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Assyrians, peopled these islands ; or settled in Malaysia 

 before the Polynesian exodus from there, and gave them 

 their lore. Pere Rambaud of the Catholic mission at 

 Papeete considered it more probable that Spaniards, 

 reaching Hawaii from wrecked Spanish galleons voyag- 

 ing between Mexico and Manila, brought the holy doc- 

 trines. His explanation, however, often advanced, fell 

 utterly before the fact that the Polynesians had no 

 knowledge of Jesus or any man or god like him, and 

 knew nothing of original sin; but, more convincing, all 

 Polynesia had these legends, and there had been no com- 

 munication with the Maoris of New Zealand and with 

 Fiji after the Spanish entered the Phihppines. It is to 

 me quite certain that the Polynesians brought with them 

 from Malaysia or India or from farther toward Europe 

 those traditions of the beginnings of mankind which 

 grew up hundreds of thousands of years ago, and were 

 dispersed with each group setting out for adventure or 

 driven from the birthplace of thinking humans. 



Taaroa, whose name was spelt differently in separated 

 archipelagos, was the father of the Tahitian cosmogony. 

 His wife was Hina, the earth, and his son, Oro, was 

 ruler of the world. Tane, the Huahine god, was a 

 brother of Oro, and his equal, but there were islands 

 which disputed this equality, and shed blood to disprove 

 it, as the sects of Christianity have since the peaceful 

 Jesus died by the demands of the priests of his nation. 



Haul was the Tahitian Hercules. Of course he, too, 

 bade the sun to stay a while unmoving, and it did. 

 Joshua, the son of Nun, whose astronomical exploit at 

 Gibeon brought him immortal fame, was a glorious war- 

 rior; but Haui's unwritten achievements, as chanted by 



