324 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the po, or night. Oro, the great national idol of Rai- 
atea, Tahiti, Eimeo, and some of the other Islands, 
was the son of Taaroa and Ofeufeumaiterai. Oro 
took a goddess to wife, who became the mother of 
two sons. These four male and two female deities 
constituted the whole of their highest rank of divi- 
nities, according to the traditions of the priests of 
Tahiti—though the late king informed Mr. Nott 
that there was another god, superior to them all, 
whose name was Rumia; he did not, however, 
meet with any of their priests or bards who knew 
any thing about him. The tradition most generally 
received in the Windward Islands, ascribed the 
origin of the world, and all that adorn or mhabit 
it, to the procreative power of Taaroa, who is said 
‘to have embraced a rock, the imagined foundation 
of all things, which afterwards brought forth the 
earth and sea. It states, that soon after this, the 
heralds of day, the dark and the light blue sky, 
appeared before Taaroa, and solicited a soul for 
his offspring; the then inanimate universe. The 
foundation of ali replied, It is done, and directed 
his son, the Sky-producer, to accomplish his will. 
In obedience to the mandate of Taaroa, his son 
looked up imto the heavens, and the heavens 
received the power of bringing forth new skies, 
and clouds, sun, moon, and stars, thunder and 
lightning, rain and wind. He then looked down- 
wards, and the unformed mass received the power 
to bring forth earth, mountains, rocks, trees, herbs 
and flowers, beasts, birds and insects, fountains, 
rivers, and fish. Raitubu, or Sky-producer, then 
looked to the abyss, and imparted to it power to 
bring forth the purple water, rocks and corais, and 
all the inhabitants of the ocean. Some of the 
gods are said to have been produced in the same 
