RELIGION. CANOES. 357 



two doorways on opposite sides, from three to four feet high 

 and four feet wide. The sides were made of posts about 

 three feet apart, and filled in with wickerwork. The roof 

 had a steep pitch ; the rafters were generally of palm 

 wood, thatched with wild sugar cane, under which they 

 placed fern leaves. A mat served as a door, and a few flat 

 stones near the middle of the house acted as the fireplace.. 

 The houses were seldom divided by partitions, but the two 

 ends were raised about a foot, and were covered with layers 

 of mats on which the natives slept. 



Their temples were pyramidal in form and were often 

 erected on terraced mounds, like those of Central America,* 

 They also venerated certain upright stones, f resembling those 

 which we regard as Druidical. The Feegeeans, says Mr. 

 Hazlewood, " consider the gods as beings of like passions 

 with themselves. They love and hate ; they are proud and 

 revengeful, and make war, and kill and eat each other; 

 and are, in fact, savages and cannibals like themselves." 

 "Cruelty," says Captain Erskine,J "a craving for blood, 

 and especially for human flesh as food, are characteristic of 

 the gods." Yet the Feegeeans looked upon the Samoans 

 with horror because they had no religion, no belief in any 

 such deities, nor any of the sanguinary rites which prevailed 

 in other islands. 



The Feegee canoes were very well constructed. They 

 were generally double, of unequal size, the smaller one 

 serving as an outrigger. The larger ones were sometimes 

 more than a hundred feet in length. The two canoes 

 were connected by a platform, generally about fifteen feet 

 wide and projecting two or three feet beyond the sides. 

 The bottom of each consisted of a single plank ; the 



* B. Seemann. In the Vacation Tourist for 1861, p. 269. 



f Figi and the Figians, vol. i., p. 220. 

 J Journal of a Cruise in the "Western Pacific, p. 247.. 



