POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES^ 
881 
on the islands by those who first peopled them; whether 
these colonists, from whatsoever country they may have 
come, had brought any seeds or roots with them; or 
whether they had been, at a more recent period, con ¬ 
veyed thither from any other islands,—but their answers 
with regard to the origin of most of them, have been so 
absurd and fabulous, that no correct inference caii be 
drawn from them. 
In reference to the origin of the bread-fruit, one of 
their traditionary legends states, that in the reign of 
a certain king, when the people ate araea^ red earth, a 
husband and wife had an only son, whom they tenderly 
loved. The youth was weak and delicate; and one day 
the husband said to the wife, compassionate our son, 
he is unable to eat the red earth. I will die, and become 
food for our son.’^ The wife said, ^^How will you be¬ 
come food?” He answered, will pray to my god | 
he has power, and he will enable me to do it.” Accord¬ 
ingly, he repaired to the family marae, and presented 
his petition to the deity. A favourable answer was 
given to his prayer, and in the evening he called his 
wife to him, and said, I am about to die 3 when I am 
dead, take my body, separate it, plant my head in one 
place, my heart and stomach in another, &c. and then 
come into the house and wait. When you shall hear 
at first a sound like that of a leaf, then of a flower, after¬ 
wards of an unripe fruit, and subsequently of a ripe round 
fruit falling on the ground, know that it is I, who am 
become food for our son.” He died soon after. His 
wife obeyed his injunctions, planting the stomach near the 
house, as directed. After a while, she heard a leaf fall, 
then the large scales of the flower, then a small unripe 
fmit, afterwards one full-grown and ripe. By this time 
