, pp. 106
_sqq._; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de
Samoa," _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 111; G.
Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 16 _sqq._, 40, 50 _sq._; J. B. Stair, _Old
Samoa_, pp. 211, 216 _sq._; G. Brown, _Melanesians and
Polynesians_, pp. 137, 218. The account of these deities given
by Dr. G. Turner is by far the fullest and best.

[73] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 67 _sq._

[74] W. T. Pritchard, _op. cit._ p. 107. Similarly some
people had pig's heart for their god, or the embodiment of their
god, and they scrupulously avoided eating pigs' hearts lest
pigs' hearts should grow in their bodies and so cause their
death. See G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 72.

However, even if the worst had happened, that is to say, if the deity
had been killed, cooked and eaten, the consequences were not necessarily
fatal to his worshippers; there were modes of redeeming the lives of the
sinners and of expiating their sin. Suppose, for example, that the god
of a household was the cuttle-fish, and that some visitor to the house
had, either in ignorance or in bravado, caught a cuttle-fish and cooked
it, or that a member of the family had been present where a cuttle-fish
was eaten, the family would meet in conclave to consult about the
sacrilege, and they would select one of their number, whether a man or a
woman, to go and lie down in a cold oven and be covered over with
leaves, just as in the process of baking, all to pretend that the person
was being offered up as a burnt sacrifice to avert the wrath of the
deity. While this solemn pretence was being enacted, the whole family
would engage in prayer, saying, "O bald-headed cuttle-fish, forgive what
has been done. It was all the work of a stranger." If they did not thus
abase themselves before the divine cuttle-fish, they believed that the
god would visit them and cause a cuttle-fish to grow internally in their
bodies and so be the death of some of them.[75] Similar modes of
appeasing the wrath of divine eels, mullets, stinging ray fish, turtles,
wild pigeons, and garden lizards were adopted with equal success.[76]

[75] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 31 _sq._

[76] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 38, 58, 59, 69 _sq._, 72.

Apparently the Samoans were even more concerned to defend their village
gods or district gods against injury and insult than to guard the
deities of simple individuals. We are told that all the inhabitants of