38 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
remote from nations in whose annals contemporaneous 
events would be preserved, is necessarily involved in 
obscurity. The greater part of the traditions of this 
people are adapted to perplex rather than facilitate the 
investigation. 
A very generally received Tahitian tradition is, that 
the first human pair were made by Taaroa, the prin¬ 
cipal deity formerly acknowledged by the nation. On 
more than one occasion, I have listened to the details of 
the people respecting his work of creation. They say, 
that after Taaroa had formed the world, he created man 
out of araea, red earth, which was also the food of man 
until bread-fruit was made. In connexion with this, 
some relate that Taaroa one day called for the man 
by name. When he came, he caused him to fall 
asleep, and that, while he slept, he took out one of his 
or bones, and with it made a woman, whom he gave 
to the man as his wife, and that they became the pro¬ 
genitors of mankind. This always appeared to me a 
mere recital of the Mosaic account of creation, which 
they had heard from some European, and I never placed 
any reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me 
it was a tradition among them before any foreigner 
arrived. Some have also stated that the woman’s 
name was Ivi, which would be by them pronounced as if 
written Eve, Ivi is an aboriginal word, and not only 
signifies a bone, but also a widow, and a victim slain in 
war. Notwithstanding the assertion of the natives, 
I am disposed to think that Ivi, or Eve, is the only 
aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the 
mother of the human race. Should more careful and 
minute inquiry confirm the truth of their declaration, 
and prove that this account was in existence among 
