be preserved in Tonga down to about thirty
years before Mariner's time. It was in the possession of the divine
chief Tooitonga; but unfortunately, his house catching fire, the basket
in which the precious hook was kept perished with its contents in the
flames. When Mariner asked Tooitonga what sort of hook it was, the chief
told him that it was made of tortoise-shell, strengthened with a piece
of whalebone, and that it measured six or seven inches from the curve to
the point where the line was attached, and an inch and a half between
the barb and the stem. Mariner objected that such a hook could hardly
have been strong enough to support the whole weight of the Tonga
islands; but the chief replied that it was a god's hook and therefore
could not break. The hole in the rock in which the divine hook caught on
the memorable occasion was shown down to Mariner's time in the island of
Hoonga. It was an aperture about two feet square.[64]

[62] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 109, 114 _sq._; Horatio
Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology_, pp. 24 _sq._

[63] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_,
xvii. (1845) p. 11; Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United
States Exploring Expedition_, iii. 23; Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga
and the Friendly Islands_, p. 133. According to this last writer
it was only the low islands that were fished up by Maui; the
high islands were thrown down from the sky by the god Hikuleo.

[64] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 272, ii. 114 _sq._ The
Catholic missionary Jerome Grange was told that the hook in
question existed down to his time (1843), but that only the king
might see it, since it was certain death to anybody else to look
on it. See _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845)
p. 11.

Sec. 5. _The Temples of the Gods_

Some of the primitive gods had houses dedicated to them. These sacred
houses or temples, as we may call them, were built in the style of
ordinary dwellings; but generally more than ordinary care was taken both
in constructing them and in keeping them in good order, decorating their
enclosures with flowers, and so on. About twenty of the gods had houses
thus consecrated to them; some of them had five or six houses, some only
one or two. For example, Tali-y-Toobo, the patron god of the royal
family, had four houses dedicated to him in the island of Vavau, two in
the