- end_line
- 7828
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7765
- text
- is so desirous his conduct should meet with unqualified approbation,
that he inquires of each individual separately whether under existing
circumstances he has not done perfectly right in shutting up Moa Artua.
The invariable response is ‘Aa, Aa’ (yes, yes), repeated over again
and again in a manner which ought to quiet the scruples of the most
conscientious. After a few moments Kolory brings forth his doll again,
and while arraying it very carefully in the tappa and red cloth,
alternately fondles and chides it. The toilet being completed, he once
more speaks to it aloud. The whole company hereupon show the greatest
interest; while the priest holding Moa Artua to his ear interprets to
them what he pretends the god is confidentially communicating to him.
Some items intelligence appear to tickle all present amazingly; for one
claps his hands in a rapture; another shouts with merriment; and a third
leaps to his feet and capers about like a madman.
What under the sun Moa Artua on these occasions had to say to Kolory
I never could find out; but I could not help thinking that the former
showed a sad want of spirit in being disciplined into making those
disclosures, which at first he seemed bent on withholding. Whether the
priest honestly interpreted what he believed the divinity said to him,
or whether he was not all the while guilty of a vile humbug, I shall
not presume to decide. At any rate, whatever as coming from the god
was imparted to those present seemed to be generally of a complimentary
nature: a fact which illustrates the sagacity of Kolory, or else the
timeserving disposition of this hardly used deity.
Moa Artua having nothing more to say, his bearer goes to nursing
him again, in which occupation, however, he is soon interrupted by a
question put by one of the warriors to the god. Kolory hereupon snatches
it up to his ear again, and after listening attentively, once more
officiates as the organ of communication. A multitude of questions and
answers having passed between the parties, much to the satisfaction of
those who propose them, the god is put tenderly to bed in the trough,
and the whole company unite in a long chant, led off by Kolory. This
ended, the ceremony is over; the chiefs rise to their feet in high good
humour, and my Lord Archbishop, after chatting awhile, and regaling
himself with a whiff or two from a pipe of tobacco, tucks the canoe
under his arm and marches off with it.
The whole of these proceedings were like those of a parcel of children
playing with dolls and baby houses.
For a youngster scarcely ten inches high, and with so few early
advantages as he doubtless had had, Moa Artua was certainly a precocious
little fellow if he really said all that was imputed to him; but for
what reason this poor devil of a deity, thus cuffed about, cajoled, and
shut up in a box, was held in greater estimation than the full-grown
and dignified personages of the Taboo Groves, I cannot divine. And yet
Mehevi, and other chiefs of unquestionable veracity--to say nothing of
the Primate himself--assured me over and over again that Moa Artua was
the tutelary deity of Typee, and was more to be held in honour than a
whole battalion of the clumsy idols in the Hoolah Hoolah grounds.
Kory-Kory--who seemed to have devoted considerable attention to the
study of theology, as he knew the names of all the graven images in the
valley, and often repeated them over to me--likewise entertained some
rather enlarged ideas with regard to the character and pretensions of
Moa Artua. He once gave me to understand, with a gesture there was no
misconceiving, that if he (Moa Artua) were so minded he could cause a
cocoanut tree to sprout out of his (Kory-Kory’s) head; and that it
would be the easiest thing in life for him (Moa Artua) to take the whole
island of Nukuheva in his mouth and dive down to the bottom of the sea
with it.
- title
- Chunk 7