Note 24 — Chapter IX · A SKETCH OF THE SAMOAN MISSION—THE REV. JOHN WILLIAMS DETERMINES TO VISIT THE NAVIGATOR’S ISLES—PRELIMINARY WORK IN THE HERVEY GROUP—DISCOVERY OF RAROTONGA—CONVERSION OF ITS PEOPLE—THEY HELP WILLIAMS TO BUILD A SHIP WHICH SHALL CONVEY HIM TO SAMOA—VISIT TONGA—PROCEED TO SAMOA—OVERTHROW OF IDOLATRY—REVERENCE FOR OLD MATS—WILLIAMS’S GRAVE AT APIA.

Notably one dug out of the peat-moss at Ballachulish, now in the Antiquarian Museum in Edinburgh; and those in the Museum at Hull; also those in the Berlin Museum. All these have the eyes formed of quartz pebbles, instead of the bits of pearly shell or of obsidian used in the manufacture of idols in the Pacific.

The stone gods also had their counterparts in our own isles. When Dr Turner visited the Union or Tokelau Isles in 1850, he found that the great god, Tui Tokelau, was supposed to be embodied in a rude stone, which was carefully wrapped up in fine mats, and never seen by any human eyes save those of the king, who is also the high priest. Even he might only look upon the sacred stone once a year, when the old mats were removed and new ones supplied. Of course constant exposure in all weather, day and night, soon decayed the mats; but the worshippers continually offered new ones, especially in cases of sickness, and these were wrapped round the idol, so that, ere the day came round for its disrobing, it attained a prodigious size. The old mats were considered so sacred that none might touch them; so they were laid in a place apart, and there left to rot. The month of May was especially devoted to the worship of this god, and the people assembled from all the Tokelau isles to hold a great feast in its honour, and to pray for prosperity and health, and especially for an abundant supply of fish and cocoa-nuts.

Now turn from the Pacific to the North Atlantic, and read a statement by the Earl of Roden, in his ‘Progress of the Reformation in Ireland.’ He says:—

“In the south island—i.e., Inniskea, off the coast of Mayo—in the house of a man named Monigan, a stone idol, called in the Irish Neevougi, has been, from time immemorial, religiously preserved and worshipped. This god resembles in appearance a thick roll of home-spun flannel, which arises from the custom of dedicating a dress of that material to it whenever its aid is sought; this is sewn on by an old woman, its priestess, whose peculiar care it is. Of the early history of this idol no authentic information can be procured, but its power is believed to be immense. They pray to it in time of sickness; it is invoked when a storm is desired to dash some hapless ship upon their coast; and again, the exercise of its power is solicited in calming the angry waves to admit of fishing or visiting the mainland.”

It scarcely seems possible, does it, to realise that our own ancestors were as gross idolaters as any South Sea Islanders? Yet in the majority of these isles the present generation have never seen an idol of any sort; and should they ever visit our museums, they would gaze on the gods of their own fathers as wonderingly as we do on those of the early Britons.