Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions Part 8

Both Mariner and Moerenhout refuse to have recourse to the hypothesis of imposture in order to {167} account for the inspired state of the Polynesian prophets. On the contrary, they fully believe in their sincerity. Mariner tells the story of a young chief, an acquaintance of his, who thought himself possessed by the Atua of a dead woman who had fallen in love with him, and who wished him to die that he might be near her in Bolotoo. And he died accordingly. But the most valuable evidence on this head is contained in what the same authority says about King Finow's son. The previous king, Toogoo Ahoo, had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by Finow, and his soul, become an Atua of divine rank in Bolotoo, had been pleased to visit and inspire Finow's son--with what particular object does not appear.

When this young chief returned to Hapai, Mr. Mariner, who was upon a footing of great friends.h.i.+p with him, one day asked him how he felt himself when the spirit of Toogoo Ahoo visited him; he replied that he could not well describe his feelings, but the best he could say of it was, that he felt himself all over in a glow of heat and quite restless and uncomfortable, and did not feel his own personal ident.i.ty, as it were, but seemed to have a mind different from his own natural mind, his thoughts wandering upon strange and unusual subjects, although perfectly sensible of surrounding objects. He next asked him how he knew it was the spirit of Toogoo Ahoo? His answer was, "There's a fool!

How can I tell you _how_ I knew it? I felt and knew it was so by a kind of consciousness; my _mind_ told me that it was Toogoo Ahoo" (vol. i.

pp. 104, 105).

Finow's son was evidently made for a theological disputant, and fell back at once on the inexpugnable stronghold of faith when other evidence was lacking. "There's a fool! I know it is true, because I know it," is the exemplar and epitome of the {168} sceptic-crus.h.i.+ng process in other places than the Tonga Islands.

The island of Bolotoo, to which all the souls (of the upper cla.s.ses at any rate) repair after the death of the body, and from which they return at will to interfere, for good or evil, with the lives of those whom they have left behind, obviously answers to Sheol. In Tongan tradition this place of souls is a sort of elysium above ground, and pleasant enough to live in.

But, in other parts of Polynesia, the corresponding locality, which is called Po, has to be reached by descending into the earth, and is represented dark and gloomy like Sheol. But it was not looked upon as a place of rewards and punishments in any sense. Whether in Bolotoo or in Po, the soul took the rank it had in the flesh; and, a shadow, lived among the shadows of the friends and houses and food of its previous life.

The Tongan theologians recognised several hundred G.o.ds; but there was one, already mentioned as their national G.o.d, whom they regarded as far greater than any of the others, "as a great chief from the top of the sky down to the bottom of the earth" (Mariner, vol. ii. p. 106). He was also G.o.d of war, and the tutelar deity of the royal family, whoever happened to be the inc.u.mbent of the royal office for the time being. He had no priest except the king himself, and his visits, even to royalty, were few and far between. The name of this supreme deity was Ta-li-y-Tooboo, the literal meaning of which is said to be "Wait there, Tooboo," from which it would appear {169} that the peculiar characteristic of Ta-li-y-Tooboo, in the eyes of his wors.h.i.+ppers, was persistence of duration. And it is curious to notice, in relation to this circ.u.mstance, that many Hebrew philologers have thought the meaning of Jahveh to be best expressed by the word "Eternal."

It would probably be difficult to express the notion of an eternal being, in a dialect so little fitted to convey abstract conceptions as Tongan, better than by that of one who always "waits there."

The characteristics of the G.o.ds in Tongan theology are exactly those of men whose shape they are supposed to possess, only they have more intelligence and greater power. The Tongan belief that, after death, the human Atua more readily distinguishes good from evil, runs parallel with the old Israelitic conception of Elohim expressed in Genesis, "Ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good from evil." They further agreed with the old Israelites, that "all rewards for virtue and punishments for vice happen to men in this world only, and come immediately from the G.o.ds" (vol. ii. p. 100). Moreover, they were of opinion that though the G.o.ds approve of some kinds of virtue and are displeased with some kinds of vice, and, to a certain extent, protect or forsake their wors.h.i.+ppers according to their moral conduct, yet neglect to pay due respect to the deities, and forgetfulness to keep them in good humour, might be visited with even worse consequences than moral delinquency. And those who will carefully study the so-called "Mosaic code"

contained in the {170} books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, will see that, though Jahveh's prohibitions of certain forms of immorality are strict and sweeping, his wrath is quite as strongly kindled against infractions of ritual ordinances. Accidental homicide may go unpunished, and reparation may be made for wilful theft. On the other hand, Nadab and Abihu, who "offered strange fire before Jahveh, which he had not commanded them," were swiftly devoured by Jahveh's fire; he who sacrificed anywhere except at the allotted place was to be "cut off from his people"; so was he who eat blood; and the details of the upholstery of the Tabernacle, of the millinery of the priests' vestments, and of the cabinet work of the ark, can plead direct authority from Jahveh, no less than moral commands.

