a rock outside the cave when he heard an
unusual noise. On looking in, the place was full of _pigs_, and hence
the belief that pigs had their origin in the heads of men, or, as some
would call it, a humbling case of evolution _downwards_!

_Cooking._--The Samoans had and still have, the mode of cooking with
hot stones which has been often described as prevailing in the South
Sea Islands. Fifty or sixty stones about the size of an orange, heated
by kindling a fire under them, form, with the hot ashes, an ordinary
oven. The taro, bread-fruit, or yams, are laid among the stones, a
thick covering of bread-fruit and banana leaves is laid over all, and
in about an hour all is well cooked. In the same oven they bake other
things, such as fish, done up in leaves and laid side by side with the
taro or other vegetables. Little bundles of taro leaves, too, mixed
with the expressed juice of the cocoa-nut kernel, and some other
dishes, of which cocoa-nut is generally the chief ingredient, are
baked at the same time, and used as a relish in the absence of animal
food. Salt water is frequently mixed up with these dishes, which is
the only form in which they use salt. They had no salt, and were not
in the habit of preserving fish or pork otherwise than by repeated
cooking. In this way they kept pork for a week, and fish for three
weeks or a month. However large, they cooked the entire pig at once;
then, using a piece of split bamboo as a carving-knife, cut it up and
divided it among the different branches of the family. The duties of
cooking devolved on the men; and all, even chiefs of the highest rank,
considered it no disgrace to assist in the cooking-house occasionally.

_Forbidden Food._--Some birds and fishes were sacred to particular
deities, as has been described, and certain parties abstained from
eating them. A man would not eat a fish which was supposed to be under
the protection and care of his household god; but he would eat,
without scruple, fish sacred to the gods of other families. The dog,
and some kinds of fish and birds, were sacred to the greater
deities--the _dii majorum gentium_ of the Samoans; and, of course, all
the people rigidly abstained from these things. For a man to kill and
eat anything he considered to be under the special protection of his
god, was supposed to be followed by the god's displeasure in the
sickness or death of himself, or some member of the family. The same
idea seems to have been a check