this line, Tamatoa by name, we read that he "had
been enrolled among the gods," and that "as one of the divinities of his
subjects, therefore, the king was worshipped, consulted as an oracle,
and had sacrifices and prayers offered to him."[18]
[17] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_,
i. 529 _sq._
[18] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 524.
In the succession to the throne the law of primogeniture prevailed, and
in accordance with a singular usage, which was invariably observed, the
king regularly abdicated on the birth of his first son and became a
subject of his infant offspring. The child was at once proclaimed the
sovereign of the people: the royal title was conferred on him; and his
own father was the first to do him homage by saluting his feet and
declaring him king. The public herald was despatched round the island
with the flag of the infant monarch: in every district he unfurled the
banner and proclaimed the accession of the youthful sovereign. The
insignia of royalty and the homage of the people were at once
transferred from the father to the child: the royal domains and other
sources of revenue were appropriated to the maintenance of the household
of the infant ruler; and the father paid him all the marks of reverence
and submission which he had hitherto exacted from the people. However,
during the minority of his son the former king appears to have filled
the office of regent. This remarkable rule of succession was not limited
to the royal house, but prevailed also in noble families: no sooner did
a baron's wife give birth to a child than the baron was reduced to the
rank of a private man, though he continued to administer the estate for
the benefit of the infant, to whom all the outward marks of honour were
now transferred.[19]
[19] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 225 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iii.
99 _sq._ Compare J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 180 _sq._, 327, 330,
333; J. Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_ (London, 1813), pp.
134, 137, 188 _sq._, 344; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 13
_sq._
Sec. 3. _The Religion of the Society Islanders_
If religion consists essentially in a fear of gods, the natives of the
Society Islands were a very religious people, for they believed in a
multitude of gods and stood in constant dread of them. "Whatever
attention," says Ellis, "the Tahitians paid to their occupations or
amusements, and whatever energies have been devoted to the prosecution
of their barbarous wars, the claims of all were regarded as inferior to
those of their religion. On this every other was dependent, while each
was alike made subservient to its support."[20] "No people in the world,
in ancient or modern times, appear to have been more superstitious than
the South Sea Islanders, or to have been more entirely under the
influence of dread from imaginary demons, or supernatural beings. They
had not only their major, but their minor demons, or spirits, and all
the minute ramifications of idolatry."[21] "Religious rites were
connected with almost every act of their lives. An _ubu_ or prayer was
offered before they ate their food, when they tilled their ground,
planted their gardens, built their houses, launched their canoes, cast
their nets, and commenced or concluded a journey. The first fish taken
periodically on their shores, together with a number of kinds regarded
as sacred, were conveyed to the altar. The first-fruits of their
orchards and gardens were also _taumaha_, or offered, with a portion of
their live-stock, which consisted of pigs, dogs, and fowls, as it was
supposed death would be inflicted on the owner or the occupant of the
land, from which the god should not receive such acknowledgment."[22]
[20] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 321; compare J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 417.
[21] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 361.
[22] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 350.
Different gods were worshipped in different islands, and even in
different parts of the same island,[23] and if a deity failed to answer
the expectations of his worshippers, they did not scruple to change him
for another. In Captain Cook's time the people of Tiaraboo (Tairaboo),
the southern peninsula of Tahiti, discarded their two old divinities and
adopted in their place Oraa, the god of the island of Bolabola
(Borabora), apparently because the people of Bolabola had lately been
victorious in war; and as, after this change of deity, they themselves
proved very successful in their operations against their enemies, they
imputed the success entirely to their new god, who, they literally said,
fought their battles.[24] Again, when the prayers and offerings for the
recovery of a sick chief were unavailing, the god was regarded as
inexorable, and was usually banished from the temple, and his image
destroyed.[25]
[23] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 148, 160; J. R. Forster,
_Observations made during a Voyage round the World_ (London,
1778), p. 539.
[24] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 148 _sq._
[25] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 350.
The pantheon and mythology of the Society Islands were of the usual
Polynesian type; some of their chief gods were recognised and worshipped
under the same names, with dialectical differences, in other islands of
the Pacific. In the beginning they say that all things were in a state
of chaos or darkness, from which the principal deities, including
Taaroa, Oro, and Tane, at last emerged. Hence these high gods were said
to be born of Night or the primaeval darkness (_Po_). Among them all the
first place in time and dignity was generally assigned to Taaroa, who
appears in other parts of Polynesia as Tanaroa, Tangaroa, Tagaloa, and
so on. By some he was spoken of as the progenitor of the other gods and
as the creator of the heavens, the earth, and sea, as well as of men,
beasts, birds, and fishes; but others were of opinion that the land or
the world had existed before the gods. Oro, the great national god of
Tahiti, Raiatea, and other islands, was believed to be a son of
Taaroa.[26] To these three great gods, Oro, Tane, and Taaroa, the people
sacrificed in great emergencies, when the deities were thought to be
angry. At such times the wrath of the god was revealed to a priest, who,
wrapt up like a ball in a bundle of cloth, spoke in a sharp, shrill,
squeaky voice, saying, "I am angry; bring me hogs, kill a man, and my
anger will be appeased."[27]
[26] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 322 _sqq._ Compare J. R. Forster,
_Observations made during a Voyage round the World_, pp. 539
_sqq._; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 149 _sqq._; J.
Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp.
343 _sqq._; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and
Travels_, i. 523 (as to Taaroa); J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux
Iles du Grand Ocean_, i. 416 _sqq._, 436 _sqq._, 442 _sq._ As to
Taaoroa and his counterparts in Polynesian mythology, see H.
Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology_, p. 22; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, pp. 463 _sq._, _s.v._ "Tangaroa."
[27] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 167 _sq._
Oro is sometimes described as the war-god.[28] The great seat of his
worship was at Opoa in the island of Raiatea: his principal image was
worshipped there "with the most bloody and detestable rites"; and
thither human victims, ready slain, were sent from every shore to be
offered on his altar.[29] Sometimes, instead of the bodies of the slain,
only their jaw-bones were sent to decorate the temple of Oro at Opoa;
long strings of these relics might be seen hanging about the sacred
edifice.[30] In the small island of Tahaa, off Raiatea, there was a
temple (_marae_) dedicated to Oro and his two daughters. It belonged to
the king and "was upheld for the convenience of finding a pretext to get
rid, from time to time, of obnoxious persons, of both sexes; the men
slain by assassination, or in war, being presented to the male idol, and
the women to his female progeny, who were held to be as cruelly
delighted with blood as their parent. But the human sacrifices brought
hither were not allowed to remain and infect the atmosphere. When they
had lain upon the altar till they became offensive, the carcases were
transported to Oro's metropolitan temple at Opoa, in Raiatea, which was
the common Golgotha of his victims."[31]
[28] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 114, 529.
[29] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 529.
[30] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ ii. 14. In a long
house in the southern part of Tahiti, Captain Cook saw, at one
end of it, a semicircular board, from which hung fifteen human
jaw-bones, apparently fresh; not one of them wanted a tooth. He
was told that they "had been carried away as trophies, the
people here carrying away the jaw-bones of their enemies, as the
Indians of North America do the scalps." See J. Cook, _Voyages_,
i. 152, 160.
[31] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 549.