Amongst the Tongans, the sacrifices were regarded as gifts of food and drink offered to the divine Atuas, just as the articles deposited by the graves of the recently dead were meant as food for Atuas of lower rank. A kava root was a constant form of offering all over Polynesia. In the excellent work of the Rev. George Turner, ent.i.tled _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_ (p. 241), I find it said of the Samoans (near neighbours of the Tongans):--

_The offerings_ were princ.i.p.ally cooked food. As in ancient Greece so in Samoa, the first cup was in honour of the G.o.d. It was either poured out on the ground or _waved_ towards the heavens, reminding us again of the Mosaic ceremonies. The chiefs all drank a portion out of the same cup, according to rank; and after that, the food brought as an offering was divided and eaten "_there before the Lord_."

In Tonga, when they consulted a G.o.d who had a {171} priest, the latter, as representative of the G.o.d, had the first cup; but if the G.o.d, like Ta-li-y-Tooboo, had no priest, then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by the G.o.d himself. When the first cup of kava was filled, the mataboole who acted as master of the ceremonies said, "Give it to your G.o.d," and it was offered, though only as a matter of form. In Tonga and Samoa there were many sacred places or _morais_, with houses of the ordinary construction, but which served as temples in consequence of being dedicated to various G.o.ds; and there were altars on which the sacrifices were offered; nevertheless there were few or no images. Mariner mentions none in Tonga, and the Samoans seem to have been regarded as no better than atheists by other Polynesians because they had none. It does not appear that either of these peoples had images even of their family or ancestral G.o.ds.

In Tahiti and the adjacent islands, Moerenhout (t. i. p. 471) makes the very interesting observation, not only that idols were often absent, but that, where they existed, the images of the G.o.ds served merely as depositories for the proper representatives of the divinity. Each of these was called a _maro aurou_, and was a kind of girdle artistically adorned with red, yellow, blue, and black feathers--the red feathers being especially important--which were consecrated and kept as sacred objects within the idols. They were worn by great personages on solemn occasions, and conferred upon their wearers a sacred and almost divine character.

There is no distinct evidence that the {172} _maro aurou_ was supposed to have any special efficacy in divination, but one cannot fail to see a certain parallelism between this holy girdle, which endowed its wearer with a particular sanct.i.ty, and the ephod.

According to the Rev. R. Taylor, the New Zealanders formerly used the word _karakia_ (now employed for "prayer") to signify a "spell, charm, or incantation," and the utterance of these karakias const.i.tuted the chief part of their cult. In the south, the officiating priest had a small image, "about eighteen inches long, resembling a peg with a carved head," which reminds one of the form commonly attributed to the teraphim.

The priest first bandaged a fillet of red parrot feathers under the G.o.d's chin, which was called his pahau or beard; this bandage was made of a certain kind of sennet, which was tied on in a peculiar way. When this was done it was taken possession of by the Atua, whose spirit entered it. The priest then either held it in the hand and vibrated it in the air, whilst the powerful karakia was repeated, or he tied a piece of string (formed of the centre of a flax leaf) round the neck of the image and stuck it in the ground. He sat at a little distance from it, leaning against a tuahu, a short stone pillar stuck in the ground in a slanting position, and holding the string in his hand, he gave the G.o.d a jerk to arrest his attention, lest he should be otherwise engaged, like Baal of old, either hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, or sleeping, and therefore must be awaked.... The G.o.d is supposed to make use of the priest's tongue in giving a reply. Image-wors.h.i.+p appears to have been confined to one part of the island. The Atua was supposed only to enter the image for the occasion. The natives declare they did not wors.h.i.+p the image itself, but only the Atua it represented, and that the image was merely used as a way of approaching him.[46]

{173}

This is the excuse for image-wors.h.i.+p which the more intelligent idolaters make all the world over; but it is more interesting to observe that, in the present case, we seem to have the equivalents of divination by teraphim, with the aid of something like an ephod (which, however, is used to sanctify the image and not the priest) mixed up together. Many Hebrew archaeologists have supposed that the term "ephod" is sometimes used for an image (particularly in the case of Gideon's ephod), and the story of Micah, in the book of Judges, shows that images were, at any rate, employed in close a.s.sociation with the ephod. If the pulling of the string to call the attention of the G.o.d seems as absurd to us as it appears to have done to the worthy missionary, who tells us of the practice, it should be recollected that the high priest of Jahveh was ordered to wear a garment fringed with golden bells.

