Having given the best account I can of the manners and Customs of these people, it will be expected that I s_^^hould give some account of their Religion: which is a thing I have learnt so little of that I hardly dare touch upon it, and should have pass'd it over in silance was it not my duty as well as inclination to insert in this Journal every and the least knowledge _^ ^{I may} obtain of a people who have for many centuries _^ ^have been shut _^ ^up from _^ ^almost every other part of the world. They believe that theer is one Supreme God whome they call

From him sprung a number of other inferior Deities _^ ^{Eatuas as they call them}    these they think preside over them and intermeddle in their affairs   to these they offer oblations such as Hogs, Dogs, Fish, Fruit &C^a and invoke them on some particular occasions as in times of real or apparrent danger the seting out of a long Voyage sickness &C^a but the ceremonies made use on these occasions I know not.   the Mories which we at first thought were berrying places are wholy built for places of Worship and for the performing of religious ceremo[n]ies in. The Viands are laid upon Altars erected 8. 10. or 12 [feet] high by stout posts and the table of the Altar on which the Viands lay is generaly made of Palm leaves.   they are not always in the Mories but very often at some distance from them.   their Mories as well as the tombs of the dead they seem to hold sacred and the women never enter the former whatever they may do the latter. The Viands laid near the tombs of the dead are from what I can learn not for the deceased but as an offering to the Eatua made upon that occasion   who if not would distroy the body and not except of the Soul for they believe of a future state of rewards and punishments.    but what their

Voyaging Accounts