116 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
creator;) at the close of which, by his thought 
alone, he caused the egg to divide itself. From 
its two divisions he formed the heavens (above) 
and the earth (beneath)” &c. It is impossible 
to avoid noticing the identity of this account, con¬ 
tained in one of the ancient writings of the 
Bramins, with the ruder version of the same 
legend in the tradition prevailing in the Sandwich 
Islands, that the islands were produced by a bird, 
a frequent emblem of deity, a medium through 
which the gods often communicated with men; 
which laid an egg upon the waters, which after¬ 
wards burst of itself, and produced the islands ; 
especially, if with this we connect the appendages 
Tahitian tradition furnishes, that at first the hea¬ 
vens joined the earth, and were only separated by 
the leva , an insignificant plant, draconitum po- 
lyphillum , till their god, Ruu, lifted up the hea¬ 
vens from the earth. The same event is recorded 
in one of their songs, in the following line: 
Na Ruu i to te rai: 
Ruu did elevate or raise the heavens. 
Merit, or Mount Meru, the abode of the gods, 
the heaven of the Hindoos, is also the paradise of 
some classes of the South Sea Islanders, the 
dwelling-place of departed kings, and others who 
have been deified. 
The institutes of Menu* also forbade a Bramin 
to eat with his wife, or to be present when she ate; 
and in this injunction may have originated the 
former universal practice among these islands, of 
the man and his wife eating their meat separately. 
* Menu was the Noah of the Hindoos ; and Miru, pro¬ 
nounced Meru, was the first king of the Sandwich 
Islands, 
