T H E P A C r F I C O C E A N. . 165 



morais, are commonly loaded with fruits and animals ; but J777- 

 there are few houfes where you do not meet with a fmall 

 place of the fame fort near them. Many of them are fo 

 rigidly fcrupulous, that they will not begin a meal, without 

 firft laying afide a morfel for the Eatooa ; and we had an op- 

 portunity, during this voyage, of feeing their fuperflitious 

 zeal carried to a mofl pernicious height, in the inftance of 

 human facrifices ; the occalions of offering which, I doubr, 

 are too frequent. Perhaps, they have recourfe to them 

 when misfortunes occur ; for theyafked, if one of our men, 

 who happened to be confined, when we were detained by 

 a contrary wind, was taboo ? Their prayers are alfo very fre- 

 quent, which they chant, much after the manner of the 

 fongs in their feflive entertainments. And the women, as 

 in other cafes, are alfo obliged to Ihcw their inferiority in 

 religious obfervances ; for it is required of them, that they 

 fliould partly uncover themfelves, as they pafs the morais -^ 

 or take a confiderable circuit to avoid them. Though they 

 have no notion, that their God muft always be conferring 

 benefits, without fometimes forgetting them, or fuffering 

 evil to befall them, they feem to regard this lefs than the 

 attempts of fome more inaufpicious being to hurt them. 

 They tell us, that Etee is an evil fpirit, who fometimes does 

 them mifchief ; and to whom, as well as to their god, they 

 make offerings. But the mifchiefs they apprehend from 

 any fuperior invifible beings, are confined to things merely 

 temporal. ■ 



They believe the foul to be both immaterial and immortal. 

 Th^y fay, that it keeps fluttering about the lips during the 

 pangs of death ; and that then it afcends, and mixes with, or, 

 as they exprefs it, is eaten by the deity. In this ftate it remains 



Y 2 for 



