COUNTER-DIVINATION. 
369 
under the keeping of a more powerful Being than 
the spirits they could engage against them, and 
therefore were secure. The native Missionaries, in 
different islands, have also been threatened with 
sorcery from the idolaters among whom they have 
endeavoured to introduce Christianity. They have 
always defied the sorcerers and their demons, tell¬ 
ing them that Jehovah would protect them from 
their machinations; and though frequently ex¬ 
posed to incantations, have never sustained the 
slightest injury. 
The sentiments entertained by the natives rela¬ 
tive to the character of these supernatural beings, 
led them to imagine them to be such as they were 
themselves, only endowed with greater powers. They 
supposed that in all their actions they were influ¬ 
enced by motives exactly corresponding with those 
that operated upon their own minds ; hence they 
believed, that even spirits could be diverted from 
their purposes by the offer of a larger bribe than 
they had received to carry it into effect, or that the 
efforts of one tii could be neutralized or counter¬ 
acted by those of another more powerful. 
Under the influence of these opinions, when any 
one was suffering from incantations, if he or his 
friends possessed property, they immediately em¬ 
ployed another sorcerer. This person was fre¬ 
quently called a faatere , causing to move or slide, 
who, on receiving his fee, was generally desired, 
first to discover who had practised the incantations 
which it was supposed had induced the sufferings : 
as soon as he had accomplished this, he was em¬ 
ployed, with more costly presents, to engage the 
aid of his demons, that the agony and death they 
had endeavoured to inflict upon the subject of 
their malignant efforts, might revert to themselves 
2 B 
