RELIGION OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDS — THEIR IDOLS — PARALLEL BETWEEN THE IDOLATRY OF MODERN POLYNESIA AND ANCIENT SYRIA — ORO, THE GOD OF WAR — EXTENT OF HIS WORSHIP — LEGEND OF A SHELL — ORO’S MARAE, OR TEMPLE — THE HUMAN SACRIFICE — HIRO, THE GOD OF THIEVES — HIS WORSHIP AND APOTHEOSIS — TANE, THE CHIEF GOD OF HUAHINE — HIS MARAE AND HIS BED — DRESSING TANE — THE TREES AROUND HIS MARAE — HIS UNFORTUNATE TAIL — HIS HIGH PRIEST — AN INGENIOUS EVASION — TANE’S HALF-WAY HOUSE — TANE AVERSE TO BLOODSHED, BUT NEEDING THE SACRIFICE OF LIFE — TANE’S STONE CANOE — THE SHARK GOD, AND HIS WATER TEMPLE — APOTHEOSIS OF A LIVING MAN — SINGULAR PERFORMANCE OF THE INSPIRED PRIESTS — MOVABLE SHRINES.

We now come to the somewhat complicated subject of the religious belief of the Society Islanders. It is not an easy subject, involving, as it does, a great variety of national customs, including the all-pervading tapu, the burial of the dead, and the human sacrifices which accompany a funeral or are offered on great occasions. We will begin with a brief account of the religious system of these islanders, as far as it is possible to reduce to a system a subject so obscure in itself, and so little understood by the first travellers, who alone would be likely to witness and gain information about the various religious ceremonies.

As might be expected from these islanders, their religion is pure idolatry, or rather, it consists in the worship of certain images which are conventionally accepted as visible representatives of the invisible deities. The idols are of two different kinds, the one being rude imitations of the human figure, and the other, certain combinations of cloth, sinnet, and feathers, rolled round sticks, not having the slightest similitude to the human form, or being recognizable as idols except by those who understand their signification. The human figures are held as being inferior to other idols, and are considered in much the same light as the Lares and Penates of the ancient Romans. They are called by the name of Tu, and are supposed to belong to some particular family which is taken under their protection.

The other gods are, in the ideas of the natives, possessed of far more extensive powers, sometimes being supposed to watch over particular districts, or even particular islands. There are gods of the valleys and gods of the hills, exactly as we read was the belief of the Syrians nearly three thousand years ago: when Ahab had repulsed Benhadad, “the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.” (1 Kings xx. 23.)

Fully believing in the protection which these deities are able to extend over their worshippers, it is no matter of wonder that the latter consider that they have a right to the good offices of their gods, and complain bitterly when anything goes wrong with them. So, if a god has been worshipped in some locality, and the ground becomes barren, or the cocoa-nut trees do not produce their full amount of fruit, or the district is devastated by war, the people think that their god is not doing his duty by them, and so they depose him, and take another in his place.

Although these gods are in a manner limited in their scope, many of them are acknowledged throughout the whole of the group of islands; and the chief, because the most dreaded, of them is Oro, the god of war.

This terrible deity is held in the greatest awe by his worshippers, and at one time was feared throughout the whole of the islands. His name was associated with sundry localities, and with many objects, so that his dreaded name was continually in the mouth of the people. There was even a small species of scallop shell which was held in such fear that not a native would dare to touch it. It was called tupe (pronounced toopeh), and was said to be the special property of Oro. When a man died, and was to be converted into a spirit, the body had to be entirely consumed. This was done by Oro, who scraped the flesh from the bones with a tupe shell, and thus ate the body.

The subsequent career of the spirit was rather peculiar. After issuing from Oro in its new form, it betook itself to a great lake in Raiatea, round which is a belt of trees, which from some cause are quite flat at the top, presenting a level surface like a leafy platform. On this place the newly enfranchised spirits danced and feasted, and after they had passed through that stage of their existence, they were transformed into cockroaches.

In Huahine there was an enormous marae, or sacred enclosure, dedicated to Oro. It was a hundred and fifty-six feet long by eighteen wide, and was built by a fence made of flat slabs of coral-rock placed on their edges, and the intervals between them filled in with earth. One of these blocks of stone measured nine feet by ten, so that the labor of cutting them and conveying them to such a distance from the sea must have been enormous.

