Unlike some of the larger Polynesian groups, the
Tikopia had no separate category of priests whose main func-
tion was ritual performance. The four chiefs themselves, and
their ritual elders, communicated with the gods and ancestor
spirits with prayers, invocations, and offerings on behalf of
their people. They also performed secular social roles as
heads or administrative officers of lineages overseeing clan
lands, canoes, and other property. The four ariki were the
main priests, and each had a primary responsibility for cer-
tain crops and elements. The Ariki Kafika had prime respon-
sibility for the success of the yam crop and for the welfare
of the island generally. The Ariki Tafua was responsible for
the coconut, and he looked out, away from the island, to
matters concerning outsiders. The Ariki Taumako was re-
sponsible for the taro and for things to do with the sea, while
the Ariki Fangarere looked after the breadfruit. This latter
chief, for reasons described in the origin story of the birth
of the four males, was also connected with disasters like cy-
clones and drought.
On the whole, commoners were merely supporters in
the rituals, providing food and mats and, on some but not
all occasions, an audience. However, there were some men
(and a few women who had usually passed menopause) who
had the potential to go into trance. These mediums were
called vaka atua (spirit vessels). Their function was more in-
formal and usually involved healing by communicating with
some spirit that may have caused sickness. Spirits could also
speak through the mediums to express concern at social and
interpersonal derelictions. Where the chiefs and ritual elders
performed rituals for the larger groups of clan and lineage,
the mediums tended to cater to the concerns of families with
whom they were connected.
The basic traditional Tikopia religious rite was the pre-
sentation of kava to the gods. Kava is the root of Piper
methysticum that is macerated by pounding or chewing and
mixed with water. In modern Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji, kava
is prepared and drunk in ceremonies and on social occasions,
but traditionally it had a religious function. In Tikopia the
kava liquid was hardly drunk at all: it was offered to the gods
as a libation poured on to the ground to the accompaniment
of prayers for welfare. To perform a kava rite, a chief or elder
assumed ritual purity by bathing, and he then donned a spe-
cial waist cloth and a leaf necklet as a sign of formal religious
dedication and set out offerings of bark cloth and food that,
with the libations, served as a channel for invoking the spir-
its. The language used was highly symbolic and honorific;
the chief adopted a tone of great humility, pleading poverty
and signifying abasement before a god. Using conventional
and ritual terms, the chief beseeched the gods to excrete on
the earth, the gods’ excrement being seen symbolically as all
the goods things of the land and the sea.
THE WORK OF THE GODS. A notable feature of Tikopia tra-
ditional religion was a collective set of seasonal rites that in-
volved elaborate organization of the community and the as-
sembly of large supplies of food. The title Work of the Gods
used by the Tikopia to refer to these rituals represented the
amount of energy that was required from the people in per-
forming them.
The basic theme of the Work of the Gods was the peri-
odic resacralization of some of the most important elements
of Tikopia culture. Under religious auspices, canoes and
temples were repaired and rededicated, yams were harvested
and replanted, and a red pigment was extracted from turmer-
ic rhizomes and preserved for ritual use. (The turmeric cere-
mony, nuanga, is one of the few elements of traditional ritual
to survive the island’s conversion to Christianity and will be
described below.) Ceremonies were performed for the wel-
fare of the crops and fishing. However, these rituals not only
dealt with the technological and economic affairs of the is-
land, they also included a sternly moral public address, under
conditions of great sanctity, instructing the people on proper
behavior as members of Tikopia society. This included in-
junctions about birth control, an essential matter on a small
island far distant from the next piece of land.
The period ended with ritual dancing in which formal
mimetic displays and chanting of archaic songs were suc-
ceeded by freer performances by firelight at night in which
men and women could indulge in often ribald reference to
sexual matters, although still in a highly controlled setting.
This aspect of the festival, partly cathartic in nature, was
thought to seek the gods’ approval of human recreation.
Most of the rituals of the Work of the Gods were carried out
on marae, ceremonial assembly spaces, often outside temples
or large meetinghouses.
The Work of the Gods comprised a two-part cycle. It
was not strictly calendrical but recognized the two major sea-
sonal alternations: the trade wind period that went from
April to October and the monsoon season of sometimes sav-
age cyclones and rain from November to March. The timing
of each cycle was based on natural observations, such as the
appearance of constellations, especially the Pleiades, the mi-
gration of birds, and, for the beginning of the turmeric mak-
ing, the flowering of the bright red coral tree (Erithrina sp.).
Each ritual lasted about thirty days and was elaborately orga-
nized with much mobilization and exchange of food sup-
plies, drawing the whole community into a vast network of
social and economic relationships. Two clear functions of the
whole series of religious performances seemed to be to pro-
vide occasion for the expression of personal and role status,
especially of the chiefs, and to demonstrate communal soli-
darity.
The Work of the Gods had a special quality of sanctity
through traditional authority. No particular myth was told
by the Tikopia people to account for the genesis of the ritual
cycle. They merely described it as having been instituted by
the Atua i Kafika, and the performances of the rituals were
regarded as a continuation and replication of the practices
the deity had initiated. Therefore every effort was made to
see that they were repeated in accurate detail, which required
the careful passing on of the rituals from one generation to9196 TIKOPIA RELIGION