CONVERSATION WITH AN IDOL-MAKER. 337 
through which their communications might be made 
to the god, and his will revealed to them. 
The idols were either rough unpolished logs of 
the aito, or casuarina tree, wrapped in numerous 
folds of sacred cloth; rudely carved wooden 
images; or shapeless pieces covered with curiously 
netted cinet, of finely braided cocoa-nut husk, and 
ornamented with red feathers. They varied in 
size, some being six or eight feet long, others not 
more than as many inches. These, representing 
the spirits they called tii; and those, representing 
the national or family gods, toos. Into these they 
supposed the god entered at certain seasons, or in 
answer to the prayers of the priests. During this 
indwelling of the gods, they imagined even the 
images were very powerful: but when the spirit had 
departed, though they were among the most sacred 
things, their extraordinary powers were gone. 
I had repeated conversations with a tahua-tarai- 
too, a maker of gods, whom I met with on a visit 
to Raiatea. As he appeared a serious inquirer 
after truth, and I could place some confidence in 
what he related, I was anxious to know his own 
opinion as to the idols it had been his business to 
make,—whether he really believed they were the 
powerful beings which the natives supposed; and 
if so, what constituted their great power over the 
other parts of the tree from which they were hewn ? 
He assured me, that although at times he thought 
it was all deception, and only practised his trade 
to obtain the payment he received for his work; 
yet at other times he really thought the gods he 
himself had made, were powerful beings. It was 
not, he said, from the alteration his tools had effected 
in the appearance of the wood, or the carving with 
which they were ornamented, but because they had 
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