24 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



plied. Ellis says that the Tahitians considered Tii and Taaroa to be 

 one and the same being, but that Taaroa dwelt in the region of chaos, 

 and Tii in the world of light. In other traditions of the same people, 

 Tii is given as the name of the first man. Tii was also the usual 

 word for idol or image ; perhaps, because the first images that were 

 made were those of this deity, or of Taaroa, under this form. In 

 Rarotonga Tiki was the name of the first man, who was supposed, 

 after death, to have received dominion over the region of departed 

 spirits ; a person who died was said to have " gone to Tiki." Tiki in 

 Nukuhivan and Tii in Hawaiian signify an image. In the dialect of 

 New Zealand, hei signifies an ornament suspended from the neck, 

 and the compound term hei-tiki is applied to the little distorted images 

 of jade which are thus worn. It has been seen that the reduplicate 

 form, Tiitii, in Samoan, signifies the god who supports the islands, 

 like Moui, in Tonga. 



It seems probable that the Polynesians originally recognised but 

 one deity, who had different appellations, according to his different 

 attributes and offices. As the creator of the world, he was termed 

 Tangaloa; as the sustainer of the earth, (or, perhaps, originally, as 

 the preserving power,) he was called Maui, and in the form in which 

 he revealed himself to man, he had the name of Tiki. The meaning 

 and application of these names has, however, been much confused, 

 and undergone various alterations. The inferior divinities, who vary 

 from one group to another, are generally supposed, by the natives 

 themselves, to have been merely deified men. 



COSMOGONY. 



Two stories are prevalent among the Samoans with regard to the 

 creation of the world, or, at least, of their islands. Both attribute the 

 work to their great god, Tangaloa. According to one account, while 

 the god was fishing, his hook caught in the rocks at the bottom of the 

 sea, and in drawing it up, he raised with it the whole group of Samoa. 

 The other story represents him as forming the land by throwing 

 down large stones from the skies, from which his daughter, Tuli, 

 (snipe,) made the different islands. She afterwards planted them 

 with vegetables, one of which was a kind of vine, from whose stem a 

 god, named Ngai, formed the first man, by marking out the body and 

 members of a human being. 



In Tonga the first of these stories is the one generally received. 



