26 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



WORSHIP. 



If we may judge from what appears in the eastern groups, the 

 original form of worship of the Polynesians was no less simple than 

 their theology. In Samoa, Tonga, and New Zealand, their divinities 

 are regarded as spiritual beings, and approached only by prayers, 

 invocations, penances, offerings of first fruits, libations, and similar 

 forms. They have neither temples nor altars, nor, properly speaking, 

 either idols or sacrifices. In Samoa, indeed, they had a few inani- 

 mate objects of reverence, which were worshipped by a small portion 

 of the population. Mr. Heath says, " A branch of bamboo, set up- 

 right, with a bunch of cocoa-nut fibres tied at the top, was worshipped 

 by part of Manono, a sacred stone by another district, and some 

 families had roughly-carved wooden idols, as representations of de- 

 ceased chiefs, to whom they paid religious homage."* In the latter 

 custom, of preserving the effigies of deified chiefs, we probably see 

 the origin of the idolatrous worship which prevails in eastern Poly- 

 nesia. In Tonga they have a few images as in Samoa, but the chief 

 peculiarity in their system is a certain kind of human sacrifice, which 

 differs from that of the Tahitians in its mode and object. On the 

 sickness of a chief, it is usual to strangle an infant belonging to the 

 same family, sometimes his own child, whose death it is supposed 

 will be accepted by the gods, in lieu of that of the sick person. In 

 New Zealand there are no idols of any description, and the only 

 approach to human sacrifice is the custom of immolating several 

 slaves at the death of their master ; which, however, is done rather 

 out of respect to him, and to provide him with attendants in his 

 future existence, than for the purpose of appeasing the gods. 



In the eastern groups we meet with a wholly different form of 

 worship, with sensual and shocking rites. In Tahiti and Rarotonga 

 the word marae, which in the Navigator and Friendly Islands signi- 

 fies merely the public place or lawn in the centre of a village, is ap- 

 plied to certain sacred enclosures of stone, containing two or three 

 houses, where are deposited the hideous idols which they worship, 

 and in or before which their sacrifices are performed. In the Sand- 

 wich Islands similar enclosures exist, but with the name of heiau. 

 In the Marquesas the ma'ae is merely a grove, containing idols, and 



* Polynesian, vol. i. No. 18. 



