Chapter V: The Belief in Immortality Among the Society Islanders (4)

The heat of the climate, by hastening the decomposition of dead bodies, rendered it necessary that corpses should be speedily removed or treated so as to preserve them for a time from decay. As such treatment was generally too costly for the poor and even the middle ranks of society, families belonging to these classes were usually obliged to inter their dead on the first or second day after the decease. During the short intervening period the body, resting on a bed of fragrant green leaves, was placed on a sort of bier covered with white cloth and decorated with wreaths and garlands of sweet-smelling flowers. Round it sat the relatives, giving vent to their grief in loud and continued lamentations, and often cutting their temples, faces, and breasts with shark's teeth, till they were covered with blood from their self-inflicted wounds. The bodies were frequently committed to the grave in deep silence; but sometimes a father would deliver a pathetic oration at the funeral of his son.[200] The grave was generally shallow and the corpse was deposited in a bent posture, with the hands tied to the knees or to the legs.[201]

[200] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 399 _sq._

[201] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 553 _sq._

But in the families of chiefs the custom was to submit the bodies of the dead to a sort of embalming and to preserve them above ground for a time.[202] The Tahitians had a tradition of a rude or unpolished period in their history, when the bodies of the dead were allowed to remain in the houses in which they lived, and which were still occupied by the survivors. A kind of stage or altar was erected in the dwelling, and on it the corpse was deposited. But in a later and more polished age, which lasted till the advent of Europeans, the practice was introduced of building separate houses or sheds for the lodgment of corpses.[203]

[202] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 400.

[203] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 404.

These houses or sheds (_tupapows_) were small temporary buildings, often neatly constructed. The thatched roof rested on wooden pillars, which were seldom more than six feet high. The body was laid on a bier or platform raised on posts about three feet from the ground. This bier was movable, for the purpose of being drawn out, and of exposing the body to the rays of the sun. The body was usually clothed or covered with cloth, and for a long time it was carefully rubbed with aromatic oils once a day. The size of these charnel-houses varied with the rank of the persons whose bodies they contained; the better sort were enclosed by railings. Those which were allotted to people of the lower class just sufficed to cover the bier, and were not railed in. The largest seen by Captain Cook was eleven yards long. Such houses were ornamented according to the taste and abilities of the surviving kindred, who never failed to lay a profusion of good cloth about the body, and sometimes almost covered the outside of the house.[204]

[204] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 93 _sq._, 135, 217, 218; J. Wilson,
_op. cit._ pp. 84, 212 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 404; J. A.
Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 547.

But before the corpse was deposited in one of these temporary structures, it was shrouded in cloth and carried on a bier to the sea-shore, where it was set down on the beach at the water's edge. There a priest, who accompanied the procession, renewed the prayers which he had offered over the body both at the house and on its passage to the shore. Further, he took up water in his hands and sprinkled it towards the corpse, but not upon it. These prayers and sprinklings he repeated several times, and between the repetitions the body was carried back some forty or fifty yards from the sea, only to be brought back again to the water's edge. While these ceremonies were being performed, the temporary house or shed was being prepared, in which the corpse was to remain until the flesh had wholly wasted from the bones. Thither it was then carried from the beach and laid upon the bier.[205]

[205] J. Cook, _op. cit._ i. 217 _sq._ Compare J. R. Forster,
_Observations made during a Voyage round the World_, p. 559.