On this platform a smaller one was erected, so as to leave a space of about four feet in width, and within this upper story were laid the bones of the many victims that had been slain in the worship of the god. The temple itself, called Fare no Oro, or the House of Oro, was quite a small building, eight feet long by six wide, and a little beyond this was the square stone on which the priest stood when about to offer a sacrifice, a higher stone behind it answering as a seat whereon the priest might rest himself when wearied.

Small as was this house, it had been the scene of many human sacrifices, and even its erection cost a number of lives, every post having been driven into the ground through a human body. Besides these victims, others had been sacrificed on many occasions, fourteen of whom were enumerated by an old man who had once officiated as the priest of Oro. When the chief of the island became converted to Christianity, this man tried to conceal the idol which he had so long worshipped, and to save it from destruction, hid it in a hole in the rock. The chief, however, very rightly feared that if the idol were allowed to remain its worship might revive, and accordingly insisted upon its destruction. Besides the priest who offered the sacrifice, Oro had another officer, whose special duty it was to kill the victims. He was officially termed the Mau-buna, or Pig-owner, a human body killed for sacrifice being named a “long pig.” When the victim was pointed out to him, the Mau-buna, having a round stone concealed in his hand, found an opportunity, of getting behind him, and, with a single blow, struck him senseless to the ground, where the murder was completed. He then packed the body in a basket of cocoa-nut leaves, and delivered it to the priest.

Next to Oro was Hiro, the Polynesian Mercury, or god of thieves. He was originally a man, but was elevated to the society of the gods in consequence of his wonderful deeds on earth, the chief of which seems to have been his daring in taking the image of Oro and flinging it to the ground with impunity.

The worship of Hiro extended through all ranks, from the highest chief to the lowest cook, and his votaries always asked for his help when they went on a plundering expedition, and promised him a share of the spoil. This promise they always performed, but as they were careful not to define the amount of booty which was to belong to the god, they contrived practically to have it all to themselves. For example, a thief would go out pig stealing, and promise Hiro a share of the stolen pork. Accordingly, if he had been successful, he would take home his ill-gotten booty, bake it, break off an inch of the tail, and go with it to the shrine of Hiro, where he would offer it with as much ceremony as if it had been half the pig, and at the same time beg the god not to divulge the theft of a votary who had kept his promise.

The natives are quite dexterous enough in the thieving way to be worthy of the protection of this god, having the most ingenious modes of stealing the goods of another. For example, if the objects are small, a hook is fastened to the end of a long bamboo, and the coveted article is slily withdrawn by the actual thief while a confederate directs the attention of the victim elsewhere. Sometimes the hook is tied to a line, and the thief literally angles for the property.

The apotheosis of Hiro was a very remarkable one. After his life of theft, rapine, and murder, in which he did not spare even the temples of the gods, and had, as we have seen, the hardihood to fling Oro’s image on the floor, and roll on it as if he had conquered Oro in wrestling, he was thought to have been so superhumanly wicked that he must have been a god. Accordingly, his skull was placed in a huge marae which he himself had erected, while his hair was put into an image of Oro, and both buried together, this act constituting the apotheosis. When Messrs. Bennett and Tyerman were at the Society Islands, this skull was still in existence, but it disappeared, together with the idols and other relics of the old religions.

The next god is Tane (pronounced tahneh), who was worshipped over a considerable range of country, and was in one or two islands considered as their supreme god. Such was the case with Huahine, in which Tane had a marae or malae of gigantic dimensions. I may here remark that in most Polynesian dialects the letters r and l are interchangeable, so that marae and malae are, in fact, the same word.

This marae is a hundred and twenty-four feet in length by sixteen in breadth, and is composed, like the marae of Oro, of two stories, the last being nearly ten feet in height, and built of coral blocks, some of which are ten feet in width, and correspondingly long and thick, so that their weight is enormous. As the marae is about a hundred yards from the shore, a prodigious amount of labor must have been expended in getting these huge stones out of the sea and fixing them in their places. The upper story is barely a yard in height, and has at each end an upright stone six feet high.

