386 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
they have ever been led, from the declarations of 
their wise men, to anticipate the arrival of any 
distinguished personage in their country. The 
expectation of some wise and great prince or ruler 
rising up among them, or coming from some distant 
region, which has prevailed among many nations, 
and is generally supposed to refer to the appear¬ 
ance of the Saviour, does not seem to have existed 
among them ; unless we suppose the anticipated 
return of Rono to the Sandwich Islands, an Avatar 
of whom, the inhabitants supposed Captain Cook 
to be, refers to this event. 
Traditions of the deluge, the most important 
event in reference to the external structure and 
appearance of our globe that has occurred since 
its creation, have been found to exist among the 
natives of the South Sea Islands, from the earliest 
periods of their history. Accounts, more or less 
according with the scripture narrative of this awful 
visitation of Divine justice upon the antediluvian 
world, have been discovered among most of the 
nations of the earth; and the striking analogy 
between those religiously preserved by the in¬ 
habitants of the islands of the Pacific, and the 
Mosaic account, would seem to indicate a de¬ 
gree of high antiquity belonging to this isolated 
people. 
The principal facts are the same in the traditions 
prevailing among the inhabitants of the different 
groups, although they differ in several minor par¬ 
ticulars. In one group the accounts state, that 
in ancient times Taaroa, the principal god, (accord¬ 
ing to their mythology, the creator of the world,) 
being angry with men on account of their disobe¬ 
dience to his will, overturned the world into the 
sea, when the earth sunk in the waters, excepting 