The practice of embalming appears to have been long familiar to the natives of the Society Islands. The methods employed by them were simple. Sometimes the juices were merely squeezed out of the corpse, which was then exposed to the sun and anointed with fragrant oils. At other times, and apparently more usually, the bowels, entrails, and brains were extracted, and the cavities filled with cloth soaked in perfumed oils, which were also injected into other parts of the body. Scented oils were also rubbed over the outside daily: every day the corpse was exposed to the sun in a sitting posture: every night it was laid out horizontally and often turned over, that it might not remain long on the same side. By these means, combined with the heat of the sun and the dryness of the atmosphere, the process of desiccation was effected in the course of a few weeks: the muscular parts and the eyes shrivelled up; and the wizened body resembled a skeleton covered with parchment or oilcloth. Thus reduced to a mummy, it was clothed and fixed in a sitting attitude: a small altar was erected before it; and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers were daily presented by the relatives or by the priest who was appointed to attend to it. For if the deceased was a chief of high rank or great renown, a priest or other person was set apart to wait upon the corpse and to present food to its mouth at different hours of the day. They supposed that the soul still hovered over the mouldering remains and was pleased by such marks of attention. Hence during the exposure of the body in the temporary house the mourners would sometimes renew their lamentations there, and, wounding themselves with shark's teeth, wipe off the blood on a cloth, and deposit the bloody rag beside the mummy as a proof of their affection. In this state the desiccated body was preserved for many months till the flesh had completely decayed; Ellis was of opinion that the best-preserved of these mummies could not be kept for more than twelve months. The bones were then scraped, washed, and buried within the precincts of the family temple (_morai_), if the deceased was a chief; but if he was a commoner, they were interred outside of the holy ground. However, the skull was not buried with the bones; it was carefully wrapt in fine cloth and kept in a box by the family, it might be for several generations. Sometimes the box containing the skull was deposited at the temple, but often it was hung from the roof of the house.[206] At marriage the skulls of ancestors were sometimes brought out and set before the bride and bridegroom in order, apparently, to place the newly wedded pair under the guardianship of the ancestral spirits who had once animated these relics of mortality.[207] In time of war victorious enemies would sometimes despoil the temples of the vanquished and carry off the bones of famous men interred in them; these they would then subject to the utmost indignity by converting them into chisels, borers, or fish-hooks. To prevent this sacrilege the relations of the dead conveyed the bones of their chiefs, and even the bodies of persons who had lately died, to the mountains and hid them in caverns among the most inaccessible rocks and lofty precipices of these wild solitudes.[208] Where the mountains advance to the coast, many of these caves exist in the face of cliffs overhanging the sea; for the most part they are situated in places which Europeans can reach only with the help of ropes and ladders, though the natives, it is said, can clamber up the steepest crags with ease. Few even of the islanders know the situation of the caverns, and fewer still will consent to act as guides to the curious stranger who may wish to explore their recesses; for the fear of the ghosts, who are supposed to haunt these ancient depositories of the dead, is yet deeply rooted in the native mind. Moreover, the mouths of the caves are generally so low and overgrown with shrubs and creepers that they may easily be overlooked by an observer standing in front of them. Some of the grottos are said to be still full of skulls, or were so down to the end of the nineteenth century.[209] The mummies as well as the bones were liable to be captured by an invader, and were esteemed trophies not less glorious than foemen slain in battle. Hence during an invasion the mummies were generally the first things to be carried off for safety to the mountains.[210]

[206] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 93 _sq._, 135 _sq._, 218, 219, vi.
47 _sq._; J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage
round the World_, pp. 561 _sq._; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 212
_sq._, 363 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 400 _sq._, 404 _sq._,
405 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 554.

[207] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 272, who observes that the
survivors "considered the spirits of the proprietors of these
skulls as the guardian spirits of the family."

[208] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 405.

[209] A. Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_ (Berlin, 1900), pp. 37
_sq._, 81 _sq._, 83.

[210] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 364.

A dangerous pollution was supposed to be contracted by all who had handled a corpse. Hence the persons employed in embalming a body were carefully shunned by every one else so long as the process lasted, because the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was supposed to attach in some degree to such as touched his mortal remains. The embalmers did not feed themselves, lest the food, defiled by the touch of their polluted hands, should cause their death; so they were fed by others.[211] This state of uncleanness lasted for a month, during which the tabooed persons were forbidden to handle food as well as to put it into their own mouths.[212]

[211] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 403.

[212] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 363.

Again, when the ceremony of depositing the sins of the deceased in a hole[213] was over, all who had touched the body or the garments of the deceased, which were buried or destroyed, fled precipitately into the sea to cleanse themselves from the pollution which they had incurred by contact with the corpse; and they cast into the sea the garments they had worn while they were engaged in the work. Having bathed, they gathered a few pieces of coral from the bottom of the sea, and returning with them to the house, addressed the dead body, saying, "With you may the pollution be." With these words they threw down the pieces of coral on the top of the hole that had been dug to receive all the objects defiled by their connexion with the deceased.[214]

[213] See above, p. 305.

[214] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 403.

When a person had died of an infectious disorder, the priests entreated him to bury the disease with him in the grave and not to inflict it upon other people, when he revisited them as a ghost. They also threw a plantain into the grave, and either buried with him or burned all his utensils, that nobody might be infected by them.[215]

[215] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 364.

