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Description
“Malicolla [Malakula] - Idols - Williams sent some idols from Rarotonga to the London Missionary Society’s Museum in London. A few years ago, some young natives from that island visited that museum, and, so completely has idolatry been swept away from Rarotonga, these were the first Rarotongan gods they had ever seen! The New Hebrideans [Vanuatuans] all believed in a Supreme Being, and in a host of inferior gods. Paton says, ‘If men exist anywhere destitute of the idea of a god, it would have been among these islands. But the New Hebrides, on the contrary, are full of gods.’” Exterior view showing four wooden 'idols' (which may be merely slit drums) and a boy wearing a ‘namba’. Rarotonga was the base from which John Williams of the London Missionary Society (who arrived in 1823) sought to Christianise the Cook Islands. In 1839 Williams was killed in the New Hebrides [Vanuatu]. The lines above, originally referring to the people of Tanna, are paraphrased from John Gibson Paton’s Autobiography.
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