Oro was said to have instituted the notorious Society of the Areois, a
licentious fraternity of strolling players and mountebanks, who roamed
about in troupes from island to island, everywhere entertaining the
populace by their shows, which comprised recitations, songs, dramatic
performances, wrestling matches, and especially dances, which were often
of a lascivious character.[32] These exhibitions, which were witnessed
by crowds and appear to have been the most popular amusement of the
islanders, were given in large, substantial, sometimes highly
ornamented, houses, which were erected chiefly for the purpose of
lodging these itinerant performers, and providing them with suitable
places for their performances.[33] The first missionaries describe how,
in a long native house where they lodged for the night, they saw the
Areois men and women dancing and singing till near midnight: so great
were their numbers that they made the house appear like a village.[34]
Sometimes, apparently, the performances took place in front of the
house, the musicians, singers, and reciters occupying a sort of stage,
while the actors or dancers performed on a place marked out for them on
the ground or on the floor.[35] The subject of their songs or
recitations was often a legend of the gods, or of some distinguished
member of the Society, which was chanted or recited by the performers in
chorus seated in a circle on the ground, while the leader stood in the
centre and introduced the recitation with a sort of prologue,
accompanied by antic gestures and attitudes.[36] In these recitals the
tales often turned on romantic and diverting episodes in the lives of
ancestors or of deities. "Many of these were very long, and regularly
composed, so as to be repeated verbatim, or with such illustrations only
as the wit or fancy of the narrator might have the skill to introduce.
Their captain on public occasions, was placed cross-legged on a stool
seven feet high, with a fan in his hand, in the midst of the circle of
laughing or admiring auditors, whom he delighted with his drollery, or
transported with his grimaces, being, in fact, the merry-andrew of the
corps, who, like a wise fool, well knew how to turn his folly to the
best account."[37]
[32] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 193-195; J. R. Forster,
_Observations made during a Voyage round the World_, pp.
411-414; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 128-135; J.
Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 56, 57, 59, 65 _sq._, 153, 154, 174, 194
_sq._, 209, 331, 335; J. Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_
(London, 1813), p. 364; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i.
326-328; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 229-247; Waitz-Gerland,
_Anthropologie_, vi. 363-369.
[33] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 236 _sq._
[34] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 209.
[35] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 133 _sq._
[36] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 235.
[37] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 327 _sq._
The Society of the Areois was wealthy and highly esteemed; members were
drawn from all social ranks and greatly prided themselves on belonging
to it.[38] Indeed, they were regarded as a sort of superhuman beings,
closely allied to the gods, and were treated with a corresponding degree
of veneration by many of the vulgar and ignorant.[39] They were divided
into seven ranks or classes, the members of which were distinguished
from each other by their tattoo marks; the greater the amount of the
tattooing, the higher the rank of the person.[40] Admission to the
Society was attended by a variety of ceremonies; a protracted noviciate
followed, and it was only by progressive advancement that any were
promoted to the higher dignities. It was imagined that those who became
Areois were prompted or inspired by the gods to take this step. A
candidate for admission, therefore, repaired to one of the public
exhibitions in that apparent state of frenzy which is commonly supposed
to indicate divine inspiration. His face was dyed scarlet; his hair was
perfumed and adorned with flowers, and he wore a girdle of yellow
plantain leaves. Thus arrayed, he rushed through the crowd assembled
round the house in which the actors or dancers were performing, and,
leaping into the circle, joined with seeming frantic wildness in the
dance or pantomime. If the Society approved of him, they appointed him
to wait as a servant on the principal Areois, and after a period of
probation he might be inducted into the Society as a full-fledged
member. At his induction, which took place in a great assembly of the
body, the candidate received a new name, by which he was thenceforth
known in the Society.[41] When a member was advanced from a lower to a
higher grade, the ceremony was performed at a public festival which all
the members of the Society in the island were expected to attend. The
candidate was then taken to a temple, where he was solemnly anointed
with fragrant oil on the forehead, and offered a pig to the god.[42]
[38] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239, 245; G. Forster, _op. cit._
ii. 130; J. R. Forster, _op. cit._ pp. 411 _sq._
[39] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239, 244; J. Turnbull, _op. cit._
p. 364; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 492.
[40] G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 128 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._
i. 238; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 491.
[41] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 491 _sqq._
[42] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 241 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 493 _sq._
When a member of the Society died his body was conveyed by the Areois to
the grand temple, where the bones of the kings were deposited. There the
priest of Oro, standing over the corpse, offered a long prayer to his
god. This prayer, and the ceremonies accompanying it, were designed to
divest the body of all the sacred and mysterious influence which the
deceased was thought to have received from the god at the moment when,
in the presence of the idol, the perfumed oil had been sprinkled on him,
and he had been raised to the order or rank in which he died. By this
act they supposed that the sacred influence was restored to Oro, by whom
it had been imparted. The body was then buried, like that of a common
man, within the precincts of the temple, in which the mortal remains of
chiefs were interred.[43] But if for any reason the corpse were buried
in unconsecrated ground, the ghost would appear to a survivor next day
and remonstrate with him, saying, "You have buried me in common earth,
and so long as I lie there, I cannot go to heaven. You must bury me with
ceremonies, and in holy ground." After that the corpse was disinterred,
and having been doubled up by tying the arms to the shoulders and the
knees to the trunk, it was buried in a sitting posture in a hole so
shallow that the earth barely covered the head. This was esteemed the
most honourable form of sepulture, and was principally confined to
personages of high rank.[44]
[43] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 244 _sq._
[44] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 273 _sq._
The Areoi Society comprised women as well as men,[45] but the accounts
given of the proportion of the sexes and their relations to each other
are conflicting. According to one account, the male members outnumbered
the women as five to one.[46] The first missionaries reported that the
Areois were said to have each two or three wives, whom they exchanged
with each other.[47] According to Cook, every woman was common to every
man[48]; and Turnbull affirmed that the community of women was the very
principle of their union.[49] On the other hand, the naturalist George
Forster, who accompanied Captain Cook, observes: "We have been told a
wanton tale of promiscuous embraces, where every woman is common to
every man: but when we enquired for a confirmation of this story from
the natives, we were soon convinced that it must, like many others, be
considered as the groundless invention of a traveller's gay fancy."[50]
Again, Ellis observes that, "although addicted to every kind of
licentiousness themselves, each Areoi had his own wife, who was also a
member of the Society; and so jealous were they in this respect, that
improper conduct towards the wife of one of their own number, was
sometimes punished with death."[51] Yet the same writer speaks of "the
mysteries of iniquity, and acts of more than bestial degradation" to
which the Areois were at times addicted; and he says that "in some of
their meetings, they appear to have placed their invention on the rack,
to discover the worst pollutions of which it was possible for man to be
guilty, and to have striven to outdo each other in the most revolting
practices."[52]
[45] G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 128.
[46] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 326.
[47] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 174.
[48] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 193 _sq._
[49] J. Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_, p. 364.
[50] G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 132.
[51] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239.
[52] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 243.
It was a rule of the Society that no member should have any children;
hence the first injunction given to a new member was to murder his
offspring. Any infant that might afterwards be born to him was strangled
at birth.[53] If a woman spared her child and could induce a man to
father it, "both the man and the woman, being deemed by this act to have
appropriated each other, are ejected from the community, and forfeit all
claim to the privileges and pleasures of Arreoy for the future; the
woman from that time being distinguished by the term _whannow-now_,
'bearer of children,' which is here a term of reproach."[54] The
pretext alleged by the Areois for this cruel practice was that, on
the institution of the Society by the god Oro, the first two members,
Orotetefa and Urutetefa, brothers of the god, had been celibate and
childless, and that therefore the members of the Society were bound to
imitate them by being also without offspring.[55]
[53] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 194; J. R. Forster, _Observations_,
pp. 413 _sq._; G. Forster, _Voyage_, ii. 129 _sq._; J. Wilson,
_op. cit._ pp. 154 _sq._, 174, 194 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._
i. 230 _sq._, 233, 240. Moerenhout says that when a chief was an
Areoi, his first-born son was spared, but all the rest were
sacrificed; but immediately afterwards he adds, with apparent
inconsistency, that "the first (by which he seems to mean the
principal) Areois only killed their first sons and all their
daughters; the other male infants were spared." See Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 495, 496. These statements, so far as I have
observed, are not confirmed by other writers.
