There seems to be no evidence that the stone platforms on which the sepulchral sheds or huts of the Marquesans were erected ever took the shape of stepped or terraced pyramids like the massive stone pyramids of Tahiti and Tonga. So far as the mortuary platforms of the Marquesans are described, they appear to have been quadrangular piles of stone, with upright sides, not stepped or terraced. Megalithic monuments in the form of stepped or terraced pyramids seem to have been very rare in the Marquesas Islands; indeed, it is doubtful whether they existed at all. With regard to the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina), it is positively affirmed by Bennett that none of the valleys contain "any morais or other buildings devoted to religious purposes, nor any public idols";[112] and by morais he probably means stepped pyramids like those of Tahiti and Tonga. However, in the valley of Taipii (Typee), in Nukahiva, a megalithic monument, built in terraces, was seen by Melville in 1842. He describes it as follows:
"One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upon a scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours of the Druids. At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all sides by dense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by step, for a considerable distance up the hillside. These terraces cannot be less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Their magnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blocks composing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from ten to fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides are quite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, they bear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, and here and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lower one are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both a quadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terrace elevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immense trees have taken root, and their broad boughs, stretching far over and interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun. Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another, is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones lie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of these terraces, and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation, that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware of their existence.
"These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity, and Kory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research, gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of the world; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that they would endure until time shall be no more. Kory-Kory's prompt explanation, and his attributing the work to a divine origin, at once convinced me that neither he nor the rest of his countrymen knew anything about them."[113] Melville was accordingly disposed to attribute the erection of these remarkable terraces to an extinct and forgotten race.[114] The hypothesis is all the more probable because the monument appears to have been entirely abandoned and unused by the natives during the time when they have been known to Europeans. But it is doubtful whether the edifice was a pyramid; all that Melville's somewhat vague description implies is that it consisted of a series of terraces built one above the other on the hillside.
According to some accounts the remains of the dead, instead of being deposited in sheds or huts erected on stone platforms, were buried in the platforms themselves. Thus, according to William Crook, the first missionary to the Marquesans, "they have a morai in each district, where the dead are buried beneath a pavement of large stones."[115] Similarly, in Nukahiva two or three large quadrangular platforms (pi-pis), heavily flagged, enclosed with regular stone walls and almost hidden by the interlacing branches of enormous trees, were pointed out as burial-places to Melville, and he was told that the bodies "were deposited in rude vaults beneath the flagging, and were suffered to remain there without being disinterred. Although nothing could be more strange and gloomy than the aspect of these places, where the lofty trees threw their dark shadows over rude blocks of stone, a stranger looking at them would have discerned none of the ordinary evidences of a place of sepulture."[116] To the same effect, perhaps, Porter observes that, "when the flesh is mouldered from the bones, they are, as I have been informed, carefully cleansed: some are kept for relics, and some are deposited in the morais."[117] Again, Krusenstern says that twelve months after the death "the corpse is broken into pieces, and the bones are packed in a small box made of the wood of the bread-fruit tree, and carried to the morai or burial place, where no woman is allowed to approach under pain of death."[118] However, these statements do not necessarily imply that the bones were buried under the stones of the platform at the morai.
But whether deposited on biers or buried under the pavement, the remains of the dead were liable to be carried off in time of war by foes, who regarded such an exploit as a great deed of heroism. Hence when an invasion of the enemy in force was expected, the custom was to remove the bodies from the morai and bury them elsewhere.[119] The heads of enemies killed in battle were invariably kept and hung up as trophies of victory in the house of the conqueror. They seem to have been smoked in order to preserve them better.[120] It is said that they were used as cups to drink kava out of.[121]
After ten months or a year the obsequies were concluded by another funeral feast, which might last from eight to thirty days according to the rank of the deceased and the opulence of his family. At the same time offerings of food were presented afresh at the tomb, and the decorations were renewed, consisting of branches and leaves and strips of white bark-cloth, which waved like flags at the end of little white wands. At these anniversary feasts, to which, if the deceased was a man of quality, only chiefs were in many cases admitted, great quantities of pigs were consumed.[122] The intention of the feast is said to have been to thank the gods for having permitted the dead person to arrive safely in the other world.[123]
§ 9. Fate of the Soul after Death
The souls of the dead were supposed to depart either to an upper or to a lower world, either to heaven or to a subterranean region called Havaiki. The particular destination of a soul after death was determined, not by moral considerations, not by the virtue or vice of the deceased, but by the rank he had occupied in this life: people of quality went to the upper world, and common people went to the lower, to Havaiki.[124] According to a more precise account, heaven was inhabited by deities of the highest order, by women who had died in childbed, by warriors who had fallen on the field of battle, by suicides, and especially by the aristocratic class of the chiefs. This celestial region was supposed to be a happy land, abounding in bread-fruit paste (popoi), pork, and fish, and offering the companionship of the most beautiful women imaginable. There the bread-fruit trees dropped their ripe fruit every moment to the ground, and the supply of coco-nuts and bananas never failed. There the souls reposed on mats much finer than those of Nukahiva; and every day they bathed in rivers of coco-nut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and feathers, and boars'-tusks, and sperm-whale teeth far better than even white men can boast of. The nether world, on the other hand, was peopled with deities of the second class and by ordinary human beings, who had no pretensions to gentility. But it was not a place of misery much less of punishment or torture; on the contrary, we are told that both the upper and the lower regions were happier than the earth which the living inhabit.[125] The approach to the lower world, curiously enough, was by sea. The soul sailed away in a coffin shaped like a canoe (pahaa). When it came near the channel which divides the island Tahuata from the island Hivaoa, it was met by two deities or two opposing influences, one of which tried to push the soul into a narrow strait between Tahuata and a certain rock in the sea, while the other deity or influence endeavoured to contrive that the soul should keep the broad channel between the rock and Hivaoa. The souls that were thrust into the narrow strait were killed; whereas such as kept the open channel were conducted safe by a merciful god to their destination.[126]
Sometimes the land of the dead was identified with a happy island or islands called Tiburones lying somewhere in the ocean to the west of Nukahiva. Not uncommonly natives of the Marquesas sailed away in great double canoes to seek and find these happy isles, but were never heard of again. On one occasion, for example, forty men in the island of Ua-pu, who had revolted against their chief and been defeated, embarked secretly by night and put to sea, hoping to discover the Fortunate Islands, where they would be beyond the reach of their offended lord, and where they might pass the remainder of their days in liberty and bliss. What became of them is unknown, for they were seen and heard of no more in their native island.[127]
But even the souls that went to heaven were supposed to stand in need of a canoe in order to reach the place of bliss. On this point Porter writes: "I endeavoured to ascertain whether they had an idea of a future state of rewards and punishments, and the nature of their heaven. As respects the latter article, they believed it to be an island, somewhere in the sky, abounding with everything desirable; that those killed in war and carried off by their friends, go there, provided they are furnished with a canoe and provisions; but that those who are carried off by the enemy, never reach it, unless a sufficient number of the enemy can be obtained to paddle his canoe there. For this reason they were so anxious to procure a crew for their priest, who was killed and carried off by the Happahs. They have neither rewards nor punishments in this world, and I could not learn that they expected any in the next."[128]