Sec. 9. _The Fate of the Soul after Death_

The natives of the Society Islands believed in the immortality of the human soul, or at all events in its separate existence after death[216]; they thought that no person perishes or becomes extinct.[217] On its departure from the body the spirit, now called a _tee_, _teehee_, or _tii_, was supposed to linger near its old habitation, whether the mouldering remains exposed on the bier, or the bones buried in the earth, or the skull kept in its box. In this state the spirits were believed to lodge in small wooden images, seldom more than eighteen inches high, which were placed round about the burial-ground.[218] These images are variously said to have borne the same name (_tee_, _teehee_) as the spirits which inhabited them,[219] or to have been called by a different name (_unus_)[220]. Specimens of these images were seen by George Forster in Tahiti. He says that round about the _marai_ (_morai_) of Aheatua, at that time King of Tiarroboo, "were placed perpendicularly, or nearly so, fifteen slender pieces of wood, some about eighteen feet long, in which six or eight diminutive human figures of a rude unnatural shape were carved, standing above each other, male or female promiscuously, yet so that the uppermost was always a male. All these figures faced the sea, and perfectly resembled some which are carved on the sterns of their canoes, and which they call _e-tee_."[221] To the same effect George Forster's father, J. R. Forster, observes that "near the _marais_ are twenty or thirty single pieces of wood fixed into the ground, carved all over on one side with figures about eighteen inches long, rudely representing a man and a woman alternately, so that often more than fifteen or twenty figures may be counted on one piece of wood, called by them _Teehee_."[222] But the souls of the dead, though they inhabited chiefly the wooden figures erected at the temples or burial-grounds (_marais_, _morais_), were by no means confined to them, and were dreaded by the natives, who believed that during the night these unquiet spirits crept into people's houses and ate the heart and entrails of the sleepers, thus causing their death.[223]

[216] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 222, vi. 150.

[217] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 345.

[218] J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round
the World_, pp. 552, 553; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_,
ii. 151 _sq._

[219] J. R. Forster and G. Forster, _ll.cc._

[220] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 348, "the _unus_, or
curiously carved pieces of wood marking the sacred places of
interment, and emblematical of _tiis_ or spirits."

[221] G. Forster, _op. cit._ i. 267. Compare J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 461, "_Les images des Tiis etaient placees aux
extremites des marais et gardaient l'enceinte des terres
sacrees_."

[222] J. R. Forster, _op. cit._ pp. 544 _sq._ In the southern
peninsula of Tahiti, both on the coast and inland, Captain Cook
saw many sepulchral buildings, and he described them as
"decorated with many carved boards, which were set upright, and
on the top of which were various figures of birds and men: on
one in particular there was the representation of a cock, which
was painted red and yellow, to imitate the feathers of that
animal, and rude images of men were, in some of them, placed one
upon the head of another." See J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 150 _sq._
These "carved boards" were no doubt of the same sort as the
_tees_ or _teehees_ described by the two Forsters. No other
writer seems to mention the figures of birds carved on them.

[223] J. R. Forster, _op. cit._ p. 543.

However, the Society Islanders appear to have been by no means consistent in the views which they held concerning the fate of the soul after death. Like many other people, they seem to have wavered between a belief that the souls of the dead lingered invisible near their old homes and the belief that the disembodied spirits went away to a distant land, where all human souls, which have departed this life, met and dwelt together. Or perhaps it might be more correct to say, that instead of wavering between these two inconsistent beliefs, they held them both firmly without perceiving their inconsistency. At all events these islanders believed that either at death or at some time after it their souls departed to a distant place called _po_ or Night, the common abode of gods and of departed spirits.[224] Thither the soul was conducted by other spirits, and on its arrival it was eaten by the gods, not all at once, but by degrees. They imagined that the souls of ancestors or relatives, who ranked among the gods, scraped the different parts of the newly arrived spirit with a kind of serrated shell at different times, after which they ate and digested it. If the soul underwent this process of being eaten and digested three separate times, it became a deified or imperishable spirit and might visit the world and inspire living folk.[225] According to one account, the soul was cooked whole in an earth-oven, as pigs are baked on earth, and was then placed in a basket of coco-nut leaves before being served up to the god whom the deceased had worshipped in life. "By this cannibal divinity he was now eaten up; after which, through some inexplicable process, the dead and devoured man emanated from the body of the god, and became immortal."[226] In the island of Raiatea the great god Oro was supposed to use a scallop-shell "to scrape the flesh from the bones of newly deceased bodies, previous to their being converted into pure spirits by being devoured by him, and afterwards transformed by passing through the laboratory of his cannibal stomach."[227] This process of being devoured by a god was not conceived of as a punishment inflicted on wicked people after death; for good and bad souls had alike to submit to it. Rather, Captain Cook tells us, the natives considered "this coalition with the deity as a kind of purification necessary to be undergone before they enter a state of bliss. For, according to their doctrine, if a man refrain from all connexion with women some months before death, he passes immediately into his eternal mansion, without such a previous union; as if already, by this abstinence, he were pure enough to be exempted from the general lot."[228] A slightly different account of this process of spiritual purification is given by the first missionaries to Tahiti. They say that "when the spirit departs from the body, they have a notion it is swallowed by the _eat[=o]oa_ (_atua_) bird, who frequents their burying-places and _morais_, and passes through him in order to be purified, and be united to the deity. And such are afterwards employed by him to attend other human beings and to inflict punishment, or remove sickness, as shall be deemed requisite."[229]

