In the course of a few days a clean sweep was made of the idols of the district; never were Iconoclasts, not even our Puritan forefathers, more thorough or more resolute. The teachers then advised Tinomana and their other converts to prepare their food for the Sunday, and attend worship at the mission station. This they did,—but they came armed as for battle, with war-caps, slings, and spears, fearing lest the irate Satanus (as they called the idolaters) should attack them. Neither in coming nor going, however, were they molested.
“At this time,” says Mr. Williams,[54] “a ludicrous circumstance occurred, which will illustrate the ignorance and superstition of this people. A favourite cat had been taken on shore by one of the teachers’ wives on our first visit, and not liking his new companions, Tom fled to the mountains. The house of the priest Tiaki, who had just destroyed his idol, was situated at a distance from the settlement, and at midnight while he was lying asleep on his mat, his wife, who was sitting awake by his side musing upon the strange events of the day, beheld with consternation two fires glistening in the doorway, and heard with surprise a mysterious voice. Almost petrified with fear, she awoke her husband, and began to upbraid him for his folly in burning his god, who, she declared, was now come to be avenged of them. ‘Get up and pray, get up and pray,’ she said. The husband arose, and on opening his eyes beheld the same glaring lights, and heard the same ominous sound. Impelled by the extreme urgency of the case, he commenced, with all possible vehemence, vociferating the alphabet as a prayer to God to deliver them from the vengeance of Satan. On hearing this, the cat, as much alarmed as the priest and his wife, of whose nocturnal peace he had been the unconscious disturber, ran away, leaving the poor people congratulating themselves on the efficacy of their prayer.”
Afterwards, in the course of his wanderings, Puss reached the district of the Satanus; and, as the marae was situated in a sequestered corner, and overshadowed by the luxuriant foliage of patriarchal trees, the graybeards of the wood, he was well pleased with the place. In order to keep the best of company, he took up his abode with the gods; and as he met with no opposition from within, he little expected any from without. But some few days after came the priest, accompanied by a number of worshippers, to present some offerings to the god; on his opening the door, Tom respectfully welcomed him with a miaou. At this unwonted salutation he rushed back in terror, shouting to his followers: “Here’s a monster from the deep! here’s a monster from the deep!”
Whereupon the whole party hastened home, assembled several hundreds of their companions, assumed their war-caps, equipped themselves with spear, club, and sling, blackened their bodies with charcoal, and in all this pomp and circumstance of Polynesian war, rushed, with yells, cries, and shouts, to attack poor Puss. He, however, daunted by their grim and strange array, did not await their approach. The moment the door was open, a leap and a bound—he was gone! Abiit, evasit, erupit. As he darted through the assembled warriors, they fled precipitately in all directions.
The religious system of the Samoans, according to Mr. Williams, differed in 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.
1. 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 god with the snare previously described, and infusing it into the child even prior to its birth, that it might become a clever and desperate thief. Most parents, however, were anxious that their children should become brave and renowned warriors. This appears to have been the very summit of a heathen mother’s ambition, and to secure it, numerous ceremonies were performed before the child was born; and after its birth it was taken to the marae, and formally dedicated to Oro. The spirit of the god was then caught, and imparted to the infant, and the ceremony was completed by numerous offerings and prayers. At New Zealand, stones were thrust down the throat of the babe, to give it a stony heart, and make it a dauntless and desperate warrior.”
This dedication of the child to the sanguinary war-god points to a condition of society in which life was verily and indeed a battle, and every one had to hold his own by right of a strong arm and a reckless spirit. There was no room for the feeble in such a system; they crawled aside to die; or were trampled to death in the rush and press of the crowd. Civilisation has its victims; but assuredly they are few in comparison to the thousands and tens of thousands destroyed by the merciless tyranny of Heathenism. Civilisation does at least teach us our duties towards our neighbours; while Savage Man had little sentiment of compassion or affection for father or brother, daughter or wife.