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[Page 480]

Manners & Customs of the South Sea Islands

& always furnish'd with a small offering of some kind of Eatables intended for the God he begins by adressing the God by a set form of sentences & during the time he repeats them employs himself in weaving Cocoa nut leaves into different forms all which he disposes upon the Grave where the bones have been deposited. The Deity is then adressed by a shrill scritch usd only on that occasion & the offering presented to his representative the little tuft of feathers which after this is removd & every thing else left in statu quo, to the no small Emolument of the Rats who quickly devour the offering

Religion has been in ages is still in all Countreys Cloak'd in mysteries unexplicable to human understanding in the South Sea Islands it has still another disadvantage to present to any one who has a desire to investigate it The Language in which it is conveyd at least many words of it are different from those usd in common conversation so that tho Tupia often shewd the greatest desire to instruct us in it
 

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