And it shall be upon Aaron to minister; and the sound thereof shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before Jahveh, and when he cometh out, that he die not (Exod. xxviii. 35).

An escape from the obvious conclusion suggested by this pa.s.sage has been sought in the supposition that these bells rang for the sake of the wors.h.i.+ppers, as at the elevation of the host in the Roman Catholic ritual; but then why should the priest be threatened with the well-known penalty for inadvisedly beholding the divinity?

In truth, the intermediate step between the Maori practice and that of the old Israelites is furnished by {174} the Kami temples in j.a.pan. These are provided with bells which the wors.h.i.+ppers who present themselves ring, in order to call the attention of the ancestor-G.o.d to their presence. Grant the fundamental a.s.sumption of the essentially human character of the spirit, whether Atua, Kami, or Elohim, and all these practices are equally rational.

The sacrifices to the G.o.ds in Tonga, and elsewhere in Polynesia, were ordinarily social gatherings, in which the G.o.d, either in his own person or in that of his priestly representative, was supposed to take part. These sacrifices were offered on every occasion of importance, and even the daily meals were prefaced by oblations and libations of food and drink, exactly answering to those offered by the old Romans to their manes, penates, and lares. The sacrifices had no moral significance, but were the necessary result of the theory that the G.o.d was either a deified ghost of an ancestor or chief, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these. If one wanted to get anything out of him, therefore, the first step was to put him in good humour by gifts; and if one desired to escape his wrath, which might be excited by the most trifling neglect or unintentional disrespect, the great thing was to pacify him by costly presents. King Finow appears to have been somewhat of a freethinker (to the great horror of his subjects), and it was only his untimely death which prevented him from dealing with the priest of a G.o.d, who had not returned a favourable answer to his supplications, as Saul dealt with the priests of the sanctuary of Jahveh at n.o.b. {175} Nevertheless, Finow showed his practical belief in the G.o.ds during the sickness of a daughter, to whom he was fondly attached, in a fas.h.i.+on which has a close parallel in the history of Israel.

If the G.o.ds have any resentment against us, let the whole weight of vengeance fall on my head. I fear not their vengeance--but spare my child; and I earnestly entreat you, Toobo Totai [the G.o.d whom he had invoked], to exert all your influence with the other G.o.ds that I alone may suffer all the punishment they desire to inflict (vol. i. p. 354).

So when the king of Israel has sinned by "numbering the people," and they are punished for his fault by a pestilence which slays seventy thousand innocent men, David cries to Jahveh:--

Lo, I have sinned, and I have done perversely: but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house (2 Sam. xxiv. 17).

Human sacrifices were extremely common in Polynesia; and, in Tonga, the "devotion" of a child by strangling was a favourite method of averting the wrath of the G.o.ds. The well-known instances of Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter and of David's giving up the seven sons of Saul to be sacrificed by the Gibeonites "before Jahveh," appear to me to leave no doubt that the old Israelites, even when devout wors.h.i.+ppers of Jahveh, considered human sacrifices, under certain circ.u.mstances, to be not only permissible but laudable. Samuel's hewing to pieces of the miserable captive, sole survivor of his nation, Agag, "before Jahveh," can hardly be viewed in any other light. The life of Moses is redeemed from Jahveh, who "sought {176} to slay him," by Zipporah's symbolical sacrifice of her child, by the b.l.o.o.d.y operation of circ.u.mcision. Jahveh expressly affirms that the first-born males of men and beasts are devoted to him; in accordance with that claim, the first-born males of the beasts are duly sacrificed; and it is only by special permission that the claim to the first-born of men is waived, and it is enacted that they may be redeemed (Exod. xiii. 12-15). Is it possible to avoid the conclusion that immolation of their first-born sons would have been inc.u.mbent on the wors.h.i.+ppers of Jahveh, had they not been thus specially excused? Can any other conclusion be drawn from the history of Abraham and Isaac? Does Abraham exhibit any indication of surprise when he receives the astounding order to sacrifice his son? Is there the slightest evidence that there was anything in his intimate and personal acquaintance with the character of the Deity, who had eaten the meat and drunk the milk which Abraham set before him under the oaks of Mamre, to lead him to hesitate--even to wait twelve or fourteen hours for a repet.i.tion of the command? Not a whit. We are told that "Abraham rose early in the morning"

