712 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



A case was recorded of a savage who killed, cooked, and 

 ate his own child, so depraved had the people become. Men 

 killed in war were always cooked and eaten. Cannibalism 

 was a common practice. 



Spirit World. 



Many Natmases or spirits were worshipped ; these were 

 appealed to and propitiated by small offerings of food, hung 

 in small baskets on the branches of trees or laid on the top 

 of sacred stones where certain of these spirits were supposed 

 to have their habitation. Departed chiefs were named in 

 their appeals or prayers for rain, &c., but the great spirit or 

 JVatmas wsis Inhugaraig; he was most feared, and common 

 people scarcely dared pronounce the name audibly. The 

 tradition is that this great Naimas went out to sea to fish on 

 the leaf of a tree which grows here, having no mid-rib, called 

 by the natives " Nesiaig," his fish hook got entangled, and 

 on drawing in his line he found a mountain peak attached 

 to the hook. He sat thereon, and drew up the whole island, 

 and afterwads set man there, which, as far as can be learned, 

 are the progenitors of the present inhabitants. 



May this not have some connection with the story of the 

 Flood and the receding of the waters? The sun and moon 

 were ccmsidered to be husband and wife, and the moon was 

 especially honoured by offerings of food, also by songs and 

 dances in her praise. There was another class of spirits 

 called hipotheth ; these were a set of mischievous imps, or, 

 as I suppose, shadows of branches cast on the path on moon- 

 light nights ; these take the place of ghosts in British 

 phraseology. The stone idols which were said to be inhabited 

 by the spirits were unhewn, usually of a round or oval shape, 

 with a smooth waterworn surface as if picked up on the 

 beach or in the brooks ; others were rude, rough, and large 

 stones mostly without any carving. The entrance to the 

 spirit world was the crater of an extinct volcano at the 

 western extremity of the island, in the direction of the sun- 

 setting. Their heaven, or good place of after-abode, was a 

 sensual feast, with plenty of food to eat; their hell, or bad 

 place of after-abode, was a scanty supply of bad food of the 

 most loathsome description. The good and bad people were the 

 liberal and the mean contributors of food at feasts, in honour 

 of the Natmases. 



" Inhugaraig " did not actually create the island, but he 

 found it. In the order of Natmases, or spirits, he seems tq 



