Gods of the sea, the air, the land, daily occupations

Places where they like to resort are rongo - that is sacred, as if they were tabooed. And even though they are themselves invisible, this connection with something corporeal affords a platform upon which they can be treated corporeally. All stones, trees, and animals found in such places are equally rongo. The idea is extended also to such animals as appear frequently in dwellings - lizards, snakes, and owls; particular parts of a stream can also, for one reason or another, be rongo. The ghost is estimated according to the object in which he dwells, and whoever understands this estimate is counted able to mediate for other men with the good spirits. He must enter the rongo place alone, and offer sacrifice there; as he does this he prays and lays the sacrifice upon a stone which is believed to be connected with the spirit. At one festival the Fijians used to call the water babies, enticing them ashore with toys laid on the bank, and building little banks in order to make it easier for them to climb up. With a similar intention in Anaiteum the roads which led from the sacred groves to the shore might never be blocked by hedges. But if prayer is made to a Vui to bring sickness or other evil upon an enemy, though he can provide the suppliant with ways and means to do it, he never brings about the trouble himself, since he is a good spirit.

Melanesian sea deity from San Christoval. (After Codrington)

With spiritual beings in such superabundance, no striking aspect of Nature remains unprovided for, and thus thousands of nature-gods come into existence, who are nothing but localised spirits or souls. The sea alone is ruled by some twenty of them [see Melanesian sea deity wood cut above]. Some of them employ the large blue shark as their instrument of vengeance. Sharks are fed on fish and pigs till they acquire the habit of approaching the shore at certain times; and the natives could assure you that they came at the bidding of the priest. Another famous sea-god is Hiro, originally a bold and ingenious native of Raiatea, who joined the ancient band of gods so recently that until the fall of paganism his skull was on view in Opoa.

Chief among the gods of the air, who are often worshipped in the form of birds, are two children of Tangaroa, brother and sister. They dwell not far from the rock that bears the earth; and any neglect of their worship they punish with storms and tempests. They were invoked to raise hurricanes when a hostile fleet was fitting out. Even at this day many islanders believe that in old times evil spirits had power over the winds, seeing that since the general conversion to Christianity there are never such terrible storms as formerly. The upper regions of the air are also peopled with higher beings. All the heavenly bodies were looked upon as gods. When the sun or the moon is eclipsed, some offended deity has swallowed it; and he is induced by abundant gifts to set the orb free again. They see gods or souls in meteors; and Lamont mentions the case of a boy in Penrhyn who wept at seeing a falling star, believing that the soul of an ancestor had appeared to him. Fairies that inhabit the mountains become visible in cloudy weather; and cloud is the offspring of Rangi, the sky, and Papatu Anuku, the wide plain. Giants with fiery eyes live on solitary islands, like the desert volcanic island Manua near Raiatea. In Hawaii are haunted places where ghosts go in procession to the sound of the pipe, and whoever hears them dies. Prognostications surround the whole of life with a dense network of inevitable consequences, and superstition has little trouble in discovering the most probable connection between cause and effect. Thus the subjection of Tahiti to a French Protectorate was foretold by a crack in the post supporting the palace gate.

Lastly, spiritual beings preside over individual occupations. Special gods send the migratory fish inshore at stated times; special gods are invoked by fishermen when they are making nets, going on board, or working at sea. So, too, agriculturists, carpenters, house and boat builders, have patterns peculiar to their craft. Even games are under the tutelage of five or six gods; and not less, particular crimes and transgressions. The chiefs think it no shame to invoke Hiro, as protector of robbers, on their privy raids, which turn out most prosperously on the 17th, 18th, and 19th nights of the month. But when a pig is stolen, he often is put off with a piece of the tail, offered with the words: "Here is a bit of the pig; say nothing about it, good Hiro."