PREFACE. 
Vll 
of but few of them is retained by the majority of the 
inhabitants, while the rising generation is growing up in 
total ignorance of all that distinguished their ancestors 
from themselves. The present, therefore, seems to be 
the only time in which a variety of facts, connected 
with the former state of the Inhabitants, can be secured; 
and to furnish, as far as possible, an authentic record of 
these, and thus preserve them from oblivion, is one 
design of the following Work. 
To those whose attention has been directed to the 
systems of polytheism that have at different times pre¬ 
vailed among mankind, the account of the ancient religion 
of the Islanders wdll not be uninteresting. Although 
established among a people scarcely above the rudest 
barbarism, destitute of letters, hieroglyphics, and symbols, 
and by their isolated situation deprived of all intercourse 
with the rest of the world; it is, as a system, singularly 
complete. 
The invention displayed in the fabrication and adjust¬ 
ment of its several parts, the varied and imposing 
imagery under which it was exhibited, and the mysterious 
and complicated machinery which sustained its opera¬ 
tions, were truly remarkable; and, in the standard of 
virtue which it fixed, in the future destinies it unfolded, 
and in its adaptation to the untutored but ardent mind, 
the Polynesian system will not suffer by comparison 
with any systems which have prevailed among the most 
polished and celebrated nations of ancient or modern 
times. 
The following work will exhibit numerous facts, which 
may justly be regarded as illustrating the essential charac¬ 
teristics of idolatry, and its influence on a people, the 
simplicity of whose institutions affords facilities for 
