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RELIGION..
R E M A R K S our t h e
and offer up facriflces, and to perform the rites which are deemed
requifite on eachoccaflon. This-dignity is hereditary and defcends
to the fori.- Each chief o f a province has likewife. a prieft, and
the inferior ranks o f people have in the fame manner peculiar
priefls, who cannot perform rites-and offer up prayers for men of.
a higher clafs : it. is obfer-ved by Hawkefworth, vol. ii. p. 239.
that even the priefls for the males cannot perform the fame office
for the .females.^., and that.each, fex has marais, to. which, the other
fex is never admitted,, though they have marais common to both..
Thefe circumftances indeed we never heard, hut it is not improbable
that they, have thefe Angularities in their mode o f worfhipping-
Th e a£ts. o f devotion, which thefe nations pay. to their- divinities!
are likewife o f various kinds : the Aril is the invocation or prayer
addreffed to one o f their deities. T h e prayers themfelves are either
fpoken loud ©r offered tacitly, by the. prieft: for each peculiar,
ceremony they have fhort .fentences,. which they, deliver on that
occaf lonthe language feems to be more formal, fententious, and
almofl totally different from that ufed in common l i fe : for none
o f us were.able to underiland the leafl fentence o f their prayers,
though.we were poffeffed o f large vocabularies,., and had acquired.
a tolerable fhara o f knowledge »of their language: Belides the
prayers which the priefls o f each clafs deliver upon certain oc-
cafions, the. laymen themfelves - are not. excluded from faying
their.
H U M A N S P E C I E S . 547
„ * c 4.w * -RELIGION,
their own prayers, and performing many ceremonies ot tneir
worfhip : for when ayoung man at Taheitee, in 1773, uhofe to
fail with us'to Huaheine, before he eat his fupper, he repeated a
kind of prayer, and toök a very fmal-1 piece of the .fifh, which
was intended for his fupper, and laid i t near him oh the table, as
an offering for the Eatooa. T h e natives told me when I enquired
about their mode o f worfhip, that the prieft fometimes -delivered
his prayer fo low that nobody could hear any thing, yet he- was
heard by the Eatooa, who is then near the marai, and fpeaks to the
priefl again, and though there were ever fo many people prefent
they-could not hear a Angle word fpoken by the Eatooas, whereas
the prieft fTahomva) underftood -it all. T h e inferior divinities.
-according to our former obfervation are revered only by a hiding
found.
A native o f the Society-ifles.no fooner comes within fight of a
marai, than he ftrips his garment from his Ihoulders, and pays it
the fame refpeft which he fliews his prince, by uncovering his
ihoulders: which moft undoubtedly proves that a very peculiar
reverence is fhewn to the place, and which they would not do,
unlefs they were perfuaded, that a being o f a fuperior rank lived
there, and well deferved fuch a mark o f reverence.
No t contented with prayers and mere profefflons, delivered by
words, the natives of thefe iflands endeavour likewife to add to
.4 A 2 thera