[54] J. Cook, i. 194.
[55] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 230 _sq._, 232 _sq._
In the constant repetition of their often obscene exhibitions the Areois
passed their lives, sailing from island to island or strolling from one
chief's house to that of another, where they renewed the same round of
dances, wrestlings, and pantomimic performances.[56] But the labour and
drudgery of dancing and performing for the amusement of the spectators
devolved chiefly on the lowest members of the Society, who were the
principal actors in all their shows, while the higher orders, though
they plastered themselves with charcoal and stained themselves scarlet
like their humbler brethren, were generally careful not to contribute to
the public hilarity by any exhausting efforts of their own. Thus they
led a life of dissipation and luxurious indolence.[57]
[56] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 236, 237.
[57] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 238, 241.
They seem to have moved about in great troupes. As many as seventy
canoes, with more than seven hundred of these vagabonds on board, have
been seen steering from island to island.[58] The approach of such a
fleet to the shore with drums beating, flutes playing, and streamers
floating on the wind, was a picturesque sight, and as the canoes neared
the land the dancers might be seen jigging it on stages erected on
board, while the voices of the singers mingled with the roll of the
drums, the shrill music of the flutes, and the roar of the surf on the
beach in a confused but not unmelodious babel of sound.[59]
[58] J. R. Forster, _Observations_, p. 412; G. Forster,
_Voyage_, ii. 128.
[59] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 236 _sq._ Compare J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ ii. 132 _sq._ According to the latter writer there
were traditions of as many as a hundred and fifty canoes sailing
at once, each one seldom containing less than thirty or forty,
and sometimes a hundred persons.
On landing in an island their first business was to take a small
sucking-pig to the temple and present it to the god as a thank-offering
to him for having brought them safe to shore. This, we are told, was the
only sacrifice ever offered in token of gratitude by any of the South
Sea Islanders to their imaginary divinities.[60] While they were
everywhere welcomed by the vulgar for the merriment they carried with
them, and were everywhere countenanced and liberally entertained by the
kings and chiefs, who found them convenient tools of fraud and
oppression, they were not received with equal enthusiasm by the farmers,
who had to furnish them with provisions, and who durst not refuse them
anything, however unreasonable and extortionate their demands. For the
Areois lived on the fat of the land. When they alighted, like a swarm of
locusts, on a rich district, they would send out their henchmen to scour
the neighbourhood and plunder the miserable inhabitants; and when they
moved on to their next halting-place, the gardens which they left behind
them often presented a scene of desolation and ruin.[61] Such havoc,
indeed, did they spread by their feastings and carousings on even a
short visit of a few days, that in some parts of Tahiti the natives were
compelled to abandon the fertile lowlands and retreat up the mountains,
submitting to the trouble of clambering up almost inaccessible slopes
and cultivating a less fruitful soil rather than expose much of the
produce of their labour to the ravages of these privileged robbers.[62]
[60] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 326 _sq._
[61] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 237 _sq._; D. Tyerman and G.
Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 326-328. Compare J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p.
174, "Wherever they go they exercise power to seize what they
want from the inhabitants. They smite their hand on their breast
and say '_Harre_, give,' whenever they covet any thing, and none
dares deny them. They never work; live by plunder; yet are
highly respected, as none but persons of rank are admitted among
them." This last statement, however, is contradicted by Ellis,
who says (_op. cit._ i. 239) that "the fraternity was not
confined to any particular rank or grade in society, but was
composed of individuals from every class."
[62] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 197.
Not the least of the privileges, real or imaginary, enjoyed by the
Areois was that after death their spirits were believed to pass without
difficulty to that paradise of delights to which otherwise none but the
noble and wealthy could hope to attain.[63]
[63] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 245 _sq._, 397; J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 434 _sq._
In spite of the profligate life which the Areoi led and their addiction
to a round of frivolous amusements and entertainments, it seems likely
that the Society was originally founded for some serious purpose, though
the accounts which have come down to us hardly enable us to determine,
or even to conjecture with a fair degree of probability, what that
purpose was. That its aim was religious might be inferred on general
grounds, and is confirmed by the close relation in which the Society
stood to the national god Oro. Not only is Oro said to have founded the
Society, but before a troop of Areois set out on their peregrinations
they were obliged to kill many pigs in sacrifice to him and to offer
large quantities of plantains, bananas, and other fruits on his altars.
Moreover, temporary shrines were erected in their canoes for the worship
of Oro's two divine brothers, Orotetefa and Urutetefa, who were
traditionally said to have been the first members of the Society and
were regarded as its tutelary deities. In these shrines the principal
symbols were a stone for each of the brothers taken from Oro's temple,
and a few red feathers from the inside of his sacred image. Into these
symbols the gods were supposed to enter when the priest pronounced a
short prayer immediately before the sailing of the fleet.[64]
[64] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 234.
We might be better able to understand the purpose and the functions of
the Areoi Society if we were acquainted with the nature and meaning
which the natives ascribed to the god Oro, the reputed founder of the
Society; but on this subject our authorities shed little light. He is
described as the war-god[65] and as "the great national idol of Raiatea,
Tahiti, Eimeo, and some of the other islands," and he was said to be a
son of the creator Taaroa, who at first dwelt alone up aloft, but who
afterwards, with the help of his daughter Hina, created the heavens, the
earth, and the sea.[66] By European writers Oro has been variously
interpreted as a god of the dead or of the sun; and accordingly the
Society of the Areois has been variously explained as devoted either to
a cult of the Lord of the Dead for the sake of securing eternal
happiness in a world beyond the grave, or to a worship of the sun-god;
but the grounds alleged for either interpretation appear to be extremely
slight.[67]
[65] Above, p. 258.
[66] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 324, 325.
[67] Gerland takes the former view, Moerenhout the latter. See
Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie_, vi. 368 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 484. The only evidence adduced by Moerenhout for
his interpretation of Oro as a sun-god is a statement that in
the Marquesas Islands the Areois suspended their performances
and went into retreat from April or May till the vernal equinox
(which in the southern hemisphere falls in September), and that
during their retreat they assumed the style of mourners and
bewailed the absence or death of their god, whom they called
Mahoui. This Mahoui is accordingly taken by Moerenhout to be the
sun and equated to Oro, the god of the Areois in the Society
Islands. But Mahoui seems to be no other than the well-known
Polynesian hero Maui, who can hardly have been the sun (see
below, p. 286 note^5); and Moerenhout's statement as to the
annual period of mourning observed by the Areois in the
Marquesas Islands is not, so far as I know, confirmed by any
other writer, and must, therefore, be regarded as open to doubt.
His statement and his interpretation of Oro and Mahoui were
accepted by Dr. Rivers, who made them the basis of his
far-reaching theory of a secret worship of the sun introduced
into the Pacific by immigrants from a far northern country, who
also built the megalithic monuments of Polynesia and Micronesia.
