Page:Captain Cook's Journal during His First Voyage Round the World.djvu/175

July 1769.] together with the Manahoonas, own most, if not all the land. This is Hereditary in their families, and the moment the Heir is born he succeeds the Father, both in title and Estate; at least to the name, for its most likely that the latter must have the power during his Son or Daughter's Minority.

Having given the best account I can of the manners and Customs of these people, it will be expected that I should give some account of their religion, which is a thing I have learned so little of that I hardly dare to touch upon it, and should have passed it over in silence, was it not my duty as well as inclination to insert in this Journal every and the least knowledge I may obtain of a People, who for many Centuries have been shut up from almost every other part of the world.

They believe that there is one Supreem God whom they call Tane; from him sprung a number of inferior Deities, Eatuas as they call them—these they think preside over them and intermeddle in their affairs. To these they offer Oblations such as Hogs, Dogs, Fish, Fruit, etc, and invoke them on some particular occasions, as in time of real or Apparent Danger, the setting out of a long Voyage, sickness's, etc.; but the Ceremony made use of on these occasions I know not. The Mories, which we at first thought were burying places, are wholy built for Places of worship, and for the Performing of religious ceremonies in. The Viands are laid upon altars erected 8, 12, or 12 Feet high, by stout Posts, and the Table of the Altar on which the Viands lay, is generally made of Palm leaves; they are not always in the Mories, but very often at some Distance from them. Their Mories, as well as the Tombs of the Dead, they seem to hold sacred, and the women never enter the former, whatever they may do the latter. The Viands