102 
RELIGION. 
was constantly looked for, and when the distinguished 
navigator appeared he was at once taken for that celes- 
tial being ; divine honors were bestowed upon him and 
sacrifices offered, he was placed upon their sacred stage 
or altar and there worshipped. Wherever he went the 
people prostrated themselves to the ground until he passed 
by. The first man was said to have been formed of the red 
feruginous mud found in swamps, and thus might have been 
called Adam. It does not appear unlikely that the Mela- 
nesian race retained some remembrance of the myth of 
Osiris, which in a later period, when the Polynesian arrived, 
was mixed up with their recollections of their Messiah ; the 
death of Tawaki was occasioned by the reptile gods, as that 
of Osiris was by Typhon. 
The singular sect or society, the Areoi of Tahaiti, may 
have originated with the Eleusinian mysteries, to which 
their practices seem to bear a close resemblance. The 
Tohunga, or priests, are also physicians ; and it is a remark- 
able fact, that they only were acquainted with the botany of 
their country and the medical virtues or qualities of plants, 
and further that the practice of medicine amongst them was 
invariably combined with their religious rites. Medicine 
alone was not deemed efficacious, it must be accompanied 
with karakia, or spells, and those were suited to the part of 
the body affected, as the Australians profess to cure the bite 
of any serpent, provided they know what kind it was which 
inflicted the wound, so the Maori Tohunga, when he knew 
what part of the body was affected, had his proper spells 
and medicine to drive the reptile from that part in which 
he was supposed to dwell. 
Prayer and medicine are still combined by the New 
Zealanders ; when they administer the one it is followed by 
the other, and when the pains of the sufferer are great, 
prayer is often continued during the whole night. This 
union of prayer and medicine seems to have been used in 
very remote times ; it certainly was in the days of the 
Apostles, when in the infancy of the medical art the anoint- 
ing with oil, the grand remedy for most if not all diseases, 
