UPOLU. 81 



' Manners,' says Burke, speaking of them in combination 

 with some other things, ' are required sometimes as supple- 

 ments, sometimes as correctives, always as aids to law. 

 Manners are what vex and soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt 

 or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant steady 

 uniform insensible operation like that of the air we breathe.' 

 It would be interesting to ascertain, if possible, how the 

 Samoans have come into so rich a possession of these 

 important adjuncts. 



That there must have been a valuable peculiarity in the 

 mental and moral constitution of this interesting people is 

 manifest from what we know as to their religious practices, 

 and what we are told as to their theological belief. As 

 regards the former, Williams, in his ' Missionary Enter- 

 prises,' says of them, ' that they have neither marais, nor 

 temples, nor altars, nor offerings,' to which he adds the 

 very significant remark, ' and consequently none of the 

 sanguinary rites observed at other groups.' Hence, he 

 informs us, they were regarded as an inferior race, and in 

 some quarters the word Samoan became synonymous with 

 ' godless.' It seems safe to conjecture that this exemption 

 from sanguinary religious rites arising possibly from a natural 

 repugnance to violence must have had a beneficent effect 

 upon their character. There can be no doubt that the 

 fierce passions of nations have been fed and sustained 

 by that ritual homage, as it were, paid to violence and 

 ferocity, — the natural expression of an early condition of 

 society, which is more or less visible in all religions. Ex- 



*G 