See W. H. R. Rivers, "Sun-cult and Megaliths in Polynesia,"
_American Anthropologist_, xvii. July-September 1915, pp. 431
_sqq._ In proof of the supposed connexion between these
megalithic monuments and a worship of the sun, Dr. Rivers says
(p. 440) that the Areois "held their celebrations in an
enclosure called _marae_ or _marai_, at one end of which was
situated a pyramidical structure with steps leading to a
platform on which were placed the images of the gods during the
religious celebrations of the people." But if by "their
celebrations" Dr. Rivers means the ordinary dramatic, musical,
and athletic performances of the Areois, he seems to be in
error; for it appears to be certain that these exhibitions were
regularly given, not at the _maraes_, but in or before large
houses built or specially set apart for the purpose. See above,
pp. 259 _sq._
Perhaps a faint gleam of light may fall on the mystery of the Areois
from an examination of their traditionary first members and guardian
deities, the two divine brothers, Orotetefai and Urutetefai. The
similarity of the names of the brothers suggests that they may have been
twins; for it is a common custom to bestow either the same or a similar
name on each of a pair of twins in order to indicate their close
relationship to each other.[68] If they were twins, there are some
grounds for thinking that they were Heavenly Twins; for their father or
creator, Taaroa, seems certainly to have been a sky-god, and their
mother, Hina, is by some authorities regarded as the moon; moreover, the
two brothers are said to have first descended from the sky to the earth
on a rainbow.[69] If the twinship of the divine brothers could be made
out, it might perhaps explain some of the peculiar features of the Areoi
Society. For example, their remarkable custom of not allowing any of
their offspring to live; for it has been a common custom in many parts
of the world to put twins to death.[70] Further, the superhuman rank
accorded to the Areois becomes more intelligible on this hypothesis. For
among many savage peoples twins are credited with the possession of
powers superior to those of ordinary humanity; in particular, they are
thought to be able to influence the weather for good or evil, as by
causing rain or drought and the wind to blow or be still.[71] Among the
Baronga of South-Eastern Africa the supposed relation of twins to the
sky is very clearly marked. They call the mother of twins by a name
which means "Heaven" (_Tilo_), and consistently they style the twins
themselves "Children of Heaven" (_Bana ba Tilo_).[72] The mother is even
said to have "made Heaven," to have "carried Heaven," and to have
"ascended to Heaven."[73] The connexion which is believed to exist
between her and the twins on the one side and the sky on the other is
brought out plainly in the customs which the Baronga observe for the
purpose of procuring rain in time of drought. Thus they will take a
mother of twins, put her in a hole, and pour on her water which they
have drawn from all the wells, till the hole is half full, and the water
comes up to her breast. This is thought to make the rain fall.[74] Or
again, in order to get rain, the women will strip themselves naked
except for a girdle and head-dress of grass, and thus attired will go in
procession, headed by a mother of twins, and pour water on the graves of
twins. And if the body of a twin has been buried in dry ground, they
will dig it up and bury it again near a river; for the grave of a twin,
in their opinion, should always be wet. Thus they hope to draw down rain
on the thirsty ground.[75] Again, when a thunderstorm is raging and
lightning threatens to strike a village, the Baronga will say to a twin,
"Help us! you are a Child of Heaven! You can therefore cope with Heaven;
it will hear you when you speak." So the child goes out of the hut and
prays to Heaven as follows: "Go away! Do not annoy us! We are afraid. Go
and roar far away." When the thunderstorm is over, the child is thanked
for its services. The mother of twins is also supposed to be able to
help in the same way, for has she not, as the natives express it,
ascended to Heaven? They say that she can speak with Heaven, and that
she is at it or in it.[76] Among the Kpelle, a negro tribe of Liberia,
twins are regarded as born magicians, and as such are treated with
respect, and people sometimes make them presents in order to ensure
their goodwill; in doing so they are careful never to make a present to
the one twin without the other, and the twin who was born last gets his
present first, for he is regarded as the first-born. Twins are thought
by the Kpelle to do wonders; they even say that "a twin surpasses every
medicine-man."[77] Among the Fan or Fang, a tribe of the Cameroons in
West Africa, there is a curious superstition that a twin ought not to
see a rainbow. Should he by accident have caught sight of one, he must
shave his eyebrows and dye the place of the one black and the place of
the other red.[78] This superstition seems to imply a special relation
between twins and the sky, and it reminds us of the Tahitian tradition
that the two divine brothers, the first members of the Areoi Society,
descended to earth on a rainbow.[79]
[68] J. Rendel Harris, _The Dioscuri in the Christian Legends_
(London, 1903), pp. 1 _sqq._ _id._, _The Cult of the Heavenly
Twins_ (Cambridge, 1906), pp. 58 _sqq._; _id._, _Boanerges_
(Cambridge, 1913), pp. 291 _sqq._
[69] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 230, 232. Ellis does not admit that
Orotetefa and Urutetefa were, strictly speaking, the sons of
Oro. He writes: "According to the traditions of the people,
Taaroa created, and, by means of Hina, brought forth when full
grown Orotetefa and Urutetefa. They were not his sons; _oriori_
is the term employed by the people, which seems to mean
_create_" (_op. cit._ i. 230). With regard to Hina (Heena),
interpreted as the moon, or the goddess of the moon, see J. R.
Forster, _Observations_, p. 549; G. Forster, _Voyage_, ii. 152;
J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._. i. 428 _sq._, 458, 472; E.
Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 69.
_s.v._ "Hina," "Hina is by far the best known of all Polynesian
legendary personages. In the more easterly islands she is a
goddess, and is almost certainly the Moon-goddess." Similarly
Mr. E. E. V. Collocot observes that Hina "is generally regarded
as the Moon-goddess, and this view was spontaneously put forward
by a Tongan; in conversation with me" (_Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, xxx. (1921) p. 238).
[70] Abundant evidence of the custom is produced by Dr. Rendel
Harris in his learned works, _The Cult of the Heavenly Twins_
and _Boanerges_.
[71] _The Golden Bough_, Part I., _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, i. 262 _sqq._
[72] H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-ronga_ (Neuchatel, 1898), p. 412;
_id._, _Life of a South African Tribe_ (Neuchatel, 1912-1913),
ii. 394.
[73] H. A. Junod, _Life of a South African Tribe_, ii. 398.
[74] H. A. Junod, _Life of a South African Tribe_, ii. 399.
[75] H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-ronga_, pp. 417 _sq._; _id._, _Life of
a South African Tribe_, ii. 296.
[76] H. A. Junod, _Life of a South African Tribe_, ii. 399 _sq._
[77] D. Westermann, _Die Kpelle, ein Negerstamm in Liberia_
(Goettingen, 1921), pp. 68, 212, 355. The Bambara, another tribe
of West Africa, similarly regard the last-born of twins as the
elder of the two. See Jos. Henry, _Les Bambara_ (Muenster i. W.,
1910), p. 98. So, too, with the Mossi of the Sudan. See E.
Mangin, "Les Mossi," _Anthropos_, x.-xi. (1915-1916) p. 192.
[78] L. Martrou, "Les 'Eki' des Fang," _Anthropos_, i. (1906) p.
751; H. Trilles, _Le Totemisme chez les Fan_ (Muenster i. W.,
1912), p. 593. Compare H. A. Junod, _Life of a South African
Tribe_, ii. 400, note^1, who reports the same superstition among
the Fan on the testimony of his wife, who was for years a
missionary in the tribe.
[79] Above, p. 267.
