Not very far from the sacred stone was a marae containing a very sacred object, no less, in fact, than a piece of Tane’s own canoe. According to the people, it was a very miraculous canoe, for it was made of stone, and yet floated as well as if it were made of wood. In proof of this statement, they placed the fragment in water, where it floated, as it was likely to do, being nothing more than a piece of pumice stone. No one knew where the stone had been obtained, but they said that there were more pieces in different parts of the island.
Besides the idol gods, there are gods which are symbolized by living creatures, of which the shark is the chief, being worshipped for the same reason that crocodiles and venomous serpents are worshipped in some parts of the world, viz. on account of its destructive powers. Mr. Bennett saw a large marae which had been consecrated to a shark god on account of a miraculous event which was said to have happened some time previously. In one particular spot the ground begun to shake and tremble, and, as the people were flying in terror, the ground opened, and a huge shark forced his head through the cleft in the soil.
The formation of the maraes has already been mentioned. Some time before Mr. Bennett arrived at the place, a shark had contrived to force its way through the sand into the marae, which was situated on the shore of the lagoon. The water flowed in with the fish, and the natives, feeling delighted that their god had actually come to take possession of his temple, blocked up the passage by which he had entered, cleared out the marae, and kept the shark in it for the rest of his life, feeding him abundantly with fish and meat.
Indeed, in one bay the sharks were regularly fed by the priests, and the consequence was that they became quite familiar, and would swim to the beach to be fed with fish and pork. They would also accompany the canoes, knowing well that the natives always threw overboard some of the fish which they had caught, for the sake of propitiating the shark gods. The latter, however, were so little sensible of the kindness bestowed upon them, that had one of their worshippers fallen overboard they would have eaten him, in spite of all his propitiatory offerings.
Sometimes a living man has been elected to the rank of a god, and worshipped as such during his lifetime. This was done at Raiatea, the king, Tamatoa, having been reckoned among the gods by means of a series of ceremonies which might have been very appropriate in assigning him a place among the very worst and vilest of demons, but were singularly unsuitable to an apotheosis. After this ceremony, the king was consulted as an oracle, prayers and sacrifices were offered to him, and he was treated as reverently as if he had been Tane himself.
It is a most remarkable fact that Tamatoa became a Christian in his later life, and afforded most valuable information respecting the religious belief of the Society Islanders. He corroborated, as having been an eye-witness, the accounts that have been given of the astonishing deeds done by the heathen priests while in a state of inspiration. They have been seen to dash their hands against the ground with such violence that they imbedded the whole arm up to the shoulder. Captain Henry, the son of one of the missionaries, states that he has seen one of these priests plunge his arm into the solid earth as if it were water, and that he would perform the feat on any ground wherever he chanced to be.
“The infuriated priest, on that occasion, foamed at the mouth, distorted his eyeballs, convulsed his limbs, and uttered the most hideous shrieks and howlings. After he had seemingly buried his arm like a spear stuck suddenly in the ground, he held it there for a considerable time; then, drawing it out uninjured, he rushed toward the shore, and, laying hold upon a large canoe, which ordinarily required three or four men to launch, he shoved it before him with apparent ease, and sent it adrift.
“He afterward threw himself into the sea, wallowed about in it, and kept his head under water for a long time. When this act of the tragical pantomime was finished, he sat among the waves, and delivered his prophecies in very figurative and hyperbolical language, at the same time sufficiently ambiguous to be fulfilled in one of two senses, whatever might happen.”
Portable shrines of the gods were once used in the Society Islands, but so complete and rapid has been the demolition of everything connected with idolatry, that Mr. Bennett, who was eye-witness of many idolatrous practices, was only able to procure one specimen, which is now in the museum of the London Missionary Society.
In form it resembles a house, with sloping roof, and is about a yard in length. It is supported on four short legs, and underneath there is a round hole through which the idol was passed into its shrine, a door exactly fitting and closing the aperture. The idol which was in this shrine represented a female god greatly venerated by the people, because she was so very mischievous, and had killed thousands of people, gaining from her bloodthirsty propensities the name of Tii Vahine, or Queen Tii. The idol is a horribly repulsive example of the ugliness with which savages invariably invest their deities.