should be otherwise engaged, like Baal of old, either hunting,
fishing, or sleeping, and therefore must be awaked. ... The god
is supposed to make use of the priest's tongue in giving a
reply. Image-worship appears to have been confined to one part
of the island. The Atua was supposed only to enter the image for
the occasion. The natives declare they did not worship the image
itself, but only the Atua it represented, and that the image was
merely used as a way of approaching him.<22>


This is the excuse for image-worship which the more intelligent
idolaters make all the world over; but it is more interesting to
observe that, in the present case, we seem to have the
equivalents of divination by teraphim, with the aid of something
like an ephod (which, however, is used to sanctify the image and
not the priest) mixed up together. Many Hebrew archaeologists
have supposed that the term "ephod" is sometimes used for an
image (particularly in the case of Gideon's ephod), and the
story of Micah, in the book of Judges, shows that images were,
at any rate, employed in close association with the ephod.
If the pulling of the string to call the attention of the god
seems as absurd to us as it appears to have done to the worthy
missionary, who tells us of the practice, it should be
recollected that the high priest of Jahveh was ordered to wear a
garment fringed with golden bells.


And it shall be upon Aaron to minister; and the sound thereof
shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before
Jahveh, and when he cometh out, that he die not (Exod.