7]

[146] Baessler, _op. cit._ p. 234.

[147] Baessler, _op. cit._ pp. 193 _sq._

On the other hand, ghosts in the olden time had also their utility, for
they could be summoned up by a priest or priestess to give information
on various subjects, such as the issue of an illness. On these occasions
the wizard would hold a conversation with the spirit, whose voice could
be heard by the listeners, though his or her shape, as usual, was
invisible in the darkness. Sceptics thought that such communications
were made by means of ventriloquism, and indeed a priestess, who had
professed to evoke the soul of a dead chieftainess, solemnly maintained
that she could make the voice of anybody, whether dead or alive, to
speak from her stomach.[148]

[148] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 227-238.

In such beliefs and customs are contained as in germ the whole theory
and practice of the worship of the dead.

NOTE.--We possess no thorough account of the native Marquesan society
and religion as these existed before they were transformed by European
influence. Some of the writers who have described the islanders and
their customs spent only a few days or at most a few weeks among them.
Captain Cook was at the Marquesas only five days, from the 6th to the
11th of April 1774.[149] The French explorer Marchand spent eight days
in the islands from the 13th to the 21st of June 1791.[150] The Russian
explorers Krusenstern and Lisiansky were with their two ships, the
_Nadeshda_ and _Neva_, at Nukahiva for ten days, from the 7th to the
17th of May 1804; along with them was the naturalist Langsdorff, who
wrote an independent account of the voyage.[151] But though their stay
was short, they had the advantage of meeting with two Europeans, an
Englishman named E. Roberts, and a Frenchman named Jean (or Joseph)
Baptiste Cabri, who had lived long in the islands and spoke the native
language. These men acted as interpreters to the Russians and supplied
them with most of the information which they give in their books
concerning the customs and beliefs of the Marquesans. Roberts told them
that he had been seven years in Nukahiva and two years previously in
Santa Christina (Tau-ata); that he had been put ashore on the latter
island out of an English merchant ship, the crew of which had mutinied
against their captain and could not prevail upon him to join their
party; and that in Nukahiva he had lately married a relation of the
king's, by which he