Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands. 131 



13. Prayers. 

 In danger, as at sea, vuis were invoked, as well as ances- 

 tors, and relatives lately dead. The vuis also, as already 

 stated, were prayed to at the sacred stones. These were 

 prayers (tataro). Besides these, incantations were called 

 prayers, which formerly were customary — e.g., on pouring 

 water into the native oven a prayer was muttered that 

 enemies might be scalded. So also in the cure of diseases, 

 in making rain, sunshine, or crops of yams or bread-fruit, 

 though these were done with songs rather than prayer. 



[I believe — though I should hesitate to make a positive assertion — that the 

 Fijian did not use incantations as distinguished from prayers. A prayer is a 

 petition to a god or spirit; an incantation is some sort of formula by which 

 the god may be coerced, compelled to do what his worshipper desires. 

 Prayer in Fiji generally concluded with malignant requests as to the enemy — 

 " Let us live, and let those who speak evil of us perish. Let the enemy be 

 clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps. Let their teeth be 

 broken. May they fall headlong into a pit. Let us live, and let our enemies 

 perish." These, however, are not incantations proper. They are direct 

 petitions.— L. F.] 



14. Magic Charms. 



These, as distinct from incantations and fetishes, were of 

 three principal kinds. 



(a.) Talamatai — a bit of a dead man's bone wrapped in 

 certain leaves while a song was chanted. This being placed 

 in the path, the first who stepped over it was supposed to be 

 afflicted with an ulcer. 



(b.) Garata — a fragment of a man's food, hair, or finger 

 nail, worked up with incantations to bring disease upon him. 



(c.) Tamatetiqa — ghost-shot, bones and leaves enclosed in 

 a small bamboo with charms. The man who wished to hurt 

 another fasted to give his charm power; and then holding 

 the bamboo in his hand with his thumb over the open end, 

 he watched for his enemy, pointed the bamboo at him, and, 

 lifting his thumb, shot him with the magic influence. 

 Tamatetiqa is the word now used for a gun. 



[Similar charms were commonly used in Fiji, and, indeed, by savages every- 

 where. In Fiji, however, I think the charm is supposed to have a certain 

 inherent baneful influence of its own — for instance, the method of charging 

 with dropsy, leprosy, &c. The sausau, or disease-bearing reed, does not seem 

 to me to amount to an incantation proper. The Maori spells, on the other 

 hand, are true incantations. They are real " words of power," and compel 

 the spirits. (See a weird account of Maori enchantments in Sir George Grey's 

 Polynesian Mythology, p. 168. ) 



The Fijians are terribly afraid of the garata. Some of our mission-agents, 

 who faced boldly enough spears and clubs in the hands of angry men, quailed 

 before it. I am convinced that natives frequently die of fear when they think 

 themselves thus bewitched. — L. F.] 



