tely roasted two
little pigs and carried them to the tomb of her father as an offering to
appease his ghost, which might reasonably be supposed to fret at the
mere thought of being trodden under foot by his own daughter.[69] This
instructive example shows how closely the taboo was associated with the
fear and worship of the dead; by bestowing the name of a dead person on
a thing you rendered the thing inviolate, since thereby you placed it
under the immediate protection of the ghost.

[69] Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 68.

Among the multitude of taboos which were religiously observed by the
Marquesans it is perhaps possible to detect a trace of totemism. Thus
the sting ray fish was taboo to the tribe of Houmis. Not only would they
not eat the fish, but they fled in horror if it were even shown to them.
Their horror was explained by a tradition that once on a time a great
chief of the tribe had been out fishing with his people, when a gigantic
sting ray upset their canoes and gobbled them all up.[70] This aversion
to eating and even looking at a certain species of animal, together with
a traditionary explanation based on an incident in the past history of
the tribe, is very characteristic of totemism.

[70] Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 67 _sq._

Sec. 7. _Religion and Mythology_

The consideration of taboo introduces us to the subject of religion;
for, on the one hand, the foregoing evidence tends to establish a
connexion between the institution of taboo and the doctrine of the human
soul, and on the other hand some of our best authorities on the
Marquesans have stated that the taboo was believed to be an expression
of the will of the gods conveyed to the people through the mouth of a
priest.[71] The definition may be accepted, if under gods we include the
spirits of the dead, who were worshipped by the Marquesans and lent
their sanction, as we have just seen, to the taboo.

[71] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 258;
Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 48; Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 153;
Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 65.

The Marquesan term for a god was the usual Polynesian word _atua_ or, as
it is sometimes spelled, _etua_. But their notion of divinity, as
commonly happens, was vague. One of the earliest writers on their
religion, the Russian navigator Krusenstern, informs us that "a confused
notion of a higher being, whom they call _Etua_, does indeed exist among
them, but of these there are several kinds