Another notion about twins which may possibly help to throw light on
some of the practices of the Areoi Society, is that they or their
parents or both are endowed with a fertilising or prolific virtue, which
enables them to multiply animals or plants and thereby to increase the
food supply. Thus, for example, some tribes of Northern Rhodesia keep
pigeons in their villages, and in erecting a pigeon-cote they take care
that the first stakes "are driven in by a woman who has borne twins, in
order, they say, that the pigeons may multiply."[80] Some Bantu tribes
of this region ascribe a similar virtue to both the father and the
mother of twins. They think that such parents exert a beneficial or
prolific influence at laying the foundations of pigeon-cotes,
chicken-houses, goat-pens, or any other building used for the purposes
of breeding; a certain woman who had borne twins thrice was lately in
great request at these functions.[81] The Zulus think that all goats
belonging to a twin bring forth young in couples.[82]
[80] C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern
Nigeria_ (London, 1911), pp. 307 _sq._
[81] D. Campbell, _In the Heart of Bantuland_ (London, 1922), p.
155.
[82] Dudley Kidd, _Savage Childhood_ (London, 1906), p. 49.
In the Central District of Busoga, Central Africa, when a woman has
given birth to twins, the people of her clan do not sow any seed until
the twins have been brought to the field. A pot of cooked grain is set
before the children with a cake of sesame and all the seed that is to be
sown. The food is eaten by the assembled people, and afterwards the
field is sown in presence of the twins; the plot is then said to be the
field of the twins. The mother of twins must sow her seed before any
person of the clan will sow his or hers.[83] These customs seem clearly
to imply a belief that twins and their mother possess a special power of
fertilising the seed. Among the Baganda of Central Africa twins were
supposed to be sent by Mukasa, the great god whose blessing on the crops
and on the people was ensured at an annual festival. The twins were
thought to be under the protection of the god, and they bore his name,
the boys being called Mukasa and the girls Namukasa. And a series of
customs observed by the parents of twins among the Baganda indicates in
the plainest manner a belief that they were endowed with a fertilising
virtue which extended, not only to the crops and the cattle, but also to
human beings. Thus the parents of twins were supposed to make people
fruitful by sprinkling them with a mixture of water and clay from pots,
of which each of the parents had one. Again, some time after the birth
the parents used to make a round of visits to relations and friends,
taking the twins with them. At every house they danced, the father
wearing a crown made from a certain creeper, and the mother wearing a
girdle of the same material. At these dances offerings were made to the
twins. These dances were most popular "because the people believed that
thereby they obtained a special blessing from the god Mukasa, who
favoured the parents of twins, and through them dispensed blessing
wherever they went." The persons whom the twins and their parents
honoured with a visit "thought that, not only they themselves would be
blessed and given children, but that their herds and crops also would be
multiplied." A ceremony performed by the father and mother of twins over
a flower of the plantain indicated in the plainest, if the grossest,
fashion the belief of the Baganda that parents of twins could magically
fertilise the plantains which form the staple food of the people. No
wonder, then, that among them a mother of twins is deemed a source of
blessing to the whole community, and that for some time after the birth
both she and the father were sacred and wore a distinctive dress to
prevent any one from touching them. The father, in particular, "could do
what he liked, because he was under the protection of the god"; for
example, he was free to enter anybody's garden and to take the produce
at will. Special drums, too, were made for the parents, one for the
father and one for the mother; and for some time after the birth these
were beaten continually both by day and by night.[84]
[83] J. Roscoe, _The Northern Bantu_ (Cambridge, 1915), p. 235.
[84] J. Roscoe, "Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.
(1902) pp. 32-34, 80; _id._, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp.
64-72. These two accounts to some extent supplement each other.
I have drawn on both. As to the annual festival of the god
Mukasa, see _id._, _The Baganda_, pp. 298 _sq._
Among the Hos of Togo, in West Africa, in like manner, special drums are
beaten for the parents of twins, and the parents dance publicly to the
music in the main street of the village, after going nine times round
it. Some days later the parents go the round of all the Ho towns,
everywhere executing the same dance to the same music at noon; but
should one of the twins have died in the meantime, the parents dance at
night. It is believed that, if the customary rites were not performed at
the birth of twins, the parents of the twins would be crippled.
Curiously enough, the drums, to the music of which the parents dance,
may not be beaten by any one without special reason; and no one else may
dance to their music except such as have slain either a man or a
leopard. Among these people the birth of twins is the occasion of very
great rejoicing. They say that "the road which the mother of twins goes
is better than the road which the rich man goes."[85] The saying
suggests that the Hos, like the Baganda, regard a mother of twins as
diffusing fertility wherever she goes; and, on the analogy of the dances
of parents of twins among the Baganda, we may conjecture that in like
manner among the Hos the parents of twins are supposed to confer the
blessing of fruitfulness on all the towns where they dance.
[85] J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Staemme_ (Berlin, 1906), pp. 202-206.
Among the Barundi of East Africa the birth of twins is celebrated with
rites, songs, and ritual dances, which last for days and even for weeks.
As soon as the news spreads, the neighbours, friends, and relations
flock to the house to sing, bringing with them presents for the parents
or offerings to the spirits. The amount of provisions thus accumulated
is enormous, but the parents of the twins benefit little by it; the
great bulk disappears as by magic among the self-invited guests.
Festivity, dancing, and singing are now the order of the day. Dancers,
male and female, their faces painted red and white or yellow, dance like
furies in a circle for hours together, singing ritual hymns at the top
of their voices, while an old sorceress besprinkles the troop with
lustral water. It is commonly believed that if these rites were omitted,
the twins and their parents would die. At the birth of twins it is
customary to buy two black sheep or lambs and to dedicate them to the
twins, one to each. These sheep are then left at liberty to run about as
they like by day and night, and to enter the fields and browse at will.
If one of them dies it is replaced by another. The animals are described
as the guardians of the children, the receptacle or symbol of their
spirits, in short, as their fetish.[86] To some extent, they are
analogous to the pig which an Areoi used to offer to the god at the
ceremony of his consecration; for, though sometimes the animal was
killed, at other times it was liberated, and, being regarded as sacred
or belonging to the god to whom it had been offered, was allowed to
range the district uncontrolled till it died.[87] Among the Baluba, a
tribe of the Belgian Congo, there is great joy at the birth of twins,
and special ceremonies are observed on the occasion. The twins are
invariably named Kyunga and Kahya, after the spirits of two ancient
kings, and to these spirits the twins are consecrated. After being
washed and decorated they are placed side by side in a winnowing-basket
and carried by the women of the family in procession through the
village, headed by the proud father. Dancing and singing they go to the
ash-heap of the village. There they all rub themselves with ashes and
perform another dance. After that, still led by the father of the twins,
they go to the houses of the chief people, and in front of each house
the father dances, while the women beat time with their hands. Wherever
the procession halts, the householder is expected to come and admire the
twins, to compliment the father, and to deposit a small present in the
winnowing-basket.[88] Among the Herero of South-West Africa the parents
of twins are looked on as sacred, and for a time they may not speak to
any one, and no one may speak to them. But after the lapse of some days
the family goes the round of the village, visiting three or four huts
every day. The father of the twins sits down on the right side of the
hut, and the inmates make him offerings of beads, oxen, and so forth.
When he has thus gone the round of the village, he repairs to the
neighbouring villages, where the same ceremonies are repeated. It is
often a year before he returns to his own village, and when he does so
he brings back with him a great quantity of offerings. Henceforth the
father of the twins enjoys all the privileges of a priestly chief; he
may sacrifice at the holy fire, and he may represent and even succeed
the chief in the office of priest for the village. The twins themselves
are eligible for the same office. If a chief dies a natural death, he is
succeeded in his priestly function by his twin son; whereas the
chieftainship passes to the chief's legal heir, who is properly the son
of his eldest sister, and who thenceforth assumes the name of the twin.
