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Updated: June 25, 2025
Again the tents were pitched beside the Morai under the cocoanut groves. Again the wand was drawn round the tenting place; but the white men had taught the savages that the taboo was no longer sacred. Where thousands had welcomed the ships before, not a soul now appeared. Not a canoe cut the waters. Not a voice broke the silence of the bay. The sailors were sour; Cook, angry.
I have already given a very particular description both of the morais and the altars that are placed near them. When an Indian is about to worship at the morai, or brings his offering to the altar, he always uncovers his body to the waist, and his looks and attitude are such as sufficiently express a corresponding disposition of mind.
A white gunner, who died, was buried within the sacred enclosure of the Morai. The natives loaded the white men's boats with provisions. In ten days the wan, gaunt sailors were so sleek and fat that even the generous entertainers had to laugh at the transformation.
Continuing their voyage, they came to a district belonging to Oberea, and were entertained at her house, which, though small, was very neat. Not far from it they saw an enormous pile, which they were told was the morai of Oamo and Oberea, literally their burying-place and temple.
Chief among the visitors to the ship was Koah, a little, old, emaciated, shifty-eyed priest with a wry neck and a scaly, leprous skin, who at once led the small boats ashore, driving the throngs back with a magic wand and drawing a mystic circle with his wizard stick round a piece of ground near the Morai, or burying-place, where the white men could erect their tents beside the cocoanut groves.
Our walk was very much interrupted by a river, the course of which was so serpentine that we had to cross it several times, being carried over on men's shoulders. On arriving at a Morai I saw a number of the natives collected and was informed that the priests were performing their devotions.
This was performed by an offering of a plantain leaf at the Morai, and a prayer made to the Eatua. After this ceremony the house was resorted to by the natives as usual.
They said the house was taboo, which I understand to signify interdicted, and that none of them might approach it till the taboo was taken off, which could only be done by Tinah. To take anything away from a Morai is regarded as a kind of sacrilege and, they believe, gives great offence to the Eatua. At my request Tinah took off the taboo, but not before the afternoon.
They brought on board a third chief, once a warrior, now a priest, named Koah, a little old man of emaciated figure, his red eyes and scaly skin showing he was a hard drinker of cava. Not far from the shore was a temple, or morai. It was a square, solid pile of stones, about forty yards long, twenty broad, and fourteen in height.
The Voyages say: The morai consisted of an enormous pile of stone work, raised in the form of a pyramid with a flight of steps on each side, and was nearly two hundred and seventy feet long, about one-third as wide, and between forty and fifty feet high.
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