POPULAR TRADITIONS. 
Ill 
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 them prior to their intercourse 
with Europeans, it will be the most remarkable 
and valuable oral tradition of the origin of the 
human race yet known. 
Another extensive and popular tradition referred 
the origin of the people to Opoa, in the island of 
Raiatea, where the tiis , or spirits, formerly resided, 
who assumed of themselves, or received from the 
gods, human bodies, and became the progenitors 
of mankind. The name of one was Tii Maaraauta; 
Tii , branching or extending towards the land, or 
the interior : and of the other, Tii Maaraatai; Tii , 
branching or spreading towards the sea. These, 
however, are supposed to be but other names for 
Taaroa. It is supposed that prior to the period of 
Tii Maaraauta’s existence, the islands were only 
resorted to by the gods or spiritual beings, but 
that these two, endowed with powers of pro¬ 
creation, produced the human species. They first 
resided at Opoa, whence they peopled the island 
of Raiatea, and subsequently spread themselves 
over the whole cluster. Others state, that Tii was 
not a spirit, but a human being, the first man 
made by the gods ; that his wife was sometimes 
called Tii, and sometimes Hina; that when they 
died, their spirits were supposed to survive the 
dissolution of the body, and were still called by 
the same name, and hence the term tii was first 
applied to the spirits of the departed, a significa¬ 
tion which it retained till idolatry was abolished. 
in the Ladrone Islands, departed chiefs, or the 
spirits of such, are called aritis , and to them 
