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be tired. The missionaries burned Tane with glee, after 

 a battle between the Christian converts and the heathen 

 reactionaries. The progressives won, and convinced 

 the enemy that Tane was a wretched puppet of the 

 priests, so that they dragged the god from his lofty 

 house, and kicked him on to his funeral pyre. "There 

 was great rejoicing in heaven that day," says a pious 

 English commentator. 



The Polynesians had very fixed ideas upon the origin 

 of the universe and of man. In Hawaii, Taaroa made 

 man out of red earth, araea, and breathed into his nos- 

 trils. He made woman from man's bones, and called 

 her ivi (pronounced eve-y) . At the hill of Kauwiki, on 

 the eastern point of the island of Maui, Hawaii, the 

 heaven was so near the earth that it could be reached by 

 the thrust of a strong spear, and is to-day called lani 

 haahaa. 



The Marquesans said that in the beginning there was 

 no light, life, or sound in the world; that a boundless 

 night, Po, enveloped everything, over which Tanaoa, 

 (Darkness), and Mutu-hei, (Silence), ruled supreme. 

 Then the god of light separated from Tanaoa, fought 

 him, drove him away, and confined him to night. Then 

 the god Olio, ( Sound) , was evolved from Atea, (Light) , 

 and banished Silence. From all this struggle was born 

 the Dawn, (Atanua). Atea married the Dawn, and 

 they created earth, animals, man. 



In most of Polynesia there are legends of a universal 

 flood from which few escaped. In Fiji it was said that 

 two races were entirely wiped out, one of women, and 

 the other of men and women with tails. A little bird 

 sat on the top of the uncovered land and wailed the de- 