[224] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396. Compare J. Wilson, _op. cit._
p. 346; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 431; D. Tyerman and G.
Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 330.

[225] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 433.

[226] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and
Travels_, i. 273; compare _ib._ pp. 330 _sq._

[227] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 521 _sq._

[228] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 150.

[229] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 345 _sq._

In spite of the purification which the souls of the dead underwent by passing through the body of a god or of a divine bird, they were believed to be not wholly divested of the passions which had actuated them in life on earth. If the souls of former enemies met in the world beyond the grave, they renewed their battles, but apparently to no purpose, since they were accounted invulnerable in this invisible state. Again, when the soul of a dead wife arrived in the spirit land, it was known to the soul of her dead husband, if he had gone before, and the two renewed their acquaintance in a spacious house, called _tourooa_, where the souls of the deceased assembled to recreate themselves with the gods. After that the pair retired to the separate abode of the husband, where they remained for ever and had offspring, which, however, was entirely spiritual; for they were neither married nor were their embraces supposed to be like those of corporeal beings.[230]

[230] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 150 _sq._

In general the situation of _po_ or the land of the dead seems to have been left vague and indefinite by the Society Islanders; apparently they did not, like the Western Polynesians, imagine it to be in some far western isle, to reach which the souls of the departed had to cross a wide expanse of sea.[231] However, the natives of Raiatea had very definite ideas on this mysterious subject. They thought that _po_ was situated in a mysterious and unexplored cavern at the top of the highest mountain in the island. This cavern, perhaps the crater of a volcano, was said to communicate, by subterranean passages, with a cave on the coast, the opening of which is so small that a child of two years could hardly creep into it. Here an evil spirit (_varu iino_) was said to lurk and, pouncing out on careless passers-by, to drag them into the darkest recesses of his den and devour them. After the conversion of the natives to Christianity the missionaries were shown the spot. Near it were the ruins of a temple of the war god, where multitudes of the corpses of warriors slain in battle had been either buried or left to rot on the ground. The missionaries saw many mouldering fragments of skeletons. Not far off a cape jutted into the sea, up the lofty and precipitous face of which the souls of the dead were said to climb on their way to their long home in the cavern at the top of the mountain. A native informant assured the missionaries that he had often seen them scaling the dizzy crag, both men and women.[232]

[231] See above, pp. 87 _sq._, 214 _sqq._, 238 _sqq._

[232] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 537 _sq._

In the island of Borabora the fate even of kings after death was believed to be a melancholy one. Their souls were converted into a piece of furniture resembling an English hat-stand; only in Borabora the corresponding utensil was the branch of a tree with the lateral forks cut short, on which bonnets, garments, baskets, and so forth were suspended. The natives very naturally concluded that in the other world a similar stand was wanted for the convenience of the ghosts, to hang their hats and coats on. Kings who shrank from the prospect of being converted into a hat-stand after death made interest with the priest to save them from such a degradation. So when a king who had been great and powerful in life saw his end approaching, he would send to the priests the most costly presents, such as four or five of the largest and fattest hogs, as many of the best canoes, and any rare and valuable European article which he happened to possess. In return the priests prayed for him daily at the temples till he died; and afterwards his dead body was brought to one of these sacred edifices and kept upright there for several days and nights, during which yet larger gifts were sent by his relatives, and the most expensive sacrifices offered to the idols. The decaying corpse was then removed, placed on a canoe, and rowed out on the lagoon as far as an opening in the reef, only to be brought back again in like manner; while all the time the priests recited their prayers and performed their lugubrious ceremonies over it on the water as well as on the land. Finally, the mouldering remains were laid out to rot on a platform in one of the usual charnel-houses.[233]

