Mil THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 323 



tho power as the two first have of coining back to Tonga to 

 inspire the priests, though they are supposed to have the power 

 of appearing to their relatives. 4. The original attendants or 

 servants, as it were, of the gods, who, although they had their 

 origin and have ever since existed in Bolotoo, are still inferior 

 to the third class. 5. The Atua, pow or mischievous gods. 

 6. Mooiy or the god that supports the earth and does not belong 

 to Bolotoo (vol. ii. pp. 103, 104). 



From this it appears that the " Atuas " of the 

 Polynesian are exactly equivalent to the "Elohim" 

 of the old Israelite. 1 They comprise everything 

 spiritual, from a ghost to a god, and from " the 

 merely tutelar gods to particular private families " 

 (vol. ii. p. 104), to Ta-li-y-Tooboo, who was the 

 national god of Tonga. The Tongans had no 

 doubt that these Atuas daily and hourly influenced 

 their destinies and could, conversely, be influenced 

 by them. Hence their "piety/' the incessant 

 acts of sacrificial worship which occupied their 

 lives, and their belief in omens and charms. 

 Moreover, the Atuas were believed to visit 

 particular persons, their own priests in the case 

 of the higher gods, but apparently anybody in 

 that of the lower, and to inspire them by a 

 process which was conceived to involve the 

 actual residence of the god, for the time being, in 

 the person inspired, who was thus rendered 

 capable of prophesying (vol. ii. p. 100). For the 



1 It is worthy of remark that ^ai^v among the Greeks, and 

 I)cus among the Romans, had the same wide signiH cation 

 The dii manes were ghosts of ancestors = Atuas of the family. 