In the middle of the principal part is the idol’s bed, which he occupies once annually, and in which he ought to feel comfortable, as it is twenty-four feet long by thirteen wide. It is built, like the marae, of stone and earth, and is only eighteen inches high. This is a very ancient structure, as is shown by the trees that surround and spread their arms over it. Near the bed is a small house about twelve feet by six, in which rests the god Tane, together with lesser gods, each of whom is set over a district.

Tane himself—burned in 1817—was carved out of a great block of wood, and was about as large as a tall man. He was not remarkable for an elegant shape, having no neck and no legs, the body terminating in a cone. The head was furnished with apologies for eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, and the whole was covered with sinnet.

Once in every year, Tane had a new dress, and was invested with great solemnity. He was brought out of his house by his priest and laid on his bed, having four lesser gods on either side of him. The chiefs of the district stood each in front of his own god, and the priests stood round Tane as being the great god of them all. The old garments were then removed, and examination made into the interior of the idol, which was hollow, and contained various objects, such as scarlet feathers, beads, bracelets, and other valuables. Those that began to look shabby were removed, and others inserted to take their place, and the idols were then invested in their new robes.

Meanwhile, a vast amount of kava was prepared—the natives saying that it was equal in cubic measure to the marae—and a scene of drunken debauch took place, lasting for several days, even the priests being so intoxicated that they were unable to stand while performing their duties, but had to chant their incantations while lying on the ground. This stage of the idol-dressing is represented in the fine engraving on the opposite page. At the expiration of the three days a special god called Moorai was produced and stripped, and, as soon as his garments were removed, violent rain showers fell, as a signal for all the idols to be removed to their respective houses. The greatest care was taken that no woman should witness this ceremony, and if a female of any age had been detected coming within a certain distance of the marae, she would be at once killed, and even her father, husband, or brother, would have been among the first to strike her down.

The trees which decorated this marae are the banyans (Ficus Indica), one of which is described by Mr. Bennett as being seventy feet in girth at the principal stem, and throwing out vast horizontal branches, each of which is supported by a root which looks more like the trunk than the root of a tree. “More than forty of these we counted, standing like a family of earth-born giants about their enormous parent. A circle drawn round all these auxiliary stems measured a hundred and thirty-two feet in circumference, while a circle embracing the utmost verge of their lateral ramification was not less than four hundred and twenty feet.

“The upper stories (if such we may call them) of this multiform tree presented yet more singular combination of interesting and intertwisting boughs, like Gothic arches, circles, and colonnades, propped as by magic in mid-air. These were occasionally massy or light, and everywhere richly embellished with foliage, through which the flickering sunshine gleamed in long rays that lost themselves in the immensity of the interior labyrinth, or danced in bright spots upon the ground black with the shadows of hundreds of branches, rising tier above tier, and spreading range above range, aloft and around.”

This tree was one of the places in which the bodies of human beings were offered, being packed in leaf baskets and hung to the branches. One branch, which was hugely thick and strong, and ran horizontally at a small height from the ground, was pointed out as the principal gibbet, on which human sacrifices, thousands in number, have been offered century after century.

Tane, all powerful though he was, labored under one disadvantage. He had a very long tail, and whenever he wished to leave his house, rise into the air, and dart through the sky on some errand of mischief, he was restrained by his long tail, which was sure to become entangled in some object, which from that time became sacred to the god. For example, the magnificent tree which has just been described was several times the means of detaining Tane on earth, and the several branches round which his tail was twisted became tapu at once. On one side of his house there was a large stone, which had become sacred in consequence of having arrested the flight of the god.

This idea of the long and streaming tail has evidently been derived from meteors and comets, which are supposed to be the gods passing through the air, and whenever a native saw one of them, he always threw off his upper garments, and raised a shout in honor of the passing god. Mr. Bennett suggests that the permanent tail attached to Tane is in all probability a commemoration of some very magnificent comet with a tail measuring eighty or ninety degrees in length.

So sacred was the idol that everything which was touched by it became tapu, and might not be touched by profane hands. There was only one man who was allowed to carry it, and he was called from his office, “Te amo attua,” i. e. the god-bearer. His task was not an easy one, and his office, though it caused him to be viewed with nearly as much reverence as the god of whom he was the special servant, must have deprived him of many comforts. The god-bearer was not even allowed to climb a cocoa-nut tree, because, if he did so, the tree would be so sacred that no one might ascend it after him; indeed, every action of his life was fenced about with some similar restriction. He could not marry, as, in the first place, no woman could be deserving of the honor, and, in the second place, he would be defiled and unfitted for his office if he were to take any woman to wife.

