 missionaries have favoured us. Did not
the sacred character of these persons render the purity of their intentions
unquestionable, I should certainly be led to suppose that they had exaggerated
the evils of Paganism, in order to enhance the merit of their own disinterested
labours.
    In a certain work incidentally treating of the »Washington, or Northern
Marquesas Islands,« I have seen the frequent immolation of human victims upon
the altars of their gods, positively and repeatedly charged upon the
inhabitants. The same work gives also a rather minute account of their religion
- enumerates a great many of their superstitions - and makes known the
particular designations of numerous orders of the priesthood. One would almost
imagine from the long list that is given of cannibal primates, bishops,
archdeacons, prebendaries, and other inferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal
order far outnumbered the rest of the population, and that the poor natives were
more severely priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states. These
accounts are likewise calculated to leave upon the reader's mind an impression
that human victims are daily cooked and served up upon the altars; that
heathenish cruelties of every description are continually practised; and that
these ignorant Pagans are in a state of the extremest wretchedness in
consequence of the grossness of their superstitions. Be it observed, however,
that all this information is given by a man who, according to his own statement,
was only at one of the islands and remained there but two weeks, sleeping every
night on board his ship, and taking little kid-glove excursions ashore in the
daytime, attended by an armed party.
    Now, all I can say is, that in all my excursions through the valley of
Typee, I never saw any of these alleged enormities. If any of them are practised
upon the Marquesas Islands, they must certainly have come to my knowledge while
living for months with a tribe of savages, wholly unchanged from their original
primitive condition, and reputed the most ferocious in the South Seas.
    The fact is, that there is a vast deal of unintentional humbuggery in some
of the accounts we have from scientific men concerning the religious
institutions of Polynesia. These learned tourists generally obtain the greater
part of their information from the retired old South Sea rovers, who have
domesticated themselves among the barbarous tribes of the Pacific. Jack, who has
long been accustomed to the long-bow, and to spin tough yarns on a ship's
forecastle, invariably officiates as showman of the island on which he has
settled, and having mastered a few dozen words of the language, is supposed to
know all about the people who speak
