s unknown.[67] Food was cooked in ovens of hot stones;[68]
fire was kindled by the friction of wood, the method adopted being what
is called the stick-and-groove process.[69]

[67] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 319;
G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 158; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 146,
149, 154, 159. As to the wooden dibbles, see Ella, _op. cit._ p.
635 (above, p. 166).

[68] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 111 _sq._; G. Brown,
_Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 130.

[69] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 129.

We now pass to a consideration of the religion of these interesting
people, especially in regard to the human soul and its destiny after
death.

Sec. 6. _Religion: Gods of Families, Villages, and Districts_

The first missionary to Samoa, John Williams, was struck by the contrast
between the religion of the Samoans and the religion of the other
Polynesian peoples whom he had studied. "The religious system of the
Samoans," he says, "differs essentially from that which obtained at the
Tahitian, Society, and other islands with which we are acquainted. They
have neither _maraes_, nor temples, nor altars, nor offerings; and,
consequently, none of the barbarous and sanguinary rites observed at the
other groups. In consequence of this, the Samoans were considered an
impious race, and their impiety became proverbial with the people of
Rarotonga; for, when upbraiding a person who neglected the worship of
the gods, they would call him 'a godless Samoan.' But, although
heathenism was presented to us by the Samoans in a dress different from
that in which we had been accustomed to see it, having no altars stained
with human blood, no _maraes_ strewed with the skulls and bones of its
numerous victims, no sacred groves devoted to rites of which brutality
and sensuality were the most obvious features, this people had 'lords
many and gods many';--their religious system was as obviously marked as
any other with absurdity, superstition, and vice."[70]

[70] John Williams, _Narrative of Missionary
Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, pp. 465 _sq._

This account of the Samoan religion, written at a time when the islands
were not yet fully opened up to Europeans, must be modified by the
testimony of later writers, in particular with regard to the alleged
absence of temples and offerings; but in its broad outlines it holds
good, in so far as the Samoan ritual was honourably disti