In “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926), H. P. Lovecraft described a global cult that worshiped the octopus-headed extraterrestrial god Cthulhu, his minions, and the megalithic undersea city in the Pacific where they rested dead but dreaming until the day of Cthulhu’s glorious resurrection.
While Lovecraft’s undersea monster drew on a number of mythic sources, surprisingly and unbeknownst to Lovecraft, there was a real religion in the Pacific that reproduced with uncanny accuracy the major details of the Cthulhu myth as given in the story. In Samoa the war god took the form of an octopus, lived in a great stone palace called the House of the Octopus, and was periodically reborn in a glorious resurrection. His followers prayed to him for blinding red rage.
This book reprints five classic essays by scholars, missionaries, and travelers on the octopus god of the Pacific and his cult, including the startling details of what can be seen as a real-life "Cthulhu cult" of the Pacific.
