HAWAIIAN HADES. 
367 
priests. Sometimes, they said, when a recently 
liberated spirit arrived in the dominions of Miru, 
the Pluto of Hawaii, he (viz. Miru) would ask it 
what the kings above were doing, and what were 
the principal pursuits of the people ? and when he 
had answered, he was sent back to the ao marama 
(state of day or light) with a message from Miru 
to them, to iho nui mai ma nei, (to descend alto¬ 
gether to this place.) The person so sent would 
appear to the priests in a dream, deliver his mes¬ 
sage, and then return to the lower regions. 
The account given this evening, of the Hawaiian 
hades , afforded another proof of the identity be¬ 
tween the traditions of the Sandwich and Society 
Islanders : for among the latter, the spirits of 
the Areois, and priests of certain idols, were not 
eaten by the gods after the death of their bodies, 
but went to Miru, (pronounced by both, Meru,) 
where they lived much in the same way as the de¬ 
parted kings and heroes of Hawaii were supposed 
to do ; or, joining hands, they formed a circle with 
those that had gone before, and danced in one 
eternal round. 
At daylight, on the 19th, numbers of the people 
collected around the house where we had lodged, 
with whom we held morning worship. Haa, the 
chief of the place, beneath whose friendly roof we 
had been most hospitably entertained, then ac¬ 
companied us to the beach, where he had prepared 
a canoe to convey us to the next district. Shortly 
after six a. m. we gave him the parting hand, with 
sincere thanks for his kindness; after which we 
seated ourselves in the canoe, and, in the midst of 
many expressions of good will, from those who had 
come down to the beach to bid us farewell, we were 
safely lauiched through the surf. We left Waipio, 
