15% cook's voyage to bec. 



during this voyage, of seeing their superstitious zeal 

 carried to a most pernicious height in the instance 

 of human sacrifices ; the occasions of offering which, 

 I doubt, are too frequent. Perhaps they have re- 

 course to them when misfortunes occur ; for they 

 asked, if one of our men, who happened to be con- 

 fined when we were detained by a contrary wind, 

 was taboo ? Their prayers are also very frequent, 

 which they chant, much after the manner of the 

 songs in their festive entertainments. And the wo- 

 men, as in other cases, are also obliged to show their 

 inferiority in religious observances; for it is required 

 of them, that they should partly uncover themselves, 

 as they pass the morals ; or take a considerable cir- 

 cuit to avoid them. Though they have no notion, 

 that their god must always be conferring benefits 

 without sometimes forgetting them, or suffering evil 

 to befall them, they seem to regard this less than the 

 attempts of some more inauspicious being to hurt 

 them. They tell us, that Etee is an evil spirit, who 

 sometimes does them mischief; and to whom, as 

 well as to their god, they make offerings. But the 

 mischiefs they apprehend from any superior invin- 

 cible beings, are confined to things merely temporal. 

 They believe the soul to be both immaterial and 

 immortal. They say that it keeps fluttering about the 

 lips during the pangs of death; and that then it ascends, 

 and mixes with, or, as they express it, is eaten by 

 the deity. In this state it remains for some time ; 

 after which, it departs to a certain place destined for 

 the reception of the souls of men, where it exists in 

 eternal night ; or, as they sometimes say, in twilight, 

 or dawn. They have no idea of any permanent pu- 

 nishment after death for crimes that they have com- 

 mitted on earth ; for the souls of good and bad men 

 are eat indiscriminately by God. But they certainly 

 consider 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 doe- 



