Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/233

1769 that their ancestors did the same: for both these operations the priests are paid by every one according to his ability, in the same manner as weddings, christenings, etc., etc., are paid for in Europe. Their places of public worship, or marais, are square enclosures of very different sizes, from ten to a hundred yards in length. At one end a heap or pile of stones is built up, near which the bones of the principal people are interred, those of their dependents lying all round on the outside of the wall. Near or in these enclosures are often placed planks carved into different figures, and very frequently images of many men standing on each other's heads; these, however, are in no degree the objects of adoration, every prayer and sacrifice being offered to invisible deities.

Near, or even within the marai, are one or more large altars, raised on high posts ten or twelve feet above the ground, which are called ewhattas; on these are laid the offerings, hogs, dogs, fowls, fruits, or whatever else the piety or superfluity of the owner thinks proper to dedicate to the gods.

Both these places are reverenced in the highest degree: no man approaches them without taking his clothes from off his shoulders, and no woman is on any account permitted to enter them. The women, however, have marais of their own, where they worship and sacrifice to their goddesses.

Of these marais each family of consequence has one, which serves for himself and his dependents. As each family values itself on its antiquity, so are the marais esteemed: in the Society Isles, especially Ulhietea, were some of great antiquity, particularly that of Tapo de boatea. The material of these is rough and coarse, but the stones of which they are composed are immensely large. At Otahite again, where from frequent wars or other accidents many of the most ancient families are extinct, they have tried to make them as elegant and expensive as possible, of which sort is that of Oamo (described on pp. 102–4).

Besides their gods, each island has a bird, to which the title of Eatua or god is given: for instance Ulhietea has the