ABSTRACT
So far I have dealt with Tikopia traditional religion as an organized system of worship involving belief in spiritual beings and ritual acts towards them, with a set of chiefs of clans and elders of lineages as priests. The Tikopia religious system was linked very closely with the system of rank, formal worship being the privilege and duty of men who in various degree were the economic and political leaders in the secular society. The flow of food offerings through the religious system, consonant with ideas about the immaterial character of relationships in the spirit world, served still further to bind together the ritual acts of worship and the socio-political structure. In all these operations the men of rank were representatives of the body of the people, who themselves did not address the gods and ancestors on whom they relied for prosperity.
