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Volume 2 1893 > Volume 2, No.3, September 1893 > Asiatic Gods in the Pacific, by E. Tregear, p129-146

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ASIATIC GODS IN THE PACIFIC.

By E. Tregear.
1. Just as the student of natural history takes interest in finding that some primitive form of animal life has survived
the accidents and perils of the centuries and exists in a rare and solitary type of modern creature, so does the student
of ethnology rejoice in coming across some survival in human custom or discovery in human language which may
bridge over the gulf between ancient men and ourselves. To find some old dream still with living power, some
infinitely ancient belief yet possessing vitality stimulates his research and causes him to hold as valuable what others
engaged in the more active struggles of life would deem of little interest and of no useful application. This is the plea
with which I venture to bring forward the enumeration of certain coincidences in religious belief once held by peoples
of the old world, and compare them with those held sacred up to our own day by the natives of the Pacific Islands.
There is, however, another side to the question; it is, that it is quite possible, even if the main thesis be incorrect, we
may bring to the surface certain points of interest otherwise liable to be forgotten, and so the research may be
valuable for its side-issues, even if it be only to provoke discussion on subjects little known.

2. In treating of the deities of people widely separated in point of distance, geographical and chronological, it may be
pointed out that there are two ways (at least) in which coincidence may be marked; one is a similarity of name, and
the other a likeness of attribute or action. Coincidence of name may be valuable as shewing the primal identity, even
when the legends respecting the life and power of the divine person may differ. Thus, Tane is, with little doubt, the
same god in New Zealand as in Hawaii, though in the former place he is regarded as the male principle, and in the
latter as the god of light; just as Apollo was worshipped in one place as the sun, and in others as the god of poetry or
medicine. Names are thus sometimes valuable for purposes of investigation, even when the histories are clouded over
with race and national metamorphoses.

The first part of this paper, the lesser part, is devoted to some curious similarities in names, &c.; the second is
descriptive of certain coincidences in legendary action between an Asiatic and a Polynesian Goddess.

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THE ANCIENT GODS.

3. It is a well-known fact that when the Chaldean people occupied that part of Asia which they afterwards made so
famous, their Semitic language displaced that of a nation called the Accadians, who used an “agglutinative” form of
speech. There is no good in going over this ground, which has been thoroughly explored by profound Asiatic scholars.
One thing which is not so fully determined is the origin of the Chaldean or Babylonian system of religion. In those
ancient days religions and worships spread from people to people, and there is good cause to believe that the
Babylonians adopted many of their deities from the older inhabitants of the land.1 There is no “thus far, and no
farther,” in speculation, and it may now be asked “From what people did the men of Accad themselves adopt their
objects of worship?” Many of the deities bear names of neither Semitic nor Accadian explanation.2 It is curious that
many of these names either have Polynesian significations, or similar names are mentioned in the sacred lore of
Polynesia. By this I do not infer that the Accadians or Chaldeans adopted Polynesian deities, or vice versa, but would
rather suggest that both the Asiatic and Oceanic peoples may have received their priestly teachings from a common
source. In the thousands of unknown years lying behind history the names of certain holy persons and the gist of
certain sacred legends may have been handed down from a pre-Aryan, pre-Semitic, pre-Turanian people.

4. We are told that the principal deity of Chaldea (or first person of their Triad) was called Anu. “He represents the
Universe as the upper and lower regions, and, when these were divided, the upper region or heaven was called Anu.”3
“The first Triad comprised Anu, Ea, and Bel . . . . . Anu is Heaven, ‘the Lord of the starry Heavens,’ ‘the Lord of
Darkness,’ &c.”4 Now, White in his Ancient Maori History, when relating the cosmogony of the natives, repeatedly
refers to Anu as “Space,” and speaks of the rebel angels in “the war in Heaven” as Kahui-Anu, “the flock of the cold
space.”

5. The second person in the Chaldean Trinity was Bel. This word seems to have been used as a title, “the Lord,” but
this may have been a later meaning (as Cæsar was in Rome); Fornander identifies the Polynesian Vela (Maori Wera)
