The Mota people had a certain faith of their own; they believed in a supreme god called Ikpat, who had many brothers, one of whom was something like Loki, in the Northern mythology, always tricking him.  Ikpat had disappeared in a ship, taking the best of everything with him.  It was also believed that the spirits of the dead survived and ranged about at night, maddening all who chanced to meet them; and, like many other darkly coloured people, the Motans had begun by supposing their white visitors to be the ghosts of their deceased friends come to revisit them.

There were a good many other superstitions besides; and a ceremony connected with one of them was going on the second week of the residence at Mota—­apparently a sort of freemasonry, into which all boys of a certain age were to be initiated.

The Journal says:—­

’There is some strange superstitious ceremony going on at this village.  A space had been enclosed by a high hedge, and some eighteen or nineteen youths are spending a month or more inside the fence, in a house where they lie wrapped up in mats, abundantly supplied with food by the people, who, from time to time, assemble to sing or perform divers rites.  I had a good deal of trouble with the father of our second year’s pupil Tagalana, who insisted upon sending his son thither.  I warned him against the consequences of hindering his son, who wished to follow Christ.  He yielded, because he was evidently afraid of me, but not convinced, as I have no right to expect he should be.

’The next morning comes an old fellow, and plants a red-flowering branch in our small clearing, whereupon our Mota boys go away, not wishing to go, but not daring to stay.  No people came near us, but by-and-by comes the man who had planted it, with whom I had much talk, which ended in his pulling up and throwing away the branch, and in the return of our boys.

’In the evening many people came, to whom I spoke very plainly about the necessity of abandoning these customs if they were in earnest in saying they wished to embrace the Word of God.  On Sunday they gave up their singing at the enclosure, or only attempted it in a very small way.

’June 6th.—­I am just returned from a village a mile and a half off, called Tasmate, where one of their religious ceremonies took place this morning.  The village contains upwards of twenty houses, built at the edge of the bush, which consists here almost exclusively of fruit-bearing trees—­cocoa-nut trees, bananas, bread-fruit, and large almond trefts are everywhere the most conspicuous.  The sea view looking south is very beautiful.