A celibate life does not seem to us to entail such self-denial as seems to be implied by the prominence given to the celibacy of the god-bearer, who appears to have been the only bachelor in the whole group of islands. But among most savage nations a man’s wealth and consequence are regulated by the number of his wives, who do all the work of the household, and in fact keep their husband in idleness.

The house in which the god lived was a small hut elevated on posts twenty feet high, and there were no means of access except by climbing one of these posts. The god-bearer, therefore, had no easy task in climbing up these posts with the great wooden image fastened to his back.

In the illustration on the 1084th page we see the chief priest of Tane—the god-bearer—ascending the pole of the sacred house, with the unwieldy idol slung on his back. A gust of wind has risen, and has wafted Tane’s long tail into the air, so that it has been entangled in a neighboring tree. One of the principal priests is running to ascend the tree and free the god’s tail, and from that time the tree will be tapu, and no one of lower rank than the priest who freed the tail will be allowed to ascend the tree.

Sometimes Tane paid a visit to a marae at some distance, and when he did so, his bearer was naturally fatigued with the weight of his burden. It was, however, thought derogatory to the character of the god to say that his bearer could by any possibility be tired of carrying him, and so, by an ingenious evasion, the god himself was thought to be fatigued with the journey, and was laid to rest for a while on a flat stone about half a mile from the sacred tree. This stone was tapu to women, and if a woman had sat upon it, or even touched it with her finger, she would have been at once killed.

The stone was not a large one, being only four feet long, one foot broad, and nine inches thick. It is a singular fact that this sacred stone, which had so often been the witness of idolatrous rites, should also have witnessed the destruction of the idol to whom it was consecrated. After Christianity had been fairly established in the island, the chief men who adhered to the worship of Tane made war upon the Christians, who repelled them, so that they were obliged to bring out their idol and lay him on the sacred stone. The two bodies of warriors met face to face close to the idol, and the struggle was about to commence when the chief of the Christians made a speech to the enemy, laying before them the distinctions between idolatry and Christianity, and recommended peace instead of war.

His voice prevailed, and those who came to fight against the Christians renounced their idols, and, as a proof of their sincerity, they built a large fire on the spot, threw Tane into it, and then held a great feast, at which the men and women ate together. They then proceeded to Tane’s house, burned it down, and dismantled his great marae.

The feathers attached to these idols and placed within their hollow bodies are mostly the two long tail-feathers of the tropic bird, white and broad toward the base, and narrow and scarlet for the remainder of their length. When the gods are newly dressed, it is considered a meritorious act for any one to present fresh feathers in lieu of those which have been deteriorated by age. After the old garments are unrolled, the feathers are placed inside the image, and a corresponding number of old feathers taken out and presented to the devotee, who values them beyond all things, as partaking of the sanctity which surrounds the original idol. These feathers are then carefully wrapped with sinnet, so as to cover them, with the exception of a little portion of both ends, and they are then laid before the idol, while the priest recites a prayer, in which he beseeches the god to transfer his sanctity to these feathers, which from that moment become minor gods.

The happy devotee has already provided himself with bamboo tubes, in each of which he places one of the feathers, and from which he never takes them except to pray to them. Sometimes he has a smaller idol made, and places the feathers within it; but in this case, he has to take the new idol to be laid before the original one, so that the transfer of sanctity may be guaranteed to them. This mode of honoring the sacred feathers is usually employed when the devotee has enjoyed some piece of good fortune after he has received them, and in most cases he not only encloses them in a new idol, but builds a small temple in which that idol lives.

Formerly, when animals were brought to be sacrificed to Tane, no blood was shed, but they were laid upon a stone and strangled by pressing their necks between two sticks. Food of all kinds was presented to him, part of which he was supposed to consume himself, part was taken by the priests, and the remainder was consumed by the worshippers. All first fruits went to Tane, a peasant being supposed to offer him two of the earliest fruits, while a raatira or gentleman offered ten, and the chiefs still more, according to their rank and wealth.

