ABSTRACT
The Work of the Gods as a ritual cycle was completely abandoned by 1956, when the Ariki Kafika and the Ariki Taumako finally decided to become Christian. The Work of the Gods traditionally involved an intricate combination of technological, economic and ritual procedures, linked with an elaborate set of status recognitions. Now broadly speaking, those aspects of die Work of die Gods which had been primarily of religious significance have been completely given up since 1956. The Work of the Yam had been treated similarly in that the whole ritual sequence had been abandoned with all the prescriptions of planting before dawn, silence during critical operations, etcetera. The yam rites were traditionally interlineated in the timetable of the Work of the Gods with die re-carpeting and re-furbishing of the sacred temples, particularly that of Kafika. It was in this respect that the most evident change had occurred in Tikopia life.
