 Moa Artua was certainly a precocious little fellow, if
he really said all that was imputed to him; but for what reason this poor devil
of a deity, thus cuffed about, cajoled, and shut up in a box, was held in
greater estimation than the full-grown and dignified personages of the Taboo
groves, I cannot divine. And yet Mehevi, and other chiefs of unquestionable
veracity - to say nothing of the Primate himself - assured me over and over
again that Moa Artua was the tutelary deity of Typee, and was more to be held in
honour than a whole battalion of the clumsy idols in the hoolah-hoolah grounds.
Kory-Kory - who seemed to have devoted considerable attention to the study of
theology, as he knew the names of all the graven images in the valley, and often
repeated them over to me - likewise entertained some rather enlarged ideas with
regard to the character and pretensions of Moa Artua. He once gave me to
understand, with a gesture there was no misconceiving, that if he (Moa Artua)
were so minded, he could cause a cocoa-nut tree to sprout out of his
(Kory-Kory's) head; and that it would be the easiest thing in life for him (Moa
Artua) to take the whole island of Nukuheva in his mouth, and dive down to the
bottom of the sea with it.
    But, in sober seriousness, I hardly knew what to make of the religion of the
valley. There was nothing that so much perplexed the illustrious Cook, in his
intercourse with the South Sea islanders, as their sacred rites. Although this
prince of navigators was in many instances assisted by interpreters in the
prosecution of his researches, he still frankly acknowledges that he was at a
loss to obtain anything like a clear insight into the puzzling arcana of their
faith. A similar admission has been made by other eminent voyagers - by
Carteret, Byron, Kotzebue, and Vancouver.
    For my own part, although hardly a day passed while I remained upon the
island that I did not witness some religious ceremony or other, it was very much
like seeing a parcel of Freemasons making secret signs to each other; I saw
everything, but could comprehend nothing.
    On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the islanders in the Pacific
have no fixed and definite ideas whatever on the subject of religion. I am
persuaded that Kolory himself would be effectually posed were he called upon to
draw up the articles of his faith, and pronounce the creed by which he hoped to
be saved. In truth, the Typees, so far
