ing, naturally led the Society Islanders,
like so many other peoples of the world, to propitiate these powerful
beings, to sue their favour, or to appease their anger by prayer and
sacrifice, in short, to worship them. On this subject the first
missionaries to these islanders tell us that, in addition to the greater
gods, "for general worship they have an inferior race, a kind of _dii
penates_. Each family has its _tee_ or guardian spirit: he is supposed
to be one of their departed relatives, who, for his superior
excellences, has been exalted into an _eatooa_ (_atua_). They suppose
this spirit can inflict sickness or remove it, and preserve them from a
malignant deity who also bears the name _tee_, and is always employed in
mischief."[247] "Every family has its _tee_, or guardian spirit, whom
they set up, and worship at the _morai_."[248] "They regard the spirits
of their ancestors, male and female, as exalted into _eatooas_ (_atuas_)
and their favour to be secured by prayers and offerings. Every sickness
and untoward accident they esteem as the hand of judgment for some
offence committed."[249] As for the mischievous spirit who bore the same
name as the worshipful spirit of a dead ancestor, the missionaries say
that "the evil demon named _Tee_ has no power but upon earth; and this
he exercises by getting into them with their food, and causing madness
or other diseases; but these they imagine their tutelar saints, if
propitious, can prevent or remove."[250]

[247] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 344.

[248] T. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 343.

[249] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 345. "The general name for deity,
in all its ramifications, is _eatooa_" (_id._ p. 343).

[250] J. Wilson, p. 346.

We may suspect that the missionaries were mistaken in thus sharply
distinguishing between an "evil demon" and a "tutelar saint," both of
whom went by the same name (_tee_). Probably the "evil demon" and the
"tutelar saint" were alike supposed to be souls of dead persons, with
this difference between them, that whereas the one had been good and
beneficent in his life, the other had been bad and maleficent; for it
is a common belief that the dead retain in the other world the character
and disposition which they manifested on earth, and that accordingly as
disembodied spirits they may benefit or injure their surviving
relatives.[251] Thus according to his character and behaviour in this
present state of existence a person's g