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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
were accustomed to speak disrespectfully of them, 
they called them varaua ino , bad or evil spirits. 
It is also different in its signification from the 
word which is used to designate an image, and the 
spirits of departed children or relations, and fre¬ 
quently those evil genii to whom the sorcerers 
addressed their incantations. 
Atua, or akua, is the name for god, without any 
exception, throughout the whole of the eastern 
part of Polynesia. The first a appears to be a 
component part of the word, though in many sen¬ 
tences it is omitted, in consequence of the preced¬ 
ing word terminating in a vowel. It is then pro¬ 
nounced tua; and though but little light is thus 
thrown on the origin of the people, it is interesting 
to trace the correspondence between the taata or 
tangata , first man, in Polynesia, and tangatanga , 
a principal deity among the South Americans ; the 
atua , or tua , of the South Sea islanders, and the 
tev, which is said to be the word for god in the 
Aztec or Mexican language, the deviyo of the 
Singhalese, and the deva of the Sanscrit. 
The objects of worship among the Tahitians, 
next to the atua or gods, were the oramatuas tiis 
or spirits. These were supposed to reside in the 
po, or world of night, and were never invoked but 
by wizards or sorcerers, who implored their aid for 
the destruction of an enemy, or the injury of some 
person whom they were hired to destroy. They 
were considered a different order of beings from 
the gods, a kind of intermediate class between 
them and the human race, though in their prayers 
all the attributes of the gods were ascribed to 
them. The oramatuas were the spirits of de¬ 
parted fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, 
&c. The natives were greatly afraid of them, and 
