On Aneityum 
Asout the year 1841 the first definite steps were taken 
to Christianize the savages of Aneityum. Aneityum is a 
beautiful island of the New Hebrides group. It presents 
a striking and picturesque aspect to the visitor as its lofty 
mountains and deep, heavily wooded valleys are viewed from 
the ocean, but at the time of which I write, the condition of 
its inhabitants was pitiable in the extreme. “War, murder, 
cannibalism, the strangling of widows, infanticide, polygamy, 
and the consequent degradation and oppression of the female 
sex,’ were found to be the common characteristics of the 
people when the first missionaries landed among them. 
Their heathen customs, too, were of the kind that tended to 
lead them continually to deeper degradation of life. Demon 
worshipers they were of the most abject sort. The demons 
whom they worshiped they called “natmases,’ and of these 
they were in constant dread. Associated with the chief of 
these demon gods were a host of others of less importance, 
who were supposed to dwell in the things they were believed 
to control. So there were the sea gods, the land gods, the 
gods of the mountains, the gods of the valleys, the gods of 
war, the gods of peace, the gods who controlled disease, 
the gods who made the storms, and many others whom they 
feared always, and ever sought to propitiate by their offer- 
ings and sacrifices. 
There were, too, sacred things and places almost without 
number which were under the patronage or were the prop- 
erty of these demon gods. The poor savages lived in per- 
petual fear of offending these spirits, and thus incurring 
their wrath; and between the dread of being speared or 
clubbed by their fierce fellows, or of being smitten by one 
via aes 
