, now to the left, and now again at the club;
afterwards he looks up again, and about him in like manner, and then
again fixes his eyes upon his club, and so on, for several times: at
length he suddenly raises the club, and, after a moment's pause, strikes
the ground, or the adjacent part of the house, with considerable force:
immediately the god leaves him, and he rises up and retires to the back
of the ring among the people."[75]

[75] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 99-101. Compare E. E. V.
Collocot, "Notes on Tongan Religion," _Journal of the Polynesian
Society_, xxx. (1921) pp. 155-157.

Sec. 7. _The Worship of the Gods, Prayers, and Sacrifices_

The worship offered to the gods consisted as usual of prayers and
sacrifices. Prayers were put up to them, sometimes in the fields, and
sometimes at their consecrated houses. On ordinary occasions a simple
offering consisted of a small piece of kava root deposited before a
god's house.[76] But in the great emergencies of life the favour of the
gods was sued with more precious offerings. When the younger daughter of
Finow, a girl of six or seven years, was sick to death, the dying
princess was carried from her father's house into the sacred enclosure
of Tali-y-Toobo, the patron god of the kings, and there she remained for
a fortnight. Almost every morning a hog was killed, dressed, and
presented before the god's house to induce him to spare the life of the
princess. At the same time prayers were addressed to the deity for the
recovery of the patient; but as this particular god had no priest, the
prayers were offered by a minister (_mataboole_), sometimes by two or
three in succession, and they were repeated five, six, or seven times a
day. Their general purport was as follows: "Here thou seest assembled
Finow and his chiefs, and the principal ministers (_matabooles_) of thy
favoured land; thou seest them humbled before thee. We pray thee not to
be merciless, but to spare the life of the woman for the sake of her
father, who has always been attentive to every religious ceremony. But
if thy anger is justly excited by some crime or misdemeanour committed
by any other of us who are here assembled, we entreat thee to inflict on
the guilty one the punishment which he merits, and not to let loose thy
vengeance on one who was born but as yesterday. For our own parts, why
do we wish to live but for the sake of Finow? But if his family is
afflicted, we are all afflict