[233] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 331 _sq._

Conversion into a hat-stand was not, perhaps, the worst that could happen to the soul of a Society Islander after death. In the island of Raiatea there is a lake surrounded by trees, the tops of which appear curiously flat. On this verdant platform the spirits of the newly departed were said to dance and feast together until, at a subsequent stage of their existence, they were converted into cockroaches.[234] The souls of infants killed at birth were supposed to return in the bodies of grasshoppers.[235]

[234] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 522.

[235] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 455.

But the Society Islanders were far from thinking that the souls of the dead herded together indiscriminately in the other world. They imagined that the spirits were discriminated and assigned to abodes of different degrees of happiness or misery, not according to their virtues or vices in this life, but according to the rank which they had occupied in society, one receptacle of superior attractions being occupied by the souls of chiefs and other principal people, while another of an inferior sort sufficed to lodge the souls of the lower orders. For they did not suppose that their good or bad actions in this life affected in the least their lot in the life hereafter, or that the deities took account of any such distinction. Thus their religion exerted no influence on their morality.[236] Happiness and misery in the world beyond the grave, we are told, "were the destiny of individuals, altogether irrespective of their moral character and virtuous conduct. The only crimes that were visited by the displeasure of their deities were the neglect of some rite or ceremony, or the failing to furnish required offerings."[237]

[236] J. Cook, i. 222. Compare _id._, vi. 150; J. R. Forster,
_Observations made on a Voyage round the World_, pp. 553 _sqq._

[237] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 397. Compare J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 433.

The Society Islanders, especially the natives of the Leeward Islands, believed that some of the souls of the dead were destined to enjoy a kind of heaven or paradise, which they called _Rohutu noanoa_, "sweet-scented Rohutu." This blissful region was supposed to be near a lofty and stupendous mountain in the island of Raiatea, not far from the harbour Hamaniino. The mountain went by the name of _Temehani unauna_, "splendid or glorious Temehani." It was probably the same with the lofty mountain on whose summit popular fancy placed the _po_ or common abode of the dead.[238] But the paradise was invisible to mortal eyes, being situated in the regions of the air (_reva_). The country was described as most lovely and enchanting in appearance, adorned with flowers of every shape and hue, and perfumed with odours of every fragrance. The air was pure and salubrious. Every sort of delight was to be enjoyed there; while rich viands and delicious fruits were supplied in abundance for the celebration of sumptuous festivals. Handsome youths and women thronged the place. But these honours and pleasures were only for the privileged orders--the chiefs and the members of the society of the Areois--for only they could afford to pay the heavy charges which the priests exacted for a passport to paradise; common folk seldom or never dreamed of attempting to procure for their relatives admission to the abode of bliss. Even apart from the expense of getting to heaven, it is probable that the sharp distinction kept up between chiefs and commoners here on earth would be expected to be maintained hereafter, and to exclude every person of the humbler sort from the society of his betters in the future life.[239] The other less exclusive, and no doubt less expensive, place for departed spirits, in contrast to "sweet-scented Rohutu," went by the significant name of "foul-scented Rohutu"; but over the nature of the substances which earned for it this unsavoury appellation our missionary authority preferred to draw a veil.[240]

[238] See above, p. 317.

[239] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 245 _sq._, 397; J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 434 _sq._

[240] J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the
South Sea Islands_, p. 476.

According to one account, the souls of the dead were supposed to gather in the sun, where they feasted with the god Maouwe or O-Mauwee (Maui) on bread-fruit and the flesh of pigs or dogs, and drank never-ending draughts of kava.[241]

[241] J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round
the World_, p. 553; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii.
151.

But wherever the souls of the dead were imagined to dwell, we may infer that they were credited with the power of returning to earth for a longer or shorter time to benefit or injure the living. For we have seen that sickness and death were commonly ascribed to the action of these spirits,[242] which seems to imply that they revisited this sublunary world on their errands of mischief. Accordingly, whenever the natives approached by night one of the charnel-houses in which dead bodies were exposed, they were startled "in the same manner that many of our ignorant and superstitious people are with the apprehension of ghosts, and at the sight of a churchyard." Again, the souls of the departed were sometimes thought to communicate with their friends in dreams and to announce to them things that should afterwards come to pass, thus enabling the dreamer to foretell the future. Foreknowledge thus acquired, however, was confined to particular persons, and such favoured dreamers enjoyed a reputation little inferior to that of the inspired priests. One of them prophesied to Captain Cook on the strength of a communication vouchsafed to him by the soul of his deceased father in a dream; but the event proved that the ghost was out in his reckoning by five days.[243]

[242] See above, pp. 299 _sqq._

[243] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 152.

