led, and he
who got most wounds was believed to have earned the special favour of
the deity. With the completion of the temple the fighting ended, and
ought not to be renewed for a year, till the anniversary of the building
of the temple came round, when the worshippers were again at liberty to
break each other's heads in honour of the divine cuttle-fish.[127]

[126] J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 227 _sq._

[127] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 29 _sq._

At one place in Savaii there was a temple in which a priest constantly
resided. The sick used to be carried to him in the temple and there laid
down with offerings of fine mats. Thereupon the priest stroked the
diseased part, and the patient was supposed to recover.[128] We hear of
another temple in which fine mats were brought as offerings to the
priests and stored up in large numbers among the temple treasures. Thus
in time the temples might have amassed a considerable degree of wealth
and might even, if economic progress had not been arrested by European
intervention, have developed into banks. However, when the people were
converted to Christianity, they destroyed this particular temple and
dissipated the accumulated treasures in a single feast by way of
celebrating their adhesion to the new faith.[129] Where the bat was the
local deity, many bats used to flock about the temple in time of
war.[130] Where the kingfisher received the homage of the people as the
god of war, the old men of the village were wont to enter his temple in
times of public emergency and address the kingfisher; and people outside
could hear the bird replying, though, singularly enough, his voice was
that of a man, and not that of a bird. But as usual the god was
invisible.[131] In one place a temple of the great god Tangaloa was
called "the House of the Gods," and it was carefully shut up all round,
the people thinking that, if this precaution were not taken, the gods
would get out and in too easily and be all the more destructive.[132]
Such a temple might be considered rather as a prison than a house of the
gods.

[128] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 49.

[129] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 55.

[130] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 56 _sq._

[131] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 54 _sq._

[132] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 53.

To the rule that Samoan temples were built of the same perishable
materials as ordinary houses a single exception is known. About ten
miles inland from the harbour of Apia,