and led his only child to the slaughter, as if it were the most ordinary business imaginable. Whether the story has any historical foundation or not, it is valuable as showing that the writer of it conceived Jahveh as a deity whose requirement of such a sacrifice need excite neither astonishment, nor suspicion of mistake, on the part of his devotee. Hence, when the incessant human {177} sacrifices in Israel, during the age of the kings, are put down to the influence of foreign idolatries, we may fairly inquire whether editorial Bowdlerising has not prevailed over historical truth.

An attempt to compare the ethical standards of two nations, one of which has a written code, while the other has not, is beset with difficulties.

With all that is strange and, in many cases, repulsive to us in the social arrangements and opinions respecting moral obligation among the Tongans, as they are placed before us, with perfect candour, in Mariner's account, there is much that indicates a strong ethical sense. They showed great kindliness to one another, and faithfulness in standing by their comrades in war. No people could have better observed either the third or the fifth commandment; for they had a particular horror of blasphemy, and their respectful tenderness towards their parents and, indeed, towards old people in general, was remarkable.

It cannot be said that the eighth commandment was generally observed, especially where Europeans were concerned; but nevertheless a well-bred Tongan looked upon theft as a meanness to which he would not condescend. As to the seventh commandment, any breach of it was considered scandalous in women and as something to be avoided in self-respecting men, but among unmarried and widowed people chast.i.ty was held very cheap. Nevertheless the women were extremely well treated, and often showed themselves capable of great devotion and entire faithfulness. In the matter of cruelty, treachery, and {178} bloodthirstiness, these islanders were neither better nor worse than most peoples of antiquity. It is to the credit of the Tongans that they particularly objected to slander; nor can covetousness be regarded as their characteristic; for Mariner says:--

When any one is about to eat, he always shares out what he has to those about him, without any hesitation, and a contrary conduct would be considered exceedingly vile and selfish (vol. ii. p. 145).

In fact, they thought very badly of the English when Mariner told them that his countrymen did not act exactly on that principle. It further appears that they decidedly belonged to the school of intuitive moral philosophers, and believed that virtue is its own reward; for

Many of the chiefs, on being asked by Mr. Mariner what motives they had for conducting themselves with propriety, besides the fear of misfortunes in this life, replied, the agreeable and happy feeling which a man experiences within himself when he does any good action or conducts himself n.o.bly and generously as a man ought to do; and this question they answered as if they wondered such a question should be asked (vol. ii. p. 161).

One may read from the beginning of the book of Judges to the end of the books of Samuel without discovering that the old Israelites had a moral standard which differs, in any essential respect (except perhaps in regard to the chast.i.ty of unmarried women), from that of the Tongans. Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and David are strong-handed men, some of whom are not outdone by any Polynesian chieftain in the matter of murder and treachery; {179} while Deborah's jubilation over Jael's violation of the primary duty of hospitality, proffered and accepted under circ.u.mstances which give a peculiarly atrocious character to the murder of the guest; and her witch-like gloating over the picture of the disappointment of the mother of the victim--

The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? (Jud. v. 28).

--would not have been out of place in the choral service of the most sanguinary G.o.d in the Polynesian pantheon.

With respect to the cannibalism which the Tongans occasionally practised, Mariner says:--

Although a few young ferocious warriors chose to imitate what they considered a mark of courageous fierceness in a neighbouring nation, it was held in disgust by everybody else (vol. ii. p. 171).

That the moral standard of Tongan life was less elevated than that indicated in the "Book of the Covenant" (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.) may be freely admitted. But then the evidence that this Book of the Covenant, and even the ten commandments as given in Exodus, were known to the Israelites of the time of Samuel and Saul, is (to say the least) by no means conclusive.

The Deuteronomic version of the fourth commandment is hopelessly discrepant from that which stands in Exodus. Would any later writer have ventured to alter the commandments as given from Sinai, if he had had before him that which professed to be an accurate statement of the "ten words" in Exodus?

