Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/245

 HANDY] THE POLYNESIAN PROBLEM 233

out in very distinct contrast as characteristic of the religions of the northern and southern extremes of the Polynesian area. Around these as nuclei were grouped other elements which seemed to be associated. Thus we find:

In Hawaii: stone construction, seasonal ceremonial in which a sacred king takes a priestly part, the ceremonial taboo, in general a thoroughly organized and ordered worship. These are totally lacking in New Zealand.

In New Zealand: stone slab seats, sacred groves, the veneration of skulls, shamans, the use of coercive spells in connection with public enterprise, planting and harvest a ritual per- formance, the Hawaiki belief. These are totally lacking or entirely secondary in Hawaii. Elements typical of the Slab Users are the following :

(1) The veneration of slabs associated with ancestors and sacred

chiefs, these slabs being generally used as seats by chiefs.

(2) Sacred groves.

(3) Sacred chiefs functioning in the public ancestral cult.

(4) Ancestral deities, both public and private. The veneration

of skulls and other ancestral relics.

(5) Methods of disposal of the dead : exposure, flexed inhumation

in a sitting posture, use of canoe coffins, secondary disposal of skeletal remains in caves. The placing of offerings of food and weapons with dead bodies.

(6) Funerary feasts.

(7) Survival of head hunting in the preservation of enemy skulls

and heads.

(8) The belief in incarnation of ancestral spirits in animate and

inanimate objects.

(9) Omens from animal movements.

(10) Divination by gazing into liquids, by possession, and in trance. (n) Shamans: inspirational diviners, necromancers, magic workers.

A great use of witchcraft in public and private application,

employing coercive spells.

(12) The use of genealogies as religious formulae.

(13) The belief in the similarity of spirits of natural objects to

man's spirit.

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