RITES AND CEREMONIES. 
89 
was said to be a meteoric stone. Whenever 
brought out in public the idols were fixed to the 
top of a long pole, and carried beneath a cover¬ 
ing of velvet. These coverings were often orna¬ 
mented with silver chains and objects in the 
shape of crocodiles’ teeth. As the idol passed 
along, the people stood by the roadside with 
bared heads, in an attitude of respect. An eye¬ 
witness of one of these processions says : “ In 
the latter part of the way I was behind the idols, 
and at one time quite surrounded by them. 
They were about thirteen in number, and were 
carried on tall slender poles, about ten feet high. 
There was in most of them little resemblance 
to anything in heaven or in earth; dirty pieces 
of silver chain, silver balls, from the size of a 
marble to that of a hen’s egg, pieces of coral or 
bone, or silver ornaments, intended to represent 
sharks’ teeth, with narrow strips of cloth, one 
or two feet long; some of them half concealed 
under what might have been a cap of liberty or 
an old red night-cap, and others tied up in a bag 
of native cloth or small rush - basket. Such 
were the objects on which the security and pros¬ 
perity of the nation was formerly supposed to 
depend.” 
These are now, however, numbered amongst 
the things of the past. An attempt by the 
keepers of these objects of superstition to assert 
