mission in Jamaica in the year 1764, which soon was branched out into several missions, on account of the distance of the places from one to another. In each of these parts the gospel is preached to the negro slaves in the English language, and they are embodied into the christian church by baptism. On the island of Barbadoes the Moravians have a negro church a few miles from Bridgetown, but preach, as in Antigua, upon several plantations. This mission was begun in the year 1767.* CUBA AND HISPANIOLA. The predominant religion of the inhabitants of these islands is the Roman Catholic. MARTINICO. The prevailing religion in this and the other islands belonging to France is the Roman Catholic. LATE DISCOVERED ISLANDS. OTAHEITE, And the other Society Islands, Friendly Islands, Sandwich Islands, &c. The inhabitants of these, and the other islands lately discovered in the South Sea, in general acknowledge an almighty invisible Lord and Creator of the universe, who executed the various parts of the creation by various subordinate powerful beings. They are of opinion that he is good and omniscient, that he sees and hears all human actions, and is the giver of all good gifts. They feel their own wants, and therefore apply for redress to the supreme Being, and offer him, with grateful hearts, the best gifts of their lands. They acknowledge to have a being within their bodies who sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels, which they call eteehee; and they believe that after the dissolution of the body, it hovers about the corpse, and at last retires into the wooden representations of human bodies, erected near the burying places. They are convinced of the certainty of a happy life in the sun, where they shall feast on bread-fruit, and meat which requires no dressing: and they think it their duty to direct their prayers to this supreme divinity, or Eatoóa-Rahai. Those who have leisure among these people are very desirous of learning what is known relative to this and all other inferior divinities, and to practise such virtues, as by the general consent of mankind, constitute Hurd's History of Religious Rites and Ceremonies, good actions. These are briefly the general outlines of their religious worship. have all their peculiar employment. The great god lives in the sun, and is thought to be the cause of earthquakes. They have one inferior genius, or divinity, of a malignant disposition, residing near the morai, or burying places, and in or near the chest including the heads of their deceased friends, each of which is called the house of the evil genius. The people are of opinion, that when a priest invocates this evil genius, he will kill, by a sudden death, the person on whom they intend to bring down the vengeance of this divinity. They have another inferior divinity who had the same power of killing men, with this difference only, that he was not addressed by prayer, but is only worshipped by hissing. This last kind of genius. is called Tee-hee: this, they say, is the being which hears, smells, tastes, and feels, within us, and after death exists se The name Eatoòa admits a very great latitude in its interpretation. However, they admit a being whom they call Eatooa-rahai, which is the supreme deity above all. Each of the islands surrounding Otaheite has its principal god, or tutelar deity. This is always the divinity whom the high priest of each isle addresses in his prayer, at the grand morai of the prince of the island. The great deity they think to be the prime cause of all divine and human beings; and suppose the inferior deities, and even mankind, are descended from him and another being of the female sex; and in this respect they call the great deity Ta-rou-tiay Etömou, the great pro-creating stem; but his wife is not of the same nature with him. They imagine a co-existing hard substance necessary, parately from the body, but which they called O-te-pa-pa. lives near burying places, and These pro-created O-hee-naà, hovers round the corpse of the goddess who created the their friends; and is likewise moon, and presides in the an object of their reverence, black cloud which appears in though addressed only by hissthat luminary; Te-whetto-ma- ing. These Tee-hees are liketa-rai, the creator of the stars; wise feared: for, according to Qo-már-rico, the god and cre- their belief, they creep during ator of the seas; and Orre-orre, night into the houses, and eat who is god of the winds. But the heart and entrails of the the sea is under the direction people sleeping therein, and of thirteen divinities, who this causes their death.* Foster's Geographical Observations, pp. 333, 334. The inhabitants of these islands honour their divinities by prayers, by denominating a certain order of men to offer up these prayers, by setting apart certain days for religious worship, by consecrating certain places for that purpose, and by offering human sacrifices to the god of war.* They preserve a condemned malefactor, of an inferior class, for a sacrifice, provided they are not possessed of a prisoner of war. The Otaheiteans, and the other islanders, prepare those oblations on their morais. We have plain proofs that the Otaheiteans have notions of a metempsychosis.