Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/129

Rh very fond of smoking tobacco. There are several morais, or churches in the village, and at new moon the priests, chiefs and hikanees (aikane) enter them with offerings of hogs, plantains, and cocoanuts, which they set before the wooden images. The place is fenced in, and have pieces of white flags flying on the fences. They remain in the morai three nights and two days at new moon, beginning at sun-set and ending at sun-rise, feasting on roast hogs, and praying all the time. On the first quarter, they remain inside two nights and one day; full moon and last quarter, the same time. While the chiefs and priests are in the morai, the women are prohibited from going on the salt water, either in canoes or boats, or even from touching it; neither are they permitted to come within forty yards of the morai. The common people know nothing more about their religion than a stranger who never saw the islands. They pay the greatest respect to their chiefs and priests, and are kept in superstitious ignorance. Their muckahitee, or annual festival, commences in November; it begins by three of the most expert warriors throwing each a spear at Tameameah, who is obliged to stand without anything in his hand to fend them off, the first spear he catches, and with it makes the other spears fly several yards above his head. He then breaks a cocoanut; the sea is tabooed, and none of the natives are allowed to go near it. The King enters the church where he remains for some days, and the people decorate their houses with green branches and new mats. They dress in