Scientific Reviews. 43 
author considers as “ most indelicate,” states, that in ancient times 
aman died, and after death his body was destroyed by worms, 
which ultimately grew into swine, and were the first known in the 
islands. Any traces of the Asiatic doctrine of the transmigration 
of souls, was never observed among them ; although they believed 
that hogs had souls, and that there was a distinct place called Ofe- 
tuna, whither they supposed the souls of the pigs repaired after 
death. ‘This idea some carried so far as not only to suppose, that 
animals had souls, but to imagine that even flowers and plants were 
gifted with immortal spirits. Another singular practice, in refe- 
rence to their pigs, was that of giving them some distinct though 
often arbitrary name, by which they were called, as well as the 
several members of the family. This difference, however, prevail- 
ei. A man frequently changed his name, but the name of the pig 
once received, was usually retained until his death. 
The following remarks on the Polynesian deluge are curious :~ 
“‘ The memorial of an universal deluge, found among all nations existing in 
those communities, by which civilization, literature, science, and the arts, have 
been carried to the highest perfection, as well as among the most untutored and 
barbarous, preserved through all the migrations and vicissitudes, of the human 
family, from the remote antiquity of its occurrence to the present time, is a most 
decisive evidence of the authenticity of revelation. The brief yet satisfactory 
testimony to this event, preserved in the oral traditions of a people secluded for 
ages from intercourse with other parts of the world, is adapted to furnish strong 
additional evidence that the scriptural word is irrefragable. In several respects, 
the Polynesian account resembles not only the Mosaic, but those preserved by the 
earliest families of the post-diluvian world, and supports the presumption that 
their religious system has descended from the Orkite idolatry, the basis of the 
mythology of the Gentile nations. The mundane egg is conspicuous in the cos- 
mogony of some of the most ancient nations. One of the traditions of the Ha- 
waiians state that a bird deposited an egg, (containing the world in embryo,) 
upon the surface of the primeval waters. If the symbol of the egg be supposed 
to refer to the creation, and the bird is considered a corrupted memorial of the 
eyent recorded in the sacred writings, in which it is said “‘ the spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the waters,” the coincidence is striking. It is no less so 
if it be referred to the ark floating on the waters of the deluge. The sleep of Ri- 
cahatu accords with the slumber of Brama, which was the occasion of the crime 
that brought on the Hindoo deluge. The warning to flee, and the means of safe- 
ty, resemble a tradition recorded by Kempfer as existing among the Chinese. 
The canoe of the Polynesian Noah has its counterpart in their antipodes, the 
Druids, whose memorial states the bursting of the waters of the Lake Lleon, and. 
the overwhelming of the face of all lands, and drowning all mankind, excepting 
two individuals, who escaped in a naked vessel, (a vessel without sails,) by whom 
the island of Britain was re-peopled. The safety which progenitors of the Peru- 
Vian race are said to have found in caves, or the summits of the mountains, when 
' the waters overflowed the land, bears a resemblance to the Hawaiian, and that of 
the Mexican, in which Coxcox, or Tezpi, and his wife, were preserved in a bark, 
corresponds with the Tahitian tradition. Other points of resemblance between 
the Polynesian account, and the memorial of the deluge preserved among the an- 
cient nations, might be cited; but these are sufficient to shew the agreement in 
the testimony to the same event, preserved by the most distant tribes of the hu- 
man family.”—Vol, II. p. 61. 
