The ceremonies, however, do not cease with the mourning: prayers are still said by the priest, who is well paid by the surviving relations, and offerings made at the Morai. Some of the things, which from time to time are deposited there, are emblematical: a young plantain represents the deceased, and the bunch of feathers the deity who is invoked. The priest places himself over against the symbol of the god, accompanied by some of the relations, who are furnished with a small offering, and repeats his oraison in a set form, consisting of separate sentences; at the same time weaving the leaves of the cocoa-nut into different forms, which he afterwards deposits upon the ground where the bones have been interred; the deity is then addressed by a shrill screech, which is used only upon that occasion. When the priest retires, the tuft of feathers is removed, and the provisions left to putrify, or be devoured by the rats.
Of the religion of these people, we were not able to acquire any clear and consistent knowledge: we found it like the religion of most other countries, involved in mystery, and perplexed with apparent inconsistencies. The religious language is also here, as it is in China, different from that which is used in common, so that Tupia, who took great pains to instruct us, having no words to express his meaning which we understood, gave us lectures to very little purpose: what we learnt, however, I will relate with as much perspicuity as I can.
Nothing is more obvious to a rational being, however ignorant or stupid, than that the universe and its various parts, as far as they fall under his notice, were produced by some agent inconceivably more powerful than himself; and nothing is more difficult to be conceived, even by the most sagacious and knowing, than the production of them from nothing, which among us is expressed by the word Creation. It is natural, therefore, as no Being apparently capable of producing the universe is to be seen, that he should be supposed to reside in some distant part of it, or to be in his nature invisible, and that he should have originally produced all that now exists in a manner similar to that in which nature is renovated by the succession of one generation to another; but the idea of procreation includes in it that of two persons, and from the conjunction of two persons these people imagine every thing in the universe, either originally or derivatively, to proceed.
The Supreme Deity, one of these two first beings, they call Taroataihetoomoo, and the other, whom they suppose to have been a rock, Tepapa. A daughter of these was Tettowmatatayo, the year, or thirteen months collectively, which they never name but upon this occasion, and she, by the common father, produced the months, and the months, by conjunction with each other, the days; the stars they suppose partly to be the immediate offspring of the first pair, and partly to have increased among themselves; and they have the same notion with respect to the different species of plants. Among other progeny of Taroataihetoomoo and Tepapa, they suppose an inferior race of deities, whom they call Eatuas. Two of these Eatuas, they say, at some remote period of time, inhabited the earth, and were the parents of the first man. When this man, their common ancestor, was born, they say that he was round like a ball, but that his mother, with great care, drew out his limbs, and having at length moulded him into his present form, she called him Eothe, which signifies finished. That being prompted by the universal instinct to propagate his kind, and being able to find no female but his mother, he begot upon her a daughter, and upon the daughter other daughters for several generations, before there was a son; a son, however, being at length born, he, by the assistance of his sisters, peopled the world.
Besides their daughter Tettowmatatayo, the first progenitors of nature had a son, whom they called Tane. Taroataihetoomoo, the supreme deity, they emphatically style the causer of earthquakes; but their prayers are more generally addressed to Tane, whom they suppose to take a greater part in the affairs of mankind.
Their subordinate deities, or Eatuas, which are numerous, are of both sexes: the male are worshipped by the men, and the female by the women; and each have Morais to which the other sex is not admitted, though they have also Morais common to both. Men perform the office of priest to both sexes, but each sex has its priests, for those who officiate for one sex, do not officiate for the other.
They believe the immortality of the soul, at least its existence in a separate state, and that there are two situations of different degrees of happiness, somewhat analogous to our heaven and hell: the superior situation they call Tavirua l’erai, the other Tiahoboo. They do not, however, consider them as places of reward and punishment, but as receptacles for different classes; the first, for their chiefs and principal people, the other for those of inferior rank, for they do not suppose that their actions here in the least influence their future state, or indeed that they come under the cognizance of their deities at all. Their religion, therefore, if it has no influence upon their morals, is at least disinterested; and their expressions of adoration and reverence, whether by words or actions, arise only from a humble sense of their own inferiority, and the ineffable excellence of divine perfection.
The character of the priest or Tahowa, is hereditary: the class is numerous, and consists of all ranks of people; the chief, however, is generally the younger brother of a good family, and is respected in a degree next to their kings. Of the little knowledge that is possessed in this country, the priests have the greatest share; but it consists principally in an acquaintance with the names and ranks of the different Eatuas or subordinate divinities, and the opinions concerning the origin of things, which have been traditionally preserved among the order in detached sentences, of which some will repeat an incredible number, though but very few of the words that are used in their common dialect occur in them.
The priests, however, are superior to the rest of the people in the knowledge of navigation and astronomy; and, indeed, the name Tahowa signifies nothing more than a man of knowledge. As there are priests of every class, they officiate only among that class to which they belong: the priest of the inferior class is never called upon by those of superior rank, nor will the priest of the superior rank officiate for any of the inferior class.
Marriage in this island, as appeared to us, is nothing more than an agreement between the man and woman, with which the priest has no concern. Where it is contracted, it appears to be pretty well kept, though sometimes the parties separate by mutual consent, and in that case a divorce takes place with as little trouble as the marriage.