† The deities of Otaheite are nearly as numerous as the persons of the inhabitants. Every family has its tee, or guardian spirit, whom they set up and worship at the morai; but they have a great god, or gods of a superior order, de nominated Fwhanow Po, or born of night. The general name for deity, in all its ramifications, is eatooa. Three are held supreme, standing in a height of celestial dignity that no others can approach unto; and the names are personal appellations; viz. Tane te Medòòa, the Father; Oromattow, Tooa tee te Myde, God in the Son; Taroa, Mànnoo te Hood, the Bird, the Spirit. To these, the dii majores, they only address their prayers in times of greatest distress, supposing them to be too highly exalted to be troubled with matters of less moment than the illness of a chief, storms, devastations, war, or any great calamity. For general worship they have a kind of dü penates. Each family has its guardian spirit, who is supposed to be. one of their departed relatives, who, for his superior excellencies, has been exalted to an Eatooa. They suppose this spirit can inflict sickness, or remove it, and preserve them from a malignant deity, who is always employed in mischief. With regard to their worship, it is observed that there appears no instances of an Otaheitean drawing near the Eatòò with carelessness and inattention; he is all devotion, he approaches the place of worship with reverential awe, uncovers when he treads on sacred ground, and prays with a fervour which would do honour to a better profession. The assiduity which the Otaheiteans discover in serving their gods, is so remarkably conspicuous, that not only the whattas, or offering places of Foster's Geographical Observations, pp. 333, 334. the morais, are commonly loaded with fruits and animals, but there are few houses where you do not meet with a small place of the same sórt near them. Many of them are so rigidly scrupulous, that they will not eat a meal without first laying aside a morsel for the Eatoòa. Their human sacrifices are supposed to be frequent. They imagine that their punctual performance of religious offices prepares for them every temporal blessing. They believe that the animating and powerful influence of the divine Spirit is every where diffused; and that sudden deaths, and all accidents, are effected by the immediate action of some divinity.t * Missionaries have of late been sent from England, for the purpose of converting the natives of the South-Sea islands to the christian religion. The ship in which they embarked was navigated by Captain Wilson, who devoted his life and labours to the service, renouncing all reward but the inestimable one of conducting what he supposed so glorious an undertaking. His first object was to visit Otaheite and the Society Islands, and leave a number of missionaries. Capt. Wilson, in a letter to the society for propagating the gospel, dated 1797, gave an account of their safe arrival and kind reception in several of the islands. After a voyage of more than fifty thousand miles, the whole body of missionaries were landed in the places of their several destinations in perfect health, and the ship returned without the least material loss or damage. The ship Duff, which performed so successfully the former voyage to the SouthSea islands, set sail again in 1798 for the same missionary purposes. The ship was captured in its passage by the Grand Bonaparte, a French privateer; and intelligence has been received, that after Cap *In Otaheite, on certain solemn days, the priest enters the temple, or morai, and after staying some time returns, and informs the people that the deity demands a human sacrifice; he then indicates the person, who is immediately seized and killed. Gregory's Historical and Moral Essays. + Cook's Last Voyage. Captain Wilson had been a disbeliever of the truth of revelation in the early part of his life; but he became a zealous advocate for christianity, was deeply interested in the success of the missionaries, and cheerfully agreed to leave his native country, and embark for the South-Sea islands, in order to spread the knowledge of the gospel among the inhabitants. He took an active part in the preparations for the voyage, sought out and purchased a proper vessel, engaged the mariners, and forwarded every thing in his department. See Haweis's Church History, vol. iii. p. 400. Qqq tain Wilson left Otaheite, a number of the natives of that island concerted an insurrection, in consequence of which the married missionaries who were stationed there were determined to depart, and embarked for Fort Jackson, in New Holland. Nine brethren were left to labour in the missionary work at Tongataboo, and seven at Otaheite. The missionaries who remained at Otaheite were safe and well in September, 1798, six months after the brethren had left them. 1 It was resolved by the London Missionary Society, in 1799, to continue the mission to the South Seas; and the Royal Admiral going to Fort Jackson with convicts, is, we hear, to carry out a body, not exceeding thirty missionaries, to Tongataboo and Otaheite, to strengthen the mission in these islands, and prepare to visit the Sandwich islands, and the Marquesas. It appears from the Missionary Magazine, published March 8. 1800, that the Royal Admiral was then under sailing orders at Deptford, and would, on the first favourable wind proceed to Portsmouth, to take on board the missionaries intended for the South Seas, and the remaining part of the convicts to Botany Bay.* NEW PHILIPPINE, OR CAROLINE ISLANDS The inhabitants of these islands have an idea of the immortality of the soul, and a state wherein the good are rewarded, and the wicked punished. From time to time they repose near their graves fruits and other eatables, that, according to their opinion, the deceased may suck them; for they suppose the souls who are gone to heaven return on the fourth day, and live invisible among their friends and relations. Their souls are looked upon as good genii, and in every undertaking they are addressed for assistance and success, the priests being supposed to have an intercourse with them. It is observed, though they have no knowledge of a Maker of heaven and earth, they however acknowledge a great and good Spirit, who is the Lord of heaven, to whom many good and evil spirits are subordinate. Those spirits are celestial beings, different from those who inhabit the earth. They have a body, and marry (in the style of their chiefs) more than one wife. They suppose that one of their deities descended from heaven, and *Missionary Magazine. |