The fear of ghosts in the minds of the Society Islanders has long survived their conversion to Christianity; indeed, we are informed that it is as rampant as ever. No ordinary native would dare to visit one of the lonely caves where the mouldering bones or skulls of his forefathers were deposited for safety in days of old.[244] At one point on the western coast of Tahiti, where the mountains advance in precipices close to the sea, the road which skirts their base is a place of fear to the natives. For in these precipices are caves full of skulls, and the ghosts who reside in the caverns are reported sometimes to weary of their own society and to come down to the road for company, where in a sportive vein they play all sorts of tricks on passers-by. Not so long ago three Tahitians were riding home at dusk from Papeete, where they had been drinking rum. Just at the pass under the cliff they were surprised by ghosts, who threw them into the ditch at the side of the road. So great is the dread which the natives entertain of apparitions at this spot that the Government has been compelled to divert the road, so that it no longer skirts the foot of the haunted mountain, but gives it a wide berth, and runs in a long sweep by the edge of the sea.[245]

[244] A. Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_, p. 37.

[245] A. Baessler, _op. cit._ pp. 83 _sq._

Again, at another point on the west coast of Tahiti, where mighty mountains, a glorious sea, and little coral islands with their groves of palms, offer a view of enchanting beauty, there is said to be a cave containing the skulls of chiefs in a jutting cliff half-way up the mountain. The cave was in charge of an old man in whose family the office of guardian was hereditary. It had been entrusted to him by his father on his deathbed, and the son had kept the secret faithfully ever since. In vain did a traveller seek to persuade the old man to guide him to the cave; in vain did the chief himself beg of him to reveal the grotto which concealed the mouldering relics of his forefathers. The guardian was obdurate; he believed that the world was not wide enough to hold two men who knew the holy place. He assured the traveller that nobody could reach the cave without the help of the ghosts, so perpendicular and so smooth was the face of the cliff that led up to it. When he himself wished to make his way to it, his custom was to go to the foot of the crag and pray, till the spirits came and wafted him lightly up and down again; otherwise it would have been a sheer impossibility for him to ascend and descend.[246]

[246] A. Baessler, _op. cit._ pp. 81 _sq._

Sec. 10. _The Worship of the Dead_

The belief in the existence of the spirits of the dead, and in their power to help or harm the living, naturally led the Society Islanders, like so many other peoples of the world, to propitiate these powerful beings, to sue their favour, or to appease their anger by prayer and sacrifice, in short, to worship them. On this subject the first missionaries to these islanders tell us that, in addition to the greater gods, "for general worship they have an inferior race, a kind of _dii penates_. Each family has its _tee_ or guardian spirit: he is supposed to be one of their departed relatives, who, for his superior excellences, has been exalted into an _eatooa_ (_atua_). They suppose this spirit can inflict sickness or remove it, and preserve them from a malignant deity who also bears the name _tee_, and is always employed in mischief."[247] "Every family has its _tee_, or guardian spirit, whom they set up, and worship at the _morai_."[248] "They regard the spirits of their ancestors, male and female, as exalted into _eatooas_ (_atuas_) and their favour to be secured by prayers and offerings. Every sickness and untoward accident they esteem as the hand of judgment for some offence committed."[249] As for the mischievous spirit who bore the same name as the worshipful spirit of a dead ancestor, the missionaries say that "the evil demon named _Tee_ has no power but upon earth; and this he exercises by getting into them with their food, and causing madness or other diseases; but these they imagine their tutelar saints, if propitious, can prevent or remove."[250]

[247] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 344.

[248] T. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 343.

[249] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 345. "The general name for deity,
in all its ramifications, is _eatooa_" (_id._ p. 343).

[250] J. Wilson, p. 346.

