the living
might have the satisfaction of lying near their departed friends. A
child of high rank having died under the charge of the queen of
Somosomo, the little body was placed in a box and hung from the tie-beam
of the principal temple. For some months afterwards the daintiest food
was brought daily to the dead child, the bearers approaching with the
utmost respect and clapping their hands when the ghost was thought to
have finished his meal just as a chiefs retainers used to do when he had
done eating.[707]

[Sidenote: Worship at the temples.]

Temples were often unoccupied for months and allowed to fall into ruins,
until the chief had some request to make to the god, when the necessary
repairs were first carried out. No regular worship was maintained, no
habitual reverence was displayed at the shrines. The principle of fear,
we are told, seemed to be the only motive of religious observances, and
it was artfully fomented by the priests, through whom alone the people
had access to the gods when they desired to supplicate the favour of the
divine beings. The prayers were naturally accompanied by offerings,
which in matters of importance comprised large quantities of food,
together with whales' teeth; in lesser affairs a tooth, club, mat, or
spear sufficed. Of the food brought by the worshippers part was
dedicated to the god, but as usual he only ate the soul of it, the
substance being consumed by the priest and old men; the remainder
furnished a feast of which all might partake.[708]

[Sidenote: The priests.]

The office of priest (_mbete_, _bete_) was usually hereditary, but when
a priest died without male heirs a cunning fellow, ambitious of enjoying
the sacred character and of living in idleness, would sometimes simulate
the convulsive frenzy, which passed for a symptom of inspiration, and if
he succeeded in the imposture would be inducted into the vacant
benefice. Every chief had his priest, with whom he usually lived on a
very good footing, the two playing into each other's hands and working
the oracle for their mutual benefit. The people were grossly
superstitious, and there were few of their affairs in which the priest
had not a hand. His influence over them was great. In his own district
he passed for the representative of the deity; indeed, according to an
early missionary, the natives seldom distinguished the idea of the god
from that of his minister, who was viewed by them with a reverence that
almos