Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/289

Islanders and coast-dwellers indeed live face to face with mighty water-deities, the divine Sea and the great Sea-gods. What the sea may seem to an uncultured man who first beholds it, we may learn among the Lampongs of Sumatra: 'The inland people of that country are said to pay a kind of adoration to the sea, and to make to it an offering of cakes and sweetmeats on their beholding it for the first time, deprecating its power of doing them mischief.'^[1] The higher stage of such doctrine is where the sea, no longer itself personal, is considered as ruled by indwelling spirits. Thus Tuaraatai and Ruahatu, principal among marine deities of Polynesia, send the sharks to execute their vengeance. Hiro descends to the depths of the ocean and dwells among the monsters, they lull him to sleep in a cavern, the Wind-god profits by his absence to raise a violent storm to destroy the boats in which Hiro's friends are sailing, but, roused by a friendly spirit-messenger, the Sea-god rises to the surface and quells the tempest.^[2] This South Sea Island myth might well have been in the Odyssey. We may point to the Guinea Coast as a barbaric region where Sea-worship survives in its extremest form. It appears from Bosman's account, about 1700, that in the religion of Whydah, the Sea ranked only as younger brother in the three divine orders, below the Serpents and Trees. But at present, as appears from Captain Burton's evidence, the religion of Whydah extends through Dahome, and the divine Sea has risen in rank. 'The youngest brother of the triad is Hu, the ocean or sea. Formerly it was subject to chastisement, like the Hellespont, if idle or useless. The Huno, or ocean priest, is now considered the highest of all, a fetish king, at Whydah, where he has 500 wives. At stated times he repairs to the beach, begs 'Agbwe,' the ... ocean god, not to be boisterous, and throws in rice and corn, oil and beans, cloth, cowries, and other valuables. ... At times the king sends as an ocean sacrifice

1. Marsden, 'Sumatra,' p. 301; see also 303 (Tapals).
2. Ellis, 'Polyn. Res.' vol. i. p. 328.