RELIGION OF THE FEEJEES 



no doubt that they have actually a relish for human flesh, 

 for they acknowledge that it is better than roasted pig, 

 and say that Feejee is better than white man. 



" I will tell you now a few things about the religion of 

 these savages, for, bad as they are, they have their priests 

 and their gods ; and their gods, too, are spirits, for they 

 do not make idols. These spirit gods, however, are 

 scarcely better than the idols of other heathen. Even 

 those savages that worship idols believe that their gods 

 are spirits; but think that they will come down and dwell 

 in the carved block, after certain prayers and ceremonies 

 performed by the priests, so that the idol takes the place 

 in their minds of the spirit god it represents. They often 

 try to embody their ideas with regard to the character of 

 their gods, in the features or shape of the wooden god, 

 and the grotesque and often disgusting images they thus 

 make show how debased are their conceptions of the God 

 of Heaven. They sometimes make the idol with horns, 

 and the face grinning most frightfully ; sometimes with 

 the tongue run out twice its natural length, or with some 

 feature distorted; and sometimes put the head of an 

 animal on the body of a man, and you would think from 

 seeing them that they worshipped nothing but the 

 devil, rather than the God we worship. They are gods 

 that they dread, and nearly all their ceremonies are for 

 conciliating a being they fear, instead of an homage to 

 one they love. The gods, as they think, can eat and 

 drink, dance and rolic, and can look with pleasure on 

 their heathenish practices, even the butchery of war and 

 the cannibal feast. 



" But let me return to the Feejees. As I have said, 

 they worship spirits and make no idols; yet in their con- 

 ceptions they give a definite form to these spirits. The 

 great god is a huge snake that lives in a cave in the 

 mountains of the largest Feejee island. None now living 

 pretend to have seen him, but I believe they say a long 

 while ago their priests had communication with the Great 

 Snake. Besides this god there are other spirits of differ- 

 ent grades and powers. One, the second in rank, is the 

 Son of the Great Snake, and, in their superstitions, stands 

 at the door of the cave and receives the prayers of the 

 people, to pass them to his father. Each man has his 

 spirit or guardian angel to whom his prayers are more es- 



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