Not very far from the sacred stone was a marae containing a very sacred object, no less, in fact, than a piece of Tane’s own canoe. According to the people, it was a very miraculous canoe, for it was made of stone, and yet floated as well as if it were made of wood. In proof of this statement, they placed the fragment in water, where it floated, as it was likely to do, being nothing more than a piece of pumice stone. No one knew where the stone had been obtained, but they said that there were more pieces in different parts of the island.

Besides the idol gods, there are gods which are symbolized by living creatures, of which the shark is the chief, being worshipped for the same reason that crocodiles and venomous serpents are worshipped in some parts of the world, viz. on account of its destructive powers. Mr. Bennett saw a large marae which had been consecrated to a shark god on account of a miraculous event which was said to have happened some time previously. In one particular spot the ground begun to shake and tremble, and, as the people were flying in terror, the ground opened, and a huge shark forced his head through the cleft in the soil.

The formation of the maraes has already been mentioned. Some time before Mr. Bennett arrived at the place, a shark had contrived to force its way through the sand into the marae, which was situated on the shore of the lagoon. The water flowed in with the fish, and the natives, feeling delighted that their god had actually come to take possession of his temple, blocked up the passage by which he had entered, cleared out the marae, and kept the shark in it for the rest of his life, feeding him abundantly with fish and meat.

Indeed, in one bay the sharks were regularly fed by the priests, and the consequence was that they became quite familiar, and would swim to the beach to be fed with fish and pork. They would also accompany the canoes, knowing well that the natives always threw overboard some of the fish which they had caught, for the sake of propitiating the shark gods. The latter, however, were so little sensible of the kindness bestowed upon them, that had one of their worshippers fallen overboard they would have eaten him, in spite of all his propitiatory offerings.

Sometimes a living man has been elected to the rank of a god, and worshipped as such during his lifetime. This was done at Raiatea, the king, Tamatoa, having been reckoned among the gods by means of a series of ceremonies which might have been very appropriate in assigning him a place among the very worst and vilest of demons, but were singularly unsuitable to an apotheosis. After this ceremony, the king was consulted as an oracle, prayers and sacrifices were offered to him, and he was treated as reverently as if he had been Tane himself.

It is a most remarkable fact that Tamatoa became a Christian in his later life, and afforded most valuable information respecting the religious belief of the Society Islanders. He corroborated, as having been an eye-witness, the accounts that have been given of the astonishing deeds done by the heathen priests while in a state of inspiration. They have been seen to dash their hands against the ground with such violence that they imbedded the whole arm up to the shoulder. Captain Henry, the son of one of the missionaries, states that he has seen one of these priests plunge his arm into the solid earth as if it were water, and that he would perform the feat on any ground wherever he chanced to be.

“The infuriated priest, on that occasion, foamed at the mouth, distorted his eyeballs, convulsed his limbs, and uttered the most hideous shrieks and howlings. After he had seemingly buried his arm like a spear stuck suddenly in the ground, he held it there for a considerable time; then, drawing it out uninjured, he rushed toward the shore, and, laying hold upon a large canoe, which ordinarily required three or four men to launch, he shoved it before him with apparent ease, and sent it adrift.

“He afterward threw himself into the sea, wallowed about in it, and kept his head under water for a long time. When this act of the tragical pantomime was finished, he sat among the waves, and delivered his prophecies in very figurative and hyperbolical language, at the same time sufficiently ambiguous to be fulfilled in one of two senses, whatever might happen.”

Portable shrines of the gods were once used in the Society Islands, but so complete and rapid has been the demolition of everything connected with idolatry, that Mr. Bennett, who was eye-witness of many idolatrous practices, was only able to procure one specimen, which is now in the museum of the London Missionary Society.

In form it resembles a house, with sloping roof, and is about a yard in length. It is supported on four short legs, and underneath there is a round hole through which the idol was passed into its shrine, a door exactly fitting and closing the aperture. The idol which was in this shrine represented a female god greatly venerated by the people, because she was so very mischievous, and had killed thousands of people, gaining from her bloodthirsty propensities the name of Tii Vahine, or Queen Tii. The idol is a horribly repulsive example of the ugliness with which savages invariably invest their deities.

The shrine, with the idol within it, was hidden in a rock cave by priests of Tii Vahine when idolatry was overthrown by Christianity, and was not discovered for a considerable time, when it was brought from its place of concealment and sold.