d to cut that timber.
It is said that a party of natives from another island once tried to
fell one of these trees; but blood flowed from the trunk, and all the
sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.[116] One family saw their god
in the moon. On the appearance of the new moon all the members of the
family called out, "Child of the moon, you have come." They assembled
also, presented offerings of food, feasted together, and joined in
praying, "Oh, child of the moon! Keep far away disease and death." And
they also prayed to the moon before they set out on the war path.[117]
But in Samoa, as in Tonga, there seems to be no record of a worship of
the sun, unless the stories of human sacrifices formerly offered to the
great luminary be regarded as reminiscences of sun-worship.[118]

[114] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 72.

[115] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 71.

[116] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 63.

[117] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 67.

[118] See above, p. 158.

Sec. 7. _Priests and Temples_

The father of a family acted as the priest of the household god. He
usually offered a short prayer at the evening meal, begging the deity to
guard them all from war, sickness, death, and the payment of fines.
Sometimes he would direct the family to hold a feast in honour of their
god, and on these occasions a cup of kava was poured out as a libation
to the divinity. Such simple domestic rites were celebrated in the
house, where the whole family assembled; for the gods were believed to
be present with men in a spiritual and invisible form as well as in the
material objects which were regarded as their visible embodiments. Often
the deity spoke through the father or other members of the family,
telling them what to do in order to remove a present evil or avert a
threatened one.[119]

[119] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 18. For the offering of
kava to the household god, compare _id._ p. 51.

But while every head of a family might thus act as a domestic priest and
mouthpiece of the deity, there was also a professional class of priests
set apart for the public worship of the gods, particularly of the war
gods, who in their nature did not differ essentially from the gods of
families, of villages, and of districts, being commonly embodied either
in particular material objects or in classes of such objects, especially
in various species of birds, animals, and fish, such as owls, rails,
kingfishers, dogs, lizards, flying-foxes, an