questions and
answers having passed between the parties, much to the satisfaction of
those who propose them, the god is put tenderly to bed in the trough,
and the whole company unite in a long chant, led off by Kolory. This
ended, the ceremony is over; the chiefs rise to their feet in high good
humour, and my Lord Archbishop, after chatting awhile, and regaling
himself with a whiff or two from a pipe of tobacco, tucks the canoe
under his arm and marches off with it.

The whole of these proceedings were like those of a parcel of children
playing with dolls and baby houses.

For a youngster scarcely ten inches high, and with so few early
advantages as he doubtless had had, Moa Artua was certainly a precocious
little fellow if he really said all that was imputed to him; but for
what reason this poor devil of a deity, thus cuffed about, cajoled, and
shut up in a box, was held in greater estimation than the full-grown
and dignified personages of the Taboo Groves, I cannot divine. And yet
Mehevi, and other chiefs of unquestionable veracity--to say nothing of
the Primate himself--assured me over and over again that Moa Artua was
the tutelary deity of Typee, and was more to be held in honour than a
whole battalion of the clumsy idols in the Hoolah Hoolah grounds.

Kory-Kory--who seemed to have devoted considerable attention to the
study of theology, as he knew the names of all the graven images in the
valley, and often repeated them over to me--likewise entertained some
rather enlarged ideas with regard to the character and pretensions of
Moa Artua. He once gave me to understand, with a gesture there was no
misconceiving, that if he (Moa Artua) were so minded he could cause a
cocoanut tree to sprout out of his (Kory-Kory's) head; and that it
would be the easiest thing in life for him (Moa Artua) to take the whole
island of Nukuheva in his mouth and dive down to the bottom of the sea
with it.

But in sober seriousness, I hardly knew what to make of the religion
of the valley. There was nothing that so much perplexed the illustrious
Cook, in his intercourse with the South Sea islanders, as their sacred
rites. Although this prince of navigators was in many instances assisted
by interpreters in the prosecution of his researches, he still frankly
acknowledges that he was at a loss to obtain anything like a clear
insight into the puzzling arcana of their faith. A similar admission has
been made by other eminent voyagers: by Cart