Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 15, NIC-PAR

OTA
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O T A
OtaheUe. person, naming a man present, who has most probably,
h. —v 1 .1 on some account or other, rendered himself obnoxious to
this ghostly father- The words are no sooner gone out
of his mouth, than the devoted wretch is put to death ;
for his guilt cannot be doubted, alter the oracle has pio-
nounced his doom.
On this island was seen the figure of a man constructed
of basket work, rudely made, but not ill designed: it was
something more than seven feet high, and rather too bulky
in proportion to its height. This wicker skeleton was
completely covered with feathers, which were white
where the skin was to appear, and black in the parts
which it is their custom to paint or stain, as well as upon
the head, which was designed to represent hair. Upon
the head also were four protuberances, three in trout,
and one behind, which the Indians called tate cte, little
men. The image was called Manioc; it was a repre¬
sentation of Mauwey one of their Eatuas, or gods ot the
second class, and was said to be the only one of the kind
on Otaheite.
These people pray at sunrise and sunset. 1 hey have
also a number of superstitious practices, in order to con¬
ciliate the influence of evil genii. E-Tee, a chief,-who
seemed to be the king’s prime minister in 1774, very
seriously asked Mr Forster whether they had a god
(Eatua) in their country, and whether they prayed to
him (epore?) When he' told them that they acknow¬
ledged a divinity who had made every thing, and was
invisible, and that they were accustomed to address their
, petitions to him, he seemed to be highly pleased, and
repeated his words with comments of his own, to several
persons who sat round him •, seeming thereby to intimate,
that the ideas of his countrymen corresponded with theirs
in this respect.
The morais are used both as burying-grounds and
places of worship ; they are approached with the most
wonderful expressions of reverence and humility j and
this, it should seem, not because any thing there is
esteemed sacred, but because they there worship an in¬
visible being, for whom they entertain the most reVe
rential respect, , although not excited by the hope ot
reward or the dread of punishment. Though they do
not appear to have any visible object ot worship, yet,
says Captain Cook, this island, and indeed the rest that
lie near it, have a particular bird, some a heron, and
others a king’s-fisher, to which they pay a particular
regard, and concerning which they have some super¬
stitious notions, respecting good or bad fortune, as we
have of the swallow and robin redbreast, and will on
no account, molest or kill them. One ot these ceme¬
teries, or places of worship, was known to Captain
Cook, on his first voyage, by the name of Tootahah’s
morai, then the regent *, but when, on his second voy¬
age, after the death of that chief, he called it by that
name, Maratata, a chief that accompanied the party,
interrupted him, intimating, that it was no longer
Tootahah’s after his death, but was then known as
O-Too’s morai, the then reigning prince. A fine mo¬
ral for princes ! daily reminding them of mortality
whilst they live, and teaching them, that after death
they cannot call even that ground their own which their
dead corpse occupies! The chief and his wife, on passing
by it, took their upper garments from their shoulders.
From hence it would seem, that the royal family have a
particular morai, and that it always bears the name of Oukit*.
the reigning prince. ^
An Indian who had snatched away a musket from a^^,
sentry whilst on duty, was, by the inhumanity of a mid- e a*
shipman who commanded the guard, pursued and shot.
The unhappy late of this poor fellow gave an opportu¬
nity for seeing the manner in which these people treat
their dead. They placed the corpse in the open air till
the bones became quite dry : a shed was erected close
by the house where the deceased had resided j it was
about 15 feet long, and 11 broad j one end was left
quite open ; the other end, and the two sides, were
partly inclosed with a sort of wicker-work. The bier
was a frame of wood, like that on which the sea-beds,
called cots, are placed, with a matted bottom, and sup¬
ported by four posts, at the height of about four feet
from the ground. The body was covered first^with a
mat, and then with white cloth by the side of it lay a
wooden mace, one of their weapons of war •, and near
the head of it, which lay next to the close end of
the shed, lay two cocoa-nut shells; at the other end a
bunch of green leaves, with some dried twigs, all tied
together, were stuck in the ground, by which lay a stone
about as big as a cocoa-nut. Near these lay one of the
young plantain-leaves thatare used foremblemsof peace,
and close by it a stone axe. At the open end of the shed,
also hung, in several strings, a great number of palm
nuts } and without the shed was stuck up in the ground
a stem of a plantain tree, about six feet high, upon the
top of which was placed a cocoa-nut shell full of fresh
water j against the side of one of the posts hung a small
bag, containing a few pieces of bread-fruit ready roasted,
which had not been put in all at one time, some being fresh
and others stale. This minute examination of their man¬
ner of treating their dead, seemed to be very unwelcome
to the natives. The food so placed by the corpse is de¬
signed as an offering to their gods. They cast in, near
the body, small pieces of cloth, on which the tears and
blood of the mourners have been shed ; for in their pa¬
roxysms of grief it is an universal custom, to wound them¬
selves with a shark’s tooth. The mourner is always a
man ; and he is dressed in a very singular habit. When
the bones are strippedof their flesh, and become dry, they
are buried. This regard to their dead is very remarkable:
one of the ship’s company happening to pull a flower from
a tree which grew on one of their sepulchral inclosures,
an Indian came suddenly behind him and struck him
and a party of sailors, who were sent to get some stones
for ballast for the ship, had like to have been embroiled
bv the natives, by pulling down some part of an inclosure
of this kind. This shed under which their dead are laid
is called tupapow; the inclosure in which their bones are.
deposited is called morai; these latter, as has been already
related, are also places of worship. As soon as a native
of Otaheite is known to be dead, the house is filled with
relations, who deplore their loss j some by lound lamen¬
tations, and some by less clamorous, but more genuine
expressions of grief. Those who are in the nearest de¬
cree of kindred, and are really affected by the event,
are silent; the rest arc one moment uttering passionate
exclamations in a chores, and the next laughing and
talking without the least appearance of concern. In
this manner the remainder of the day on which they
assemble is spent, and all the succeeding night. Un the
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