essential respects from that which prevailed at the Tahitian, Society, and other
Polynesian groups. They had neither maraes nor temples, nor altars nor
offerings; and consequently none of the barbarous and sanguinary rites to which
we have alluded. They shed no human blood; they strewed no maraes with the
skulls and bones of their victims; they dedicated no sacred groves to brutal and
sensual observances. Hence the Rarotongans denounced them for their impiety,
and “a godless Samoan” was a proverbial phrase. Yet they were not without their
superstitions; they had lords many and gods many; and their credulity was as
marked as that of any other savage race on whom the light of Christianity and
civilisation had never shone.
In considering the religion of the Polynesians, there are four points to be glanced
at; 1, their gods; 2, their cultus; 3, their ideas of immortality; and 4, the means by
which they hoped to secure future happiness.
- Their gods consisted of three kinds: their deified ancestors, their idols, and
their etus.
Some of their ancestors were deified, after the Greek fashion, for the supposed
boons they had conferred upon mankind. For example, it was believed that the
world was formerly in darkness; but that the sun, moon, and stars were created
by one of their progenitors in a manner too absurd to be described. Also, that the
heavens were of old so close to the earth that men could not walk erect, and were
compelled to crawl; until a great man conceived the idea of elevating them to
their present height; which he effected by the employment of almost Herculean
energy. By his first effort he raised them to the top of a tender plant, called teve,
about four feet high. There they remained until he had refreshed and rested
himself. A second effort, and he upheaved them to the height of a tree called
kanariki, which is as tall as the sycamore. His third attempt carried them to the
summits of the mountains; and after a long period of repose, and another
tremendous struggle, he raised them to their present altitude, at which they have
ever since remained. This wonderful personage was appropriately apotheosized;
and down to the date of the introduction of Christianity, was everywhere
worshipped as “the Elevator of the Heavens.”
The fisherman had his god; so had the husbandman, the voyager, the warrior, the
thief; mothers dedicated their offspring to one or other of these numerous
Powers, and chiefly to Hero, the god of thieves, and to Oro, the god of war. “If
to the former, the mother, while pregnant, went to the marae with the requisite
offerings, when the priest performed the ceremony of catching the spirit of the