We may suspect that the missionaries were mistaken in thus sharply distinguishing between an "evil demon" and a "tutelar saint," both of whom went by the same name (_tee_). Probably the "evil demon" and the "tutelar saint" were alike supposed to be souls of dead persons, with this difference between them, that whereas the one had been good and beneficent in his life, the other had been bad and maleficent; for it is a common belief that the dead retain in the other world the character and disposition which they manifested on earth, and that accordingly as disembodied spirits they may benefit or injure their surviving relatives.[251] Thus according to his character and behaviour in this present state of existence a person's ghost may naturally develop either into a god or into a devil.

[251] In confirmation of my conjecture that the missionaries
mistook a general name (_tee_, otherwise spelled _tii_) for the
name of a particular demon, I may point out that the naturalist
J. R. Forster before them seems to have fallen into precisely
the same mistake with regard to another general name for
departed spirits (_oramatuas_ or _oromatuas_). Thus he writes:
"Besides these divinities of the second class, there are others
of a still inferior rank, and though called _Eatooas_, are no
more than what the Greek or Roman mythologists would have called
_Genii_, or _Dii minorum gentium_: one of them, called
_Orometooa_, is of a malignant disposition, resides chiefly near
the _Marais_ and _Toopapous_ (places of burial) and in or near
the boxes, or little chests, including the heads of their
deceased friends, each of which, on that account, is called
_Te-wharre no te Orometooa_, the house of the evil genius
_Orometooa_, The people at Taheitee are of opinion, that if
their priests invoke this evil genius, he will kill, by a sudden
death, the person on whom they intend to bring down the
vengeance of this divinity." See J. R. Forster, _Observations
made during a Voyage round the World_, pp. 541 _sq._ In this
passage we can hardly doubt that "this evil genius," Orometooa,
is simply the _oramatuas_ or _oromatuas_, the spirits of the
dead, by means of whom sorcerers were supposed to injure or
destroy any one at whom they or their employers had a grudge.
See above, p. 299, and below, pp. 323 _sqq._

It is to be feared that in the case of Tahitian ghosts the course of spiritual evolution was rather in the direction of devilry than of deity. At least this conclusion seems forced on us by the account which William Ellis, perhaps our best authority on Tahitian religion, gives of the character of these worshipful beings. I will reproduce it in his own words.

"The objects of worship among the Tahitians, next to the _atua_ or gods, were the _oramatuas tiis_ or spirits. These were supposed to reside in the _po_, or world of night, and were never invoked but by wizards or sorcerers, who implored their aid for the destruction of an enemy, or the injury of some person whom they were hired to destroy. They were considered a different order of beings from the gods, a kind of intermediate class between them and the human race, though in their prayers all the attributes of the gods were ascribed to them. The _oramatuas_ were the spirits of departed fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, etc. The natives were greatly afraid of them, and presented offerings to avoid being cursed or destroyed, when they were employed by the sorcerers.

"They seem to have been regarded as a sort of demons. In the Leeward Islands, the chief _oramatuas_ were spirits of departed warriors, who had distinguished themselves by ferocity and murder, attributes of character usually supposed to belong to these evil genii. Each celebrated _tii_ was honoured with an image, through which it was supposed his influence was exerted. The spirits of the reigning chiefs were united to this class, and the skulls of deceased rulers, kept with the images, were honoured with the same worship. Some idea of what was regarded as their ruling passion, may be inferred from the fearful apprehensions constantly entertained by all classes. They were supposed to be exceedingly irritable and cruel, avenging with death the slightest insult or neglect, and were kept within the precincts of the temple. In the _marae_ of Tane at Maeva, the ruins of their abode were still standing when I last visited the place. It was a house built upon a number of large strong poles, which raised the floor ten or twelve feet from the ground. They were thus elevated, to keep them out of the way of men, as it was imagined they were constantly strangling, or otherwise destroying, the chiefs and people. To prevent this, they were also treated with great respect; men were appointed constantly to attend them, and to keep them wrapped in the choicest kinds of cloth, to take them out whenever there was a _pae atua_, or general exhibition of the gods; to anoint them frequently with fragrant oil; and to sleep in the house with them at night. All this was done, to keep them pacified. And though the office of calming the angry spirits was honourable, it was regarded as dangerous, for if, during the night or at any other time, these keepers were guilty of the least impropriety, it was supposed the spirits of the images, or the skulls, would hurl them headlong from their high abodes, and break their necks in the fall."[252]

[252] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_. i. 334-336.

