RELIGION. reprefentation. Thirdly, lince they believe that the being which
is polfelfed o f fenfation and o f thinking, or as they call it, o f forming
the fpeech in the belly {paroh-nv-te-bboof exifts after death in a
feparate Hate, and is then even unfeen capable of adtions limilar
to thofe it performed when combined with the body, viz. of
feeing,- hearing, receiving pleafure from the actions o f their
friends/ and o f Ihewing its difpleafure by killing people; it is -
•evident that they think o f an invifible being, very diilina from
the body, and endowed with a free agency. This they call
T e 'e h e e . and.reprefent i t frequently under the rude figure'of
a man or woman, feldom exceeding eighteen inches in heighth ;
which again feems to indicate that this figure is not intended to be
the real figure o f the invifible foul, but. only its emblem.
Fourthly,- as they think man to have defeended from their fupreme
deity, it is evident they mull likewife imagine man . to be in fome..
inferior degree homogeneous to their divinities, • or •vice v’erfa
their divinities are according to their opinion analogous to man,
and as they often told me the great Eatooa could not be feen, or
in other words was invifible, this analogy'cannot lie in the body the
only vifible part of man, and mull therefore confill in the part capable
of thinking and reafoning, which in fomemeafu-re is analogous to
the fcriptural phrafe of the image of God, after which man was
firll made. Laflly, as they attribute to O -T E A the firlt man but
one wife, this circumltance feems to imply that they think monogamy
-my to be the lawful or moll reafonable method for propagating religion.
mankind. *
Th e inhabitants of.the South Sea have certainly fome notions, of
a future Hate ; but I mull confefs, .1 am at a lofs how to conciliate
their ideas on that head. T h e y told us that the being, which had
fenfations and thoughts, did not decay with the body but was well
(zvoura) and exilting near its old habitation the body and the .
remains expofed on an elevated llage, or even near the bones
when buried, or the head preferved in a little ch e ll: it is for this
being that they expofe various fruits and meat near the burying
place; and the. little wooden images or Teihees are, as we were
told, the receptacles o f the invifible Teihees, or what we would call
fouls, according to our way o f thinking. And notwithllanding
this moll politive alfertion, they told us almoll in the fame breath,
that after their death the departed .met in the fun, and attended
Maowwe, and fealled there with this deity upon bread-fruit, and
the meat of hogs or dogs, which needs no dreffing; arid fome
even ventured to fay that they were to have a conllant fucceffion of
liquor prepared from ayva (Piper methyjlicum). This Hate they
call the meeting or alfembly ' o f the heavens or Iky ( T-ouroaa-
t ’erdi). * However the people o f rank only, have hopes of being
a B received
* The word Tourooa fignifies the meeting or a0cmbly of the iiates in Taheitee, wherein
the king, the chiefs ol provinces, priefts, interior Chiefs, and manahounes have a ng!Tt to
lit, but the boas, or king’s attendants, though prefent, inuft hand.