Spanish by-notes; otherwise the account of the Toltec deluge, and the statement that the mountains were covered to the depth of "fifteen cubics," might be quoted as another undesigned coincidence.* According to the Chimalpopoca MS., the Creator produced His work in successive epochs, man being made on the seventh day from dust and ashes. Why, we may ask, on the seventh day? But others, without even insisting on the peculiar character of the seventh number, may simply ask, Why not? There is much similarity between the Hindú account of the Deluge and the Jewish; but no one who has read the numerous accounts of a deluge in other parts of the world, would feel much surprised at this. At all events, if we admitted a common origin of the two, or an actual borrowing, then to explain the differences between them would be extremely difficult. The only startling coincidence is, that in India the flood is said to begin on the seventh day after it had been announced to Manu. Considering, however, that the seventh day is mentioned in the “BhagavataPurâna❞ only, I feel inclined to look upon it as merely accidental. It might, no doubt, have been borrowed from Jewish or even Mohammedan sources; but how can we imagine any reason why so unmeaning a fact should have been taken over, while on so many other points, where there was every temptation to borrow, nothing was done to assimilate the two accounts, or to remove features of which, at that time, the Hindus might well be supposed to have been ashamed? I mention all this for the sole purpose of * Bancroft, Native Races, vol. v. p. 20.

preaching patience and caution; and I preach it against myself quite as much as against others, as a warning against exclusive theories.

On every page of these Mangaian legends there is evidence that many of them owe their origin to language, whether we adopt the theory that the Mangaians played on the words, or that their words played on them. Mr. Gill himself fully admits this; but to say that the whole of the Mangaian mythology and theology owed its origin to the oxydizing process to which language is exposed in every country, would be to mistake the rust for the iron.

With all these uncertainties before us, with the ground shaking under our feet, who would venture to erect at present complete systematic theories of mythology or religion? Let any one who thinks that all religion begins with fetichism, all worship with ancestor-worship, or that the whole of mythology everywhere can be explained as a disease of language, try his hand on this short account of the beliefs and traditions of Mangaia; and if he finds that he fails to bring even so small a segment of the world's religion and mythology into the narrow circle of his own system, let him pause before he ventures to lay down rules as to how man, on ascending from a lower or descending from a higher state, must have spoken, must have believed, must have worshipped. If Mr. Gill's book were to produce no other effect but this, it would have proved one of the most useful works at the present moment.

But it contains much that in itself will deeply interest all those who have learned to sympathize with the childhood of the world, and have not forgotten that the child is the father of the man; much that will startle those who think that metaphysical conceptions are incompatible with downright savagery; much also that will comfort those who hold that God has not left Himself without a witness, even among the lowest outcasts of the human race. F. MAX MÜLLER.

OXFORD, January 26, 1876.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

THE writer of the following pages has been for twenty-two years a missionary in the Hervey Group, a small cluster of islands in the South Pacific, lying between the 19° and 22° parallels of S. latitude and 157° and 160° of W. longitude.

He has sought to reproduce, as nearly as possible, the traditionary beliefs of a small section of the widely scattered Polynesian family. On them the hopes and aspirations of many past generations were founded. We correctly call the entire system a "mythology;" to them it was a "theology,”—the true doctrine of the visible and the invisible world. The actual working of these false ethics was unceasing and pitiless war, unbridled and unblushing profligacy. Correct knowledge of these "mysteries" was possessed only by the priests and "wise men" of the different tribes. By them the teachings of the past were embodied in songs, to be chanted at their national festivals. These songs possessed great fascination for the native intellect, and tended to the preservation of the ancient faith. The writer's object is simply to aid the student of ethnology in his researches.

While there is much that is puerile and absurd in this heathen philosophy, there are evident glimmerings of primeval light.

The

XX

Introductory Remarks.

Polynesian name for God expresses a great truth. The continued existence of the human spirit after death is implied in their "laments" and in the beautiful allegory of Veêtini. The cruel system of human sacrifice is but a perversion of ancient truth. The common origin of mankind is taught in the contrast between "the fair-haired and fair-skinned children of Tangaroa," and "the dark-haired and dark-skinned children of Rongo; both the offspring of Great Vātea. There is an undercurrent of yearning after the True God in some of their songs; e.g. as when Koroa sings (p. 215):

دو

Oh, for some other Helper!
Some new divinity, to listen

To the sad story of thy wasting disease!

As the result of many years' inquiry into the ancient faith of Polynesia, the writer most heartily endorses the remark of Professor Max Müller: "Wherever there are traces of human life, there are traces also of religion." *

A large portion of what is contained in this volume was derived from Tereavai, the last priest of the shark-god Tiaio. Some links in the system were irrecoverably lost by the slaughter of his father Tuka, at the battle of Araeva, not long before the landing of the first Christian teachers. Nothing but the cordial reception of the new faith could have induced Tereavai to yield up to the stranger the esoteric teachings of the priestly clan. The writer throughout has been greatly indebted to the sagacity and unwearied patience of Sadaraka (grandson of the poet Koroa), who is allowed by his own countrymen to be the best living critic of his own language. Each island in the group had a dialect, a history, and a worship of its own. The language of ancient Polynesian

* Science of Religion, p. 118.