house.

The father of the family was _the high-priest_, and usually offered a
short prayer at the evening meal, that they might all be kept from
fines, sickness, war, and death. Occasionally, too, he would direct
that they have a family feast in honour of their household gods; and
on these occasions a cup of their intoxicating ava draught was poured
out as a drink-offering. They did this in their family house, where
they were all assembled, supposing that their gods had a spiritual
presence there, as well as in the material objects to which we have
referred. Often it was supposed that the god came among them, and
spoke through the father or some other member of the family, telling
them what to do in order to remove a present evil or avert a
threatened one. Sometimes it would be that the family should get a
canoe built and keep it sacred to the god. They might travel in it and
use it themselves, but it was death to sell or part with a canoe which
had been built specially for the god.

_Another class of Samoan deities_ may be called gods of the town or
village. Every village had its god, and every one born in that village
was regarded as the property of that god. I have got a child for
so-and-so, a woman would say on the birth of her child, and name the
village god. There was a small house or temple also consecrated to
the deity of the place. Where there was no formal temple, the great
house of the village, where the chiefs were in the habit of
assembling, was the temple for the time being, as occasion required.
Some settlements had a sacred grove as well as a temple, where prayers
and offerings were presented.

_In their temples_ they had generally something for the eye to rest