196 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the waters, rebuked the spirit of the storm, and his fol¬ 
lowers reached their destined port in safety. 
The period of his adventures is probably the most 
recent of any thus preserved, as there are more places 
connected with his name in the Leeward Islands than with 
any other. A pile of rock in Tahaa is called the Dogs of 
Hiro 5 a mountain ridge has received the appellation of 
the Pahi, or Ship of Hiro^ and a large basaltic rock 
near the summit of a mountain in Huahine, is called the 
Hoe or Paddle of Hiro. 
Tuaraatai and Ruahatu, however, appear to have been 
the principal marine deities. Whether this distinction 
resulted from any superiority they were supposed to pos¬ 
sess, or from the conspicuous part the latter sustains in 
their tradition of the deluge, is not known; but their names 
are frequently mentioned. They were generally called 
akua mao, or shark gods; not that the shark was itself 
the god, but the natives supposed the marine gods em¬ 
ployed the sharks as the agents of their vengeance, in 
punishing transgressors. 
The large blue shark was the only kind supposed to be 
employed by the gods; and a variety of the most strange 
and fabulous accounts of the deeds they have performed 
are related by their priests. These voracious animals were 
said always to recognize a priest on board any Canoe, to 
come at his call, retire at his bidding, and to spare him in 
the event of a wreck, though they might devour his com¬ 
panions, especially if they were not his maru, or worship¬ 
pers. I have been repeatedly told by an intelligent man, 
formerly a priest of an akua mao, that the shark through 
which his god was manifested, swimming in the sea, car¬ 
ried either him or his father on its back from Raiatea to 
Huahine, a distance of twenty miles. The shark was not 
