one platform was erected in the house on which he was
supposed to sit, and close beside it was another to serve the purpose
of an altar, on which offerings were laid.

21. TAUMANUPEPE--_Fight creature butterfly._

This family god was incarnate in butterflies. Any one of that
household catching or killing these beautiful winged insects were
liable to be struck dead by the god.

In another family this god was supposed to have three mouths. There it
was forbidden to drink from a cocoa-nut shell water-bottle which had
all the three eyes or openings perforated. Only one, or at the most
two, apertures for drinking were allowed. A third would be a mockery,
and bring down the wrath of his butterflyship.

22. ULAVAI--_Fresh-water prawn, or crayfishes._

This was a household god in a family in one of the villages of Aana. A
woman had been bathing and brought on a premature event which happens
sometimes. When she told her friends they went to search for the
child. Nothing could be seen, however, but an unusual number of prawns
or crayfishes, into which they supposed the infant had been changed.
And so they commenced to regard the crayfish as the incarnation of a
new household god, gave it food, and offered prayers before it for
family prosperity.

To these may be added the names of forty-six other gods, making in all
one hundred and ten, but of whom I have little to say different from
the descriptions of Samoa Zoolatry, etc., already given. A few more
are referred to in the Cosmogony and other details, making up the
number of Samoan deities of which I have heard to about a hundred and
twenty, all claiming and receiving the two essentials of
religion--something to be believed and something to be done.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PEOPLE--INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.

At the birth of her child, the mother had a liberal share in the kind
attentions of her friends. Her own mother was almost invariably _la
sage-femme_; but, failing her, some other female friend. Her father
was generally present on the occasion, and either he or her husband
prayed to the household god, and promised to give any offering he
might require, if he would only preserve mother and child in safety. A
prayer was thus expressed: "O Moso, be propitious; let this my
daughter be preserved alive! Be compassionate to us; save my daughter,
and we will do anything you wish as our redemption price." Offerings
to the god, as we have already seen, were regulated by th