A twin is bound by no taboo; he may eat of all flesh offered in
sacrifice; he may drink of the milk of every holy cow, just like the
chief and the priest themselves.[89]
[86] J. M. M. van der Burgt, _Dictionnaire Francais-Kirundi_
(Bois-le-Duc, 1903), pp. 324 _sq._; H. Meyer, _Die Barundi_
(Leipzig, 1916), pp. 110 _sq._
[87] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 242.
[88] Colle, _Les Baluba_ (Brussels, 1913), i. 253-255.
[89] J. Irle, _Die Herero_ (Guetersloh, 1906), pp. 96-99.
In these cases we are not told that twins and their parents are supposed
to be endowed with a power of multiplying the herds and generally of
increasing the supply of food by the prolific influence which they
diffuse about them; but the analogy of the customs and beliefs of the
Baganda concerning the birth of twins renders the supposition probable.
At least on this hypothesis we can readily understand the round of
visits which the parents, or one of them, pay to the surrounding towns
or villages, and the presents which are made to them. If they indeed
possess a power of imparting fertility and abundance wherever they go,
it is obviously in everybody's interest to be visited by them, and
clearly, on the same supposition, it is everybody's duty to make some
return to them for the wonderful benefits which they have conferred.
Similarly we may perhaps suppose that the rounds which the Areois went
from island to island, dancing, singing, and playing their tricks
wherever they stopped, were believed to quicken the fruits of the earth,
and possibly also to multiply the pigs and the fish. On that assumption,
the unlimited right which these vagabonds enjoyed of appropriating and
consuming the produce of the gardens was probably accorded to them as a
natural and proper remuneration for the inestimable services which their
mere presence was believed to render to the crops. The sexual excesses,
in which they appear to have indulged, would also be intelligible, if it
was imagined that, on the principle of sympathetic magic, such
indulgences actually promoted the multiplication and growth of plants
and animals. But this explanation of the extravagant rites observed by
the Areois, and of the quaint beliefs entertained concerning them, is
offered only as an hypothesis for what it is worth. It may be worth
while noting that among the Kpelle, a tribe of Liberia in West Africa,
there is reported to exist a Secret Society of Twins,[90] but whether
it bears any resemblance to the Society of the Areois I do not know.
[90] D. Westermann, _Die Kpelle, ein Negerstamm in Liberia_
(Goettingen, 1921), p. 228.
A familiar figure of the Polynesian pantheon, who meets us in the
mythology of the Society Islanders, was the famous god or hero Maui.
Many stories of his exploits were told in the islands. It is said that
originally the sky lay flat upon the face of the earth and ocean, being
held down by the legs of a huge cuttle-fish. But Maui dived into the
sea, and, grappling with the monster, utterly dismembered him; whereupon
the sky flew up and expanded into the beautiful blue vault which we now
see above us, with the noonday sun for the keystone of the arch.[91]
Again, the natives told how, one day, sitting in his canoe, Maui let
down his line with a hook at the end of it and fished up the earth,
which had hitherto lain at the bottom of the sea.[92] Also he is said to
have held the sun with ropes to prevent him from going too fast.[93] For
it happened that Maui was hard at work, building a temple, when he
perceived that the day was declining and that the night would overtake
him before he had accomplished his task; so hastily twining some ropes
of coco-nut fibre, he laid hold of the sun's rays and tethered them by
the ropes to a tree, so that the sun could not stir till Maui had
finished the task he was at.[94] Further, Maui is said to have invented
the mode of kindling fire by rubbing the point of one stick in the
groove of another,[95] which was the way in which the Society Islanders
regularly made fire.[96] Maui was also supposed to be the cause of
earthquakes.[97] In Tahiti a curious image of Maui was seen and
described by Captain Cook. "It was the figure of a man, constructed of
basket-work, rudely made, but not ill-designed; it was something more
than seven feet high, and rather too bulky in proportion to its height.
The wicker skeleton was completely covered with feathers, which were
white where the skin was to appear, and black in the parts which it is
their custom to paint or stain, and upon the head, where there was to be
a representation of hair: upon the head also were four protuberances,
three in front and one behind, which we should have called horns, but
which the Indians dignified with the name of _Tate Ete_, little men. The
image was called Manioe, and was said to be the only one in Otaheite.
They attempted to give us an explanation of its use and design, but we
had not then acquired enough of their language to understand them. We
learnt, however, afterwards that it was a representation of Mauwe, one
of their _Eatuas_, or gods of the second class."[98]
[91] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 526.
[92] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 449 _sq._
[93] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 167.
[94] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ ii. 40 _sq._; W.
Ellis, _op. cit._ ii. 170 _sq._
[95] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 526.
[96] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 141; J. Wilson,
_op. cit._ p. 357; J. Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_, p.
349; Wallis, in R. Kerr's _General History and Collection of
Voyages and Travels_, xii. 212; _id._, in J. Hawkesworth's
_Voyages_, i. (London, 1773) p. 483.
[97] J. R. Forster, _Observations_, p. 540; G. Forster, _Voyage
round the World_, ii. 151. These writers spell his name O-Maouwe
and O-mauwee.
[98] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 156 _sq._
Besides the high primaeval deities, born of the Night, the Society
Islanders believed in a host of inferior divinities, many of whom were
said to have been created by Taaroa, the supreme god. Thus, between the
high gods and the deities of particular places or of particular
professions, there was a class of intermediate deities, who were not
supposed to have existed from the beginning or to have been born of
Night. Their origin was veiled in obscurity, but they were often
described as having been renowned men, who, after death, were deified by
their descendants. They all received the homage of the people, and on
all public occasions were acknowledged among the gods.[99] Again, there
were many gods of the sea, among whom the principal seem to have been
Tuaraatai and Ruahatu. These were generally called shark gods (_atua
mao_), not that the shark was itself deemed a god, but that it was
supposed to be employed by the marine gods as their minister of
vengeance. It was only the large blue shark which was believed to act in
this capacity; and it is said that these voracious creatures always
spared a shipwrecked priest, even when they devoured his companions;
nay, they would recognise a priest on board any canoe, come at his call,
and retire at his bidding. A priest of one of these shark gods told Mr.
Ellis that he or his father had been carried on the back of a shark from
Raiatea to Huahine, a distance of twenty miles. Other gods were thought
to preside over the fisheries, and to direct the shoals of fish to the
coasts. Their aid was invoked by fishermen before they launched their
canoes and while they were busy at sea. But these marine deities were
not supposed by the people to be of equal antiquity with the great
primordial gods, born of the Night (_atua fauau po_).[100] Again, there
were gods of the air, who were sometimes worshipped under the figure of
birds. The chief of these aerial deities were thought to be a brother
and sister, who dwelt near the great rock, which is the foundation of
the world. There they imprisoned the stormy winds, but sent them forth
from time to time to punish such as neglected the worship of the gods.
In tempests their compassion was besought by mariners tossed on the sea
or by their friends on shore.[101] To the minds of the islanders there
were also gods of hill and dale, of precipice and ravine. "By their rude
mythology each lovely island was made a sort of fairy-land, and the
spells of enchantment were thrown over its varied scenes.... The
mountain's summit, and the fleecy mists that hang upon its brows--the
rocky defile--the foaming cataract--and the lonely dell--were all
regarded as the abode or resort of these invisible beings."[102]
[99] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 326 _sq._ As to the inferior gods,
see also J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 451 _sqq._
[100] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 327-329.
