the same time a prayer to induce the gods to cleanse the
land from pollution, that it might be as pure as the coral fresh from
the sea. It was now thought safe to abide on the soil and to eat of its
produce, whereas if the ceremony had not been performed, death would
have been, in the opinion of the people, the consequence of partaking of
fruits grown on the defiled land.[138]

[137] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 468.

[138] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 348 _sq._

The temples were sacred. When a man approached one of them to worship or
to bring his offering to the altar, he bared his body to the waist in
sign of reverence and humility.[139] Women in general might not enter a
temple, but when their presence was indispensable for certain
ceremonies, the ground was covered with cloth, on which they walked,
lest they should defile the holy place with their feet.[140] For
example, some six weeks or two months after the birth of a child the
father and mother took the child to a temple, where they both offered
their blood to the gods by cutting their heads with shark's teeth and
allowing the blood to drip on leaves, which they laid on the altar. On
this occasion the husband spread a cloth on the floor of the temple for
his wife to tread upon, for she might not step on the ground or the
pavement.[141] Similarly at marriage bride and bridegroom visited the
family temple (_marae_, _morai_), where the skulls of their ancestors
were brought out and placed before them; but a large white cloth had to
be spread out on the pavement for the bride to walk upon. Sometimes at
these marriage rites the female relatives cut their faces and brows with
shark's teeth, caught the flowing blood on cloth, and deposited the
cloth, sprinkled with the mingled blood of the mothers of the married
pair, at the feet of the bride.[142] At other times the mother of the
bride gashed her own person cruelly with a shark's tooth, and having
filled a coco-nut basin with the blood which flowed from her wounds, she
presented it to the bridegroom, who immediately threw it from him.[143]
While certain festivals were being celebrated at the temples the
exclusion of women from them was still more rigid. Thus in the island of
Huahine, during the celebration of the great annual festival, at which
all the idols of the island were brought from their various shrines to
the principal temple to be clothed with new dresses and ornaments, no
woman was allowed to approac