personified in everything about him, religion was the most
powerful factor in controlling Fijian life and politics. In
fact, it entered deeply into every act the native performed.
The gods were more monstrous in every way than man, but in all
attributes only the exaggerated counterparts of Fijian chiefs.

War was constantly occurring among these gods and spirits, and
even high gods could die by accident or be killed by those of
equal rank so that at least one god, Samu, was thus dropped out
of the mythology in 1847.

Ndengei was the oldest and greatest, but not the most
universally reverenced god. He lived in a cavern in the
northeastern end of Viti Levu, and usually appeared as a snake,
or as a snake's head with a body of stone symbolizing eternal
life. Among the sons and grandsons of Ndengei were Roko
Mbati-ndua, the one-toothed lord; a fiend with a huge tooth
projecting from his lower jaw and curving over the top of his
head. He had bat's wings armed with claws and was usually
regarded as a harbinger of pestilence. The mechanic's god was
eight-handed, gluttony had eighty stomachs, wisdom possessed
eight eyes. Other gods were the adulterer, the abductor of
women of rank and beauty, the rioter, the brain-eater, the
killer of men, the slaughter god, the god of leprosy, the
giant, the spitter of miracles, the gods of fishermen and of
carpenters, etc. One god hated mosquitoes and drove them away
from the place where he lived. The names and stations of the
gods are described by Thomas Williams, who has given the most
detailed account of the old religion.