RACES BIBLIOGRAPHY COMMITTEE. 347 
Ghosts of cowards, and those who were impious at Aitutaki, 
were doomed likewise to furnish a feast to the inexpressibly ugly 
Miru and her followers. 
Evidently, the ancient faith of the Hervey Islanders was 
substantially the same. Nor did it materially differ from that of 
the Tahitian and Society Islanders, the variations being such as 
we might expect when portions of the same great family had been 
separated from each other for ages. 
There is no trace in the Eastern Pacific of the doctrine of 
transmigration of human souls, although the spirits of the dead 
are fabled to have assumed, temporarily, and for a specific purpose, 
the form of an insect, bird, fish, or cloud. But gods, specially 
the spirits of deified men, were believed permanently to reside in, 
or to be incarnate in, sharks, sword-fish, &c., eels, the octopus, the 
yellow and black- spotted lizards, several kinds of birds and insects. 
The zgnzs fatuus, opportune mists concealing a victim, imagined 
balls of fire guiding the fleeing or killing party, were all the work- 
ing of their gods for the destruction, safety, or guidance of mortals. 
In sleep, the spirit was supposed to leave the body and travel 
over the island, to hold converse with the dead, and even to visit 
spirit-world. Hence the dreams of mortals. Some of the most 
important events in their national history were determined by 
dreams. 
The place in which the placenta (enua) of an infant is buried 
is called the “ ipukarea,” or natal soil; and it was believed that, 
after death, spirits of adults, as well as children, hover about the 
neighbourhood. 
MYTHOLOGY. 
Strictly speaking, the Hervey Islanders had no conéeption of a 
creator, as the islands were believed to be dragged up out of the 
depths of Avaiki, or Nether-World, otherwise called Po, or Night, 
These islands are merely the gross outwird form, or Jody, vohalat 
there still remains behind in the obscurity of Nether-World the 
ethereal essence or sfz77z. 
The primary conception of the Hervey Islanders as to existence 
is a point; then something fu/sating ; next, something greater 
— everlasting. 
The universe is to be conceived of as the hollow of a vast 
cocoanut shell, the interior of which is named Avaiki. At the 
very bottom of this supposed cocoanut shell is a thick stem, 
gradually tapering to a point, which represents the very beginning 
of all things. This pointis a spirit named Zhe-root-of all-existence. 
_ Above this extreme point is another demon, named Breathing, or 
Life, stouter and stronger than theformer one. The thickest part 
of the stem is Zhe-long-lived. These three stationary, sentient 
spirits constitute the foundation, and insure the permanence and 
well-being of all the rest of the universe. 