The difference in power and dignity between the great national gods (_atuas_) and the spirits of deceased relations (_oramatuas tiis_) might be measured by the size of their images; for whereas the images of the gods were six or eight feet long, those of the spirits were not more than so many inches.[253] But while these malignant and irritable spirits--the souls of dead fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children--resided generally either in their little images or in their skulls, they were not strictly confined to these material vehicles; they resorted occasionally to the shells from the seashore, especially to a beautiful kind of murex, the _Murex ramoces_. These shells were kept by the sorcerers, and the peculiar singing or humming sound that may be heard when the valve is applied to the ear was imagined to proceed from the demon in the shell.[254]

[253] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 337.

[254] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 363.

It was these malignant and dangerous demons whom the sorcerer employed as his agents to execute his fell purposes. But to effect them he had to secure something connected with the body of his intended victim, it might be the parings of his nails, a lock of his hair, his spittle or other bodily secretions, or else a portion of the food which he was about to eat. Over this material substance, whatever it was, the sorcerer recited his incantations and performed his magical rites either in his own house or in his private temple (_marae_). The result was believed to be that the demon entered into the substance, and through it passed into the body of the man at whom the enchanter aimed his elfish darts. The wretched sufferer experienced the acutest agonies; his distortions were frightful to witness; his eyes seemed starting from his head; he foamed at the mouth; he lay writhing in anguish on the ground; in short, to adopt the native expression, he was torn by the evil spirit. Yet his case was not hopeless; the demon could be mollified by a bribe, or defeated by the intervention of a more powerful demon. Hence, when any one was believed to be suffering from the incantations of a sorcerer, if he or his friends were rich enough they engaged another sorcerer for a fee to counteract the spells of the first and so to restore the health of the invalid. It was generally supposed that the efforts of the second sorcerer would be crowned with success if only the demon whom he employed were equally powerful with that at the command of his rival, and if the presents which he received for his professional services were more valuable. In order to avoid the danger of being thus bewitched through the refuse of their persons, the Tahitians used scrupulously to burn or bury their shorn hair, lest it should fall into the hands of enchanters.[255]

[255] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 363-370.

It is possible that some even of the great national gods were no more than ghosts of dead men, whose human origin was forgotten. There is some reason for supposing that this was true of Hiro, the god of thieves. On the one hand, this deity was reputed to be the son of the great god Oro;[256] and when a mother desired her child to grow up a clever thief, she repaired to a temple, where the priest, on receipt of the requisite offerings, caught the spirit of the god in a snare and infused it into the infant, thus ensuring the future proficiency of the infant in the arts of theft and robbery.[257] Yet, in spite of these claims to divinity, there are some grounds for thinking that Hiro was himself originally no better than a thief and a robber. He is said to have been a native of Raiatea, from whose sacrilegious fingers not even the temples and altars of the gods were safe. His skull was shown in a large temple of his own construction in that island down to the early years of the nineteenth century. His hair, too, was stuffed into the image of his reputed father, the god Oro, and perished when that image was committed to the flames by the early converts to Christianity.[258]

[256] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iii. 112, 125.

[257] J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the
South Sea Islands_, pp. 466 _sq._

[258] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 254 _sq._ As to
Hiro, the god of thieves, see also J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._
i. 447-449.

Once a year the Society Islanders celebrated a festival accompanied by rites, of which one has been compared to the Roman Catholic custom of performing a mass for the benefit of souls in purgatory. The festival was called "the ripening of the year," and the time for its observance was determined by the blossoming of reeds. It was regularly observed in the island of Huahine, and vast multitudes assembled to take part in it. As a rule, only men engaged in the pagan festivals, but at this particular one women and children were also present, though they were not allowed to enter the sacred enclosure. The celebration was regarded as a kind of annual acknowledgment made to the gods. Prayers were offered at the temple, and a sumptuous banquet formed part of the festival. At the close of the festival every one returned to his home, or to his family temple (_marae_), there to offer special prayers for the spirits of departed relatives, that they might be liberated from the _po_, or state of Night, and might either ascend to paradise ("sweet-scented Rohutu") or return to this world by entering into the body of one of its inhabitants. But "they did not suppose, according to the generally received doctrine of transmigration, that the spirits who entered the body of some dweller upon earth, would permanently remain there, but only come and inspire the person to declare future events, or execute any other commission from the supernatural beings on whom they imagined they were constantly dependent."[259]

[259] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 351 _sq._ Compare
J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 502 note^1, 523.

Hence we learn that the spirits of the dead as well as the gods were believed to be capable of inspiring men and revealing to them the future. In this, as in other respects, the dead were assimilated to deities.