[101] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 329 _sq._ As to the worship of
birds, Captain Cook says: "This island [Tahiti indeed, and the
rest that lie near it, have a particular bird, some a heron and
others a king's fisher, to which they pay a peculiar regard, and
concerning which they have some superstitious notions with
respect to good and bad fortune, as we have of the swallow and
robin-redbreast, giving them the name of _eatua_, and by no
means killing or molesting them; yet they never address a
petition to them, or approach them with any act of adoration."
See J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 224.
[102] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 329 _sq._, 331.
The general name for "god" in the Society Islands, as throughout
Polynesia, was _atua_.[103] The word was also applied, in the expression
_oramatuas_ or _oromatuas_, to the spirits of departed relatives, who
were also worshipped and ranked among the deities.[104] To these we
shall return presently; meantime it may not be out of place to give some
notice of the worship of the other gods, since in the religion of the
Society Islanders, as of other branches of the Polynesian race, it was
closely interwoven with the worship of the dead.
[103] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 333 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 440 _sqq._; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, pp. 30 _sq._, _s.v._ "atua." Captain Cook and the
first missionaries spelled the word _eatua_ or _eatooa_. See J.
Cook, _Voyages_, i. 221, vi. 149; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 343.
[104] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 324 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 454 _sq._
Sec. 4. _The Temples and Images of the Gods_
The sacred place dedicated to religious worship was called a _morai_,
or, as it is also spelled, a _marai_ or _marae_, which may be translated
"temple," though all such places were uncovered and open to the sky. The
national temples, where the principal idols were deposited, consisted of
large walled enclosures, some of which contained smaller inner courts.
The form was frequently that of a square or a parallelogram, with sides
forty or fifty feet long. The area was paved with flat stones, and two
sides of it were enclosed by a high stone wall, while the front was
protected by a low fence, and within rose in steps or terraces a solid
pyramidical structure built of stone, which usually formed one of the
narrow sides of the area, either at the western or at the eastern end.
These pyramids, which were always truncated so as to form a narrow
platform or ridge on their upper surface, were the most striking and
characteristic feature of the _morais_; indeed the name _morai_ or
_marae_ appears to have been sometimes confined, at least by European
observers, to the pyramid. In front of the pyramid the images were kept
and the altars fixed. The houses of the priests and of the keepers of
the idols were erected within the enclosure.[105] Of these interesting
monuments, which seemed destined to last for ages, only a few
insignificant ruins survive; the rest have been destroyed, chiefly at
the instigation of the missionaries.[106]
[105] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 339 _sqq._ Compare
J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 157 _sqq._, 217, 219, 220, 222, vi. 37,
_sq._, 41; J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage
round the World_, pp. 543 _sqq._; G. Forster, _Voyage round the
World_, i. 267, ii. 138 _sq._; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 207
_sq._, 211 _sq._; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 267
_sq._, 271, 280 _sqq._, 549, ii. 13 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 466-470; A. Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_, pp.
111 _sqq._; S. and K. Routledge, "Notes on some Archaeological
Remains in the Society and Austral Islands," _Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute_, li. (1921) 438 _sqq._
According to J. R. Forster (_l.c._), the _marais_ (_morais,
maraes_) "consist of a very large pile of stones, generally in
the shape of an Egyptian pyramid, with large steps; sometimes
this pyramid makes one of the sides of an area, walled in with
square stones and paved with flat stones: the pyramid is not
solid, but the inside is filled with smaller fragments of coral
stones."
[106] A. Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_, p. 135. This writer has
given us a survey and description of some of the principal
remains which existed at the end of the nineteenth century (pp.
111-148). The ruins of two _maraes_ in the island of Moorea are
described by Mr. and Mrs. Routledge (_l.c._). In one of them the
pyramid stood at the western end of the enclosure, and in the
other at the eastern end.
Some of the pyramids erected within these sacred enclosures were of
great size. In Tahiti an enormous one was seen and described by Captain
Cook as well as by later observers. It was of oblong shape and measured
two hundred and sixty-seven feet in length by eighty-seven feet in
width. It rose in a series of eleven steps or terraces, each four feet
high, so that the total height of the structure was forty-four feet.
Each step was formed of a single course of white coral stone, neatly
squared and polished. The steps on the long sides were broader than
those at the ends, so that at the top it terminated, not in an oblong of
the same figure as the base, but in a ridge like the roof of a house.
The interior of the pyramid was solid, being filled up with round
pebbles which, from the regularity of their figure, seemed to have been
wrought. Some of the coral stones were very large; one of them was three
and a half feet long by two and a half feet wide. The foundation of the
pyramid was built not of coral, but of what Captain Cook called rock, by
which he probably meant a volcanic stone. These foundation stones were
also squared; one of them measured four feet seven inches by two feet
four inches. "Such a structure," says Captain Cook, "raised without the
assistance of iron tools to shape the stones, or mortar to join them,
struck us with astonishment: it seemed to be as compact and firm as it
could have been made by any workman in Europe, except that the steps
which range along its greatest length are not perfectly strait, but sink
in a kind of hollow in the middle, so that the whole surface, from end
to end, is not a right line, but a curve." All the stones, both rock and
coral, must have been brought from a distance, for there was no quarry
in the neighbourhood. The squaring of these blocks with stone tools
must, as Captain Cook observes, have been a work of incredible labour;
but the polishing of them could have been effected more easily by means
of the sharp coral sand, which is found everywhere on the seashore in
great abundance. On the top of the pyramid, and about the middle, stood
the wooden image of a bird; and near it lay the image of a fish carved
in stone. This great pyramid formed part of one side of a spacious area,
nearly square, which measured three hundred and sixty feet by three
hundred and fifty-four, and was walled in with stone as well as paved
with flat stones in its whole extent. Notwithstanding the pavement,
several trees were growing within the sacred enclosure. About a hundred
yards to the west was another paved area or court, in which were several
small stages raised on wooden pillars about seven feet high. These
stages the natives called _ewattas_. Captain Cook judged them rightly to
be altars, observing that they supported what appeared to be offerings
in the shape of provisions of all sorts, as well as whole hogs and many
skulls of hogs and dogs.[107]
[107] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 157-159. The great pyramid was
afterwards visited and described by the first missionaries.
Their measurements confirm, while slightly exceeding, those of
Captain Cook. They speak, however, of ten steps instead of
eleven, and say that the lowest step was six feet high and the
rest about five. See J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 207 _sq._, with
the plate.
The pyramids within the sacred enclosure were not usually so large or so
lofty. In the island of Huahine the pyramid of the chief god Tani or
Tane was a hundred and twenty-four feet long by sixteen feet broad, and
it had only two steps or stories. The lower step or story was about ten
feet high and faced with blocks of coral, set on their edges: some of
these blocks were as high as the step itself. The upper step or story
was similarly faced with coral, but was not more than three feet high.
The interior of both stories was filled with earth. In the centre of the
principal front stood the god's bed, a stone platform twenty-four feet
long by thirteen feet wide, but only eighteen inches high. The style and
masonry of this pyramid, as well as its dimensions, appear to have been
very inferior to those of the great one in Tahiti. The blocks were
apparently unhewn and unpolished, the angles ill formed, and the walls
not straight. Venerable and magnificent trees overshadowed the
sanctuary. One of them measured fifteen yards in girth above the roots.
