A HISTORY OF TAHITI 



119 



departed ancestors, for to the simple mind all things of nature are of his 

 own kindred, the world was made by a man-like god for man and all 

 things centered round him. Thus the sun was a ghost that plunged 

 beneath the sea at ni2:ht, the moon was the sun's wife and the stars their 

 children, and every waterfall, mountain peak and valley had its guardian 

 or liaunting nymph or good or evil spirit. The ceremonies associated 

 with the worship of the ancestral spirits were usually conducted upon 

 the roof-shaped heaps of stones called the marae which each Arii 

 caused to be erected in his district, each of his retainers contributing 

 two stones to the structure. Cook states that the marae of the high 

 chiefs Amo* and Purea in the district of Papara was a prism with an 

 oblong base 267 feet long, 187 feet wide and 44 feet high, having 

 eleven steps or terraces broader at the sides than at the ends. The top was 

 a ridge resembling the roof of a house and at its middle point stood 

 the image of a bird carved in wood while near it lay the broken model of 

 a fish cut in stone. The sight of this stupendous structure, and the 

 statement that each person in the district had contributed two and only 

 two stones may have caused Cook to form his exaggerated estimate of the 

 population of Tahiti. Shapeless and sadly reduced by burning in a 

 lime kiln, the marae of Papara now lies forgotten in the forest by the 



JMakixg Fire ix Tahiti, by rubbing two dried sticljs of the yellow hibiscus one 



against the other. 



4 Amo, the "Eamo" of Cook's narrative, was the son of Tuiterai (God of 

 the sky). 



