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the influence of other varieties of juggling, and oppressive spiritual domination.

We are not surprised, that, to the enlightened, benevolent, but transient visitor, the South Sea Islanders appeared under circumstances peculiarly favourable to happiness, but their idolatry exhibits them as removed to the farthest extreme from such a state. The baneful effects of their delusion was increased by the vast preponderance of malignant deities, frequently the personifications of cruelty and vice. They had changed the glory of God into the image of corruptible things, and instead of exercising those affections of gratitude, complacency, and love, towards the objects of their worship, which the living God supremely requires, they regarded their deities with horrific dread, and worshipped only with enslaving fear.

While this system shews the distance to which those under its influence departed from the knowledge and service of the true God; it also furnishes additional confirmation of the fact, that polytheism, whether exhibited in the fascinating numbers of classic poetry, the splendid imagery of eastern fable, or the rude traditions of unlettered barbarians, is equally opposed to all just views of the being and perfections of the only proper object of religious homage and obedience; and that, whether invested with the gorgeous trappings of a cumbrous and imposing superstition, or appearing in the naked and repulsive deformity of rude idolatry, it is alike unfriendly to intellectual improvement, moral purity, individual happiness, social order, and national prosperity.

CHAP. XV.

Tahitian prophets-Ancient predictions relative to the arrival of ships-Traditions of the Deluge corresponding with the accounts in sacred and profane writingsGeneral ideas of the people relative to death and a future state-Death the consequence of Divine displeasure- -State of spirits-Miru, or heaven-Religious ceremonies for ascertaining the causes of death-Embalming The burying of the sins of the departedSingular religious ceremony-Offerings to the deadOccupation of the spirits of the deceased-Superstitions of the people-Otohaa, or lamentation-Wailing— Outrages committed under the paroxysms of grief-Use of sharks' teeth-Elegies-The heva-Absurdity and barbarism of the practice.

BESIDES the priests who made known the will of the gods, and pretended to foretell the issue of those enterprises in which the people might be engaged, or were about to commence, there have been at different periods individuals who have foretold events that were to take place in periods yet more remote, but which at the time appeared incomprehensible. There are some which regarded the destiny of the people, but the most remarkable (because, according to the interpretation of the natives themselves, they have received a partial fulfilment) were those referring to the strange ships that should arrive. Among the native prophets of former times, there appear to have been several of the name of Maui. One of the most

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celebrated of this name resided at Raiatea, and on one occasion, when supposed to be under the inspiration of the god, he predicted that in future ages a vaa ama ore, literally an outriggerless canoe," would arrive at the islands from some foreign land. Accustomed to attach that appendage to their single canoes, whatever might be their size or quality, they considered an outrigger essential to their remaining upright on the water, and consequently could not believe that a canoe without one would live at sea. The absence of this has ever appeared to the South Sea Islanders as one of the greatest wonders connected with the visits of the first European vessels. At one of the Hervey Islands, where they had never seen a vessel until recently visited by a Missionary, when the boat was lowered down to the water, and pushed off by the rowers from the ship's side, the natives simultaneously and involuntarily exclaimed-" It will overturn and sink, it has no outrigger."

The chiefs and others, to whom Maui delivered his prophecy, were also convinced in their own minds, that a canoe would not swim without this necessary balance, and charged him with foretelling an impossibility. He persisted in his predictions, and, in order to remove their scepticism as to its practicability, launched his umete, or oval wooden dish, upon the surface of a pool of water near which he was sitting, and declared that in the same manner would the vessel swim that should arrive.

It

We have not been able to ascertain the period when this prediction was delivered. was preserved among the people by oral tradition, until the arrival of Captain Wallis's and

Cook's vessels. When the natives first saw these, they were astonished at their gigantic size, imposing aspect, and the tremendous engines on board. These appearances induced them first to suppose the ships were islands inhabited by a supernatural order of beings, at whose direction lightnings flashed, thunders roared, and the destroying demon slew, with instantaneous but invisible strokes, the most daring and valiant of their warriors. But when they afterwards went alongside, or ventured on board, and saw that they were floating fabrics of timber, borne on the surface of the waters, and propelled by the winds of heaven, they unanimously declared that the prediction of Maui was accomplished, and the canoes without outriggers had arrived. They were confirmed in this interpretation, when they saw the small boats belonging to the ships employed in passing to and fro between the vessel and the shore. These being simple in their structure, and approaching their own canoes in size, yet conveying in perfect safety those by whom they were manned, excited their astonishment, and confirmed their convictions that Maui was a prophet.

When a boat or a vessel has been sailing in or out of the harbour, I have often heard the natives, while gazing at the stately motion, exclaim, Te vaa a Maui e! Ta vaa ama ore. "Oh the canoe of Maui! the outriggerless canoe!" They have frequently asked us how he could have known such a vessel would arrive, since it was at that time considered by all besides as an impossibility. We have told them it was probable he had observed the steadiness with which his umete, or other hollow wooden vessel, floated on the water, and

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had thence inferred that at some future period they might behold larger vessels equally destitute of any exterior balancing power. They in general consider the use of boats and shipping among them as an accomplishment of his prediction.

The islanders also state, that there is another prediction, still to be fulfilled; and although it appears to them as great an improbability as the former, yet the actual appearance of one, leads many to think that possibly they may witness the other. This remaining prediction also has reference to a ship, and declares that after the arrival of a canoe without an outrigger, e vaa taura ore, a boat, or vessel, without ropes or cordage, shall come among them. What idea Maui designed to convey by this declaration, it is perhaps not easy to ascertain; but the people say it is next to impossible that the masts should be sustained, the sails attached, or the vessel worked, without ropes or cordage. They say, however, that one prediction respecting the vessels has been accomplished, but that the other remains to be realized. I have often thought, when contemplating the little use of rigging on board our steam-vessels, that should a specimen of this modern invention ever reach the South Sea Islands, although the natives would not, perhaps, like the inhabitants of the banks of the Ganges, be ready to fall down and worship this wonderful exhibition of mechanical skill, they would be equally astonished at that power within itself by which it would be propelled, and would at once declare that the second prediction of Maui was accomplished, and the vessel without rigging or cordage had arrived.

They have other predictions, but less circumstantial or probable, yet I could not learn that