It is said that the god often wished to fly away, but that his long tail
always caught in the boughs of this giant tree and dragged him down to
earth again.[108]
[108] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 265 _sq._
These sacred pyramids "were erected in any place, and at any time, when
the priests required, by the slavish people. On such occasions the
former overlooked the latter at their work, and denounced the most
terrible judgments upon those who were remiss at it. The poor wretches
were thus compelled to finish their tasks (burthensome as they often
were, in heaving blocks from the sea, dragging them ashore, and heaping
them one upon another) without eating, which would have desecrated the
intended sanctuary. To restrain the gnawings of hunger they bound
girdles of bark round their bodies, tightening the ligatures from time
to time, as their stomachs shrank with emptiness. And, when the drudgery
was done, it was not uncommon for the remorseless priests to seize one
of the miserable builders and sacrifice him to the idol of the
place."[109]
[109] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 13 _sq._
Temples of this sort were found scattered over the islands in every
situation--on hill-tops, on jutting headlands, and in the recesses of
groves.[110] They varied greatly in size: some were small and built in
the rudest manner, mere squares of ill-shapen and ill-piled stones. In
the island of Borabora the missionaries found not less than two hundred
and twenty of these structures crowded within an area only ten miles in
circumference.[111] The trees that grew within the sacred enclosure were
sacred. They comprised particularly the tall cypress-like casuarina and
the broader-leaved and more exuberant callophyllum, thespesia, and
cardia. Their interlacing boughs formed a thick umbrageous covert, which
often excluded the rays of the sun; and the contrast between the bright
glare of a tropical day outside and the sombre gloom in the depths of
the grove, combined with the sight of the gnarled trunks and twisted
boughs of the aged trees, and the sighing of the wind in the branches,
to strike a religious horror into the mind of the beholder.[112] The
ground which surrounded the temples (_morais_) was sacred and afforded a
sanctuary for criminals. Thither they fled on any apprehension of
danger, especially when many human sacrifices were expected, and thence
they might not be torn by violence, though they were sometimes seduced
from their asylum by guile.[113]
[110] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 341.
[111] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ ii. 13.
[112] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 341 _sq._
[113] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 351.
These remarkable sanctuaries were at once temples for the worship of the
gods and burial-places for the human dead. On this combination of
functions I have already adduced some evidence;[114] but as the point is
important, I will cite further testimonies as to the custom of burying
the dead in these enclosures.
[114] Above, pp. 116 _sqq._
Thus Captain Cook writes: "I must more explicitly observe that there are
two places in which the dead are deposited: one a kind of shed, where
the flesh is suffered to putrefy; the other an enclosure, with erections
of stones, where the bones are afterwards buried. The sheds are called
_tupapow_, and the enclosures _morai_. The _morais_ are also places of
worship".[115] Again, after describing how a dead body used to be placed
in the temporary house or shed (_tupapow_) and left there to decay for
five moons, Captain Cook tells us that "what remains of the body is
taken down from the bier, and the bones, having been scraped and washed
very clean, are buried, according to the rank of the person, either
within or without a _morai_: if the deceased was an _earee_ or chief,
his skull is not buried with the rest of the bones, but is wrapped up in
fine cloth, and put in a kind of box made for that purpose, which is
also placed in the _morai_. This coffer is called _ewharre no te
orometua_, the house of a teacher or master".[116]
[115] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 217.
[116] J. Cook, _op. cit._ i. 219.
Again, after describing the human sacrifice which he witnessed at the
great _morai_ at Attahooroo, in Tahiti, Captain Cook proceeds as
follows: "The _morai_ (which, undoubtedly, is a place of worship,
sacrifice, and burial at the same time), where the sacrifice was now
offered, is that where the supreme chief of the whole island is always
buried, and is appropriated to his family, and some of the principal
people. It differs little from the common ones, except in extent. Its
principal part is a large oblong pile of stones, lying loosely upon each
other, about twelve or fourteen feet high, contracted toward the top,
with a square area on each side, loosely paved with pebble stones, under
which the bones of the chiefs are buried.... The human sacrifices are
buried under different parts of the pavement."[117]
[117] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 37.
Again, Captain Cook tells us that after a battle the victors used to
collect all the dead that had fallen into their hands and bring them to
the _morai_, where, with much ceremony, they dug a hole and buried all
the bodies in it as so many offerings to the gods; but the skulls of the
slain were never afterwards taken up. Their own great chiefs who fell in
battle were treated in a different manner. Captain Cook was informed
that the bodies of the late king and two chiefs, who were slain in
battle, were brought to the _morai_ at Attahooroo. There the priests cut
out the bowels of the corpses before the great altar, and the bodies
were afterwards buried at three different spots in the great pile of
stones which formed the most conspicuous feature of the _morai_. Common
men who perished in the same battle were all buried in a single hole at
the foot of the pile. The spots where the bodies of the king and chiefs
reposed were pointed out to Captain Cook and his companions.[118]
[118] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 40 _sq._
Again, in the island of Tahiti, the naturalist George Forster, who
accompanied Captain Cook, saw a stone building, "in form of the frustum
of a pyramid," constructed in terraces or steps, and measuring about
twenty yards in length at the base. "This the native said was a
burying-place and place of worship, _marai_, and distinguished it by the
name of _marai no-Aheatua_, the burying-place of Aheatua, the present
king of Tiarroboo."[119]
[119] G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, i. 267.
Again, in the island of Huahine, the missionaries Tyerman and Bennet saw
"a pagan _marae_ hard by, where the sovereigns of Huahine were
buried--and where, indeed, they lay in more than oriental state, each
one resting in his bed, at the foot of the Sacred Mountain, beneath the
umbrage of the magnificent _aoa_ [tree], and near the beach for ever
washed by waters that roll round the world.... The great _marae_ itself
was dedicated to Tani, the father of the gods here; but the whole ground
adjacent was marked with the vestiges of smaller _maraes_--private
places for worship and family interment--while this was the capital of
the island and the headquarters of royalty and idolatry."[120] A little
later, speaking of the same sacred place, the missionaries observe, "The
first _marae_ that we visited was the sepulchral one of the kings of
Huahine, for many generations. It was an oblong inclosure, forty-five
feet long by twenty broad, fenced with a strong stone wall. Here the
bodies of the deceased, according to the manner of the country, being
bound up, with the arms doubled to their shoulders, the legs bent under
their thighs and both forced upwards against the abdomen, were let down,
without coffins, into a hole prepared for their reception, and just deep
enough to allow the earth to cover their heads."[121]
[120] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 271.
[121] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 280.
One of our best authorities on these islands, William Ellis, speaks of
the _maraes_ (_morais_), whether they belonged to private families, to
districts, or to the kings, as being "the general depositories of the
bones of the departed, whose bodies had been embalmed"; and as a motive
for the practice he alleges the sanctity which attached to these places,
and which might naturally be supposed to guard the graves against
impious and malicious violation.[122] However, the first missionaries
say of the islanders that "they bury none in the _morai_, but those
offered in sacrifice, or slain in battle, or the children of chiefs
which have been strangled at the birth--an act of atrocious inhumanity
too common."[123] According to Moerenhout, the _marais_ (_morais_)
belonging to private families were often used as cemeteries; but in the
public _marais_ none but the human victims, and sometimes the priests,
were interred.[124] Thus there is to some extent a conflict of testimony
between our authorities on the subject of burial in the temples. But the
evidence which I have adduced seems to render it probable that many at
least of the _morais_ served as burial-grounds for kings and chiefs of
high degree, and even for common men who had fallen fighting in the
service of their country.
[122] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 405. See above, pp. 117 _sq._
[123] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 364.
[124] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 470.