112 



porter's journal. 



bled to make inquiry on nnany subjects. But I observed 

 that they treated all their gods with little respect, fre- 

 quently catching them by their large ears, drawing my 

 attention to their wide mouths, their flat noses, and large 

 eyes, and pointing out to me, by signs, all their other de- 

 formities. I told Wilson to inform them I thought they 

 treated their gods very disrespectfully. They replied that 

 those were, like themselves, mere attendants on their di- 

 vinity, as they were on the priest ; that 1 had not yet seen 

 their greatest of all gods, that he was in a small house, 

 which they pointed out, situated at the corner of the 

 grove. On my expressing a desire to see him, after a 

 short consultation among themselves, they brought him out 

 on the branch of the cocoa-nut tree, when I was surprised 

 to find him only a parcel of paper cloth secured to a piece 

 of a spear, about four feet long. It in some measure re- 

 sembled a child in swaddling clothes, and the part intended 

 to represent the head had a number of strips of cloth hang- 

 ing from it about a foot in length. I could not help laugh- 

 ing at the ridiculous appearance of the god they wor- 

 shipped, in which they all joined me with a great deal of 

 good humour, some of them dandling and nursing the god, 

 as a child would her doll. They now asked me if I should 

 like to see some of their religious ceremonies, and on my 

 answering in the affirmative, they seated themselves in a 

 ring, and placed the god, with the cocoa-nut branch under 

 him, on the ground. One of them stood in the circle be- 

 fore the god, and as soon as the others began to sing and 

 clap their hands, he fell to dancing with all his might, cut- 

 ting a number of antic capers, then picking up the god, 

 and whirling it over his shoulders several times, laid it 

 down again, when a pause ensued. They now began 

 another song, when the dancer, with no less violence than 

 before, after whirling the god about, carried it out of the 

 circle and laid it down on the ground ; then shifted it from 

 place to place, and afterwards returned it to the cocoa- 

 nut branch within the circle. After a short pause the 

 dancer asked the singers several questions with great ear- 

 nestness, and on their all answering in the affirmative, he 

 took up the god on the branch, and deposited it in the 

 house. I inquired of Wilson the purport of the song ; he 

 told me they were singing the praises of their god ; but 



