The Morai or Places of Worship are Oblong Square pieces of Ground planted thick with trees, and inclosed by a Wall of Stone some 4, 5, & 6 feet High and as much thick; some are piles of Stone rising in large Steps and are Built solid and Firm and the largest in Taheite is at Papaara — See Captain Cooks Voyage, he having given an Account of it I need not here Further describe it. ²³

They are of different dimentions, and are built without Mortar, in the Center is a table or Altar on which they make their Offerings, and on one end a House for the reception of the Priests, when they Come to offer sacrifice and Feast on the Morai.

In one of these Morais, which is their Grand and principal one, and Is in the district of Oparre they keep a Movable one somthing similar to the Ark of the Jews, and which is the occasion of as many quarrels as it formerly was. This Morai is calld Tabbootebooa taya’ thus translated ’Sacrafice the White hog’, and is the place to which evry Chief on the Island, and those who are subject to them on Other Islands, must repair to offer their sacrafices, as they think it the only residence of the Deity on Earth.

This Movable Morai is a Box about 3 feet long 2 feet wide and one deep in which is kept the Three Deitys or rather the Images to represent them, as they are only for the purpose of remembrancers and are not Worshipd. Nevertheless they bear the Names of the Deitys. On the top of this Box is raised several peices of rude Carved work on the tops of which are represented Birds with extended Wings, as the Deity is fond of Birds and makes use of them to come on Earth in — and the whole is decorated with bunches of Red & Yellow feathers, which to them are as Valuable as Gold. This, with a Movable House which is part of the Morai and Fix’ed on a stand together, is Calld (Effarre attooa) ’the House of God’; they are Screend in and kept Covered with the best Cloth the Island produces, painted in different Collours and Here also is kept the Royal Marro &c. and none must approach, but the Priests on pain of Death, and even they are obliged to divest themselves of their Cloaths to the Waist, whenever they enter a Morai and when they enter the Farre Eatooa they strip Naked leaving their own Cloaths outside, and while there they Cover their Nakedness with Cloathing belonging to the sacred place, which they pull off at their return leaving them there, and resume their own.

Indigenous Histories