Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

—EQUATORIAL POLYNESIA. 479supreme.This law of taboo, which regulated all movements and everj' individualact, often pressed hard even on its promulgators, and the terrible penalties itenforced against the contumacious certainly contributed to increase the ferocity ofthe oceanic populations. Almost the only punishment was death, and humansacrifices in honour of the gods were the crowning religious rite. In some placesthe victims were baked on the altars, and their flesh wrapped in taro leaves wasdistributed amongst the warriors.Yet despite the little value attached to human life, the death of adult men gaverise to much mourning and solemn obsequies. Nor was this respect for the departedan empty cereinonial, for the ancestors of the Polynesians were raised to the rankFig-. 211.Religions cf Oceania.W...^-''''A/.^S;''OO- MfMohammcdaDS.Protestants,Catholics more than ProteBtants. ProteBtantsthan Catholics.1,800 Miles.of gods, taking their place with those wbo burled the thunderbolt and stirred upthe angry waters. A certain victorious hero thus became the God of War, and hadto be propitiated with supplications. But the common folk and captives were heldto be " soulless," although a spirit was attributed to nearly all natural objects.But for about half a century nearly all the Polynesians have practised someform of Christianity. The work of conversion was begun in 1797 by the establislimentof the Protestant station at Tahiti, whence the missionaries gradually spreadtheir influence throughout Pol)'nesia. They were followed by the Catholics, whothough less numerous and possessing smaller revenues, have everywhere madeproselytes ; in some places, and cspeciallj' in the French possessions, they evenalready outnumber the Protestants. Civil strife has often been stirre.d up by thefriction of the rival religions.Where the priests hold undisputed sway theocratic