And if the writer of {180} Deuteronomy had not Exodus before him, what is the value of the claim of the version of the ten commandments therein contained to authenticity? From one end to the other of the books of Judges and Samuel, the only "commandments of Jahveh" which are specially adduced refer to the prohibition of the wors.h.i.+p of other G.o.ds, or are orders given _ad hoc_, and have nothing to do with questions of morality.

In Polynesia, the belief in witchcraft, in the appearance of spiritual beings in dreams, in possession as the cause of diseases, and in omens, prevailed universally. Mariner tells a story of a woman of rank who was greatly attached to King Finow, and who, for the s.p.a.ce of six months after his death, scarcely ever slept elsewhere than on his grave, which she kept carefully decorated with flowers:--

One day she went, with the deepest affliction, to the house of Mo-oonga Toobo, the widow of the deceased chief, to communicate what had happened to her at the _fytoca_ [grave] during several nights, and which caused her the greatest anxiety. She related that she had dreamed that the late How [king] appeared to her and, with a countenance full of disappointment, asked why there yet remained at Vavaoo so many evil-designing persons: for he declared that, since he had been at Bolotoo, his spirit had been disturbed[47] by the evil machinations of wicked men conspiring against his son; but he declared that "the youth"

should not be molested nor his power shaken by the spirit of rebellion; that he therefore came to her with a warning voice to prevent such disastrous consequences (vol. i. p. 424).

On inquiry it turned out that the charm of _tattao_ had been performed on Finow's grave, with the view {181} of injuring his son, the reigning king, and it is to be presumed that it was this sorcerer's work which had "disturbed" Finow's spirit. The Rev. Richard Taylor says in the work already cited: "The account given of the witch of Endor agrees most remarkably with the witches of New Zealand" (p. 45).

The Tongans also believed in a mode of divination (essentially similar to the casting of lots) by the twirling of a cocoa-nut.

The object of inquiry ... is chiefly whether a sick person will recover; for this purpose the nut being placed on the ground, a relation of the sick person determines that, if the nut, when again at rest, points to such a quarter, the east for example, that the sick man will recover; he then prays aloud to the patron G.o.d of the family that he will be pleased to direct the nut so that it may indicate the truth; the nut being next spun, the result is attended to with confidence, at least with a full conviction that it will truly declare the intentions of the G.o.ds at the time (vol. ii. p. 227).

Does not the action of Saul, on a famous occasion, involve exactly the same theological presuppositions?

Therefore Saul said unto Jahveh, the Elohim of Israel, Shew the right.

And Jonathan and Saul were taken _by lot_: but the people escaped. And Saul said, Cast _lots_ between me and Jonathan my son. And Jonathan was taken. And Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done.... And the people rescued Jonathan so that he died not (1 Sam. xiv. 41-45).

As the Israelites had great yearly feasts, so had the Polynesians; as the Israelites practised circ.u.mcision, so did many Polynesian people; as the Israelites had a complex and often arbitrary-seeming mult.i.tude of distinctions between clean and unclean things, and clean and unclean states of men, to which {182} they attached great importance, so had the Polynesians their notions of ceremonial purity and their _tabu_, an equally extensive and strange system of prohibitions, violation of which was visited by death. These doctrines of cleanness and uncleanness no doubt may have taken their rise in the real or fancied utility of the prescriptions, but it is probable that the origin of many is indicated in the curious habit of the Samoans to make fetishes of living animals. It will be recollected that these people had no "G.o.ds made with hands," but they subst.i.tuted animals for them.

At his birth

every Samoan was supposed to be taken under the care of some tutelary G.o.d or _aitu_ [ = Atua] as it was called. The help of perhaps half a dozen different G.o.ds was invoked in succession on the occasion, but the one who happened to be addressed just as the child was born was marked and declared to be the child's G.o.d for life.

These G.o.ds were supposed to appear in some _visible incarnation_, and the particular thing in which his G.o.d was in the habit of appearing was, to the Samoan, an object of veneration. It was in fact his idol, and he was careful never to injure it or treat it with contempt. One, for instance, saw his G.o.d in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so on, throughout all the fish of the sea and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. In some of the sh.e.l.l-fish even, G.o.ds were supposed to be present. A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the G.o.d of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular G.o.d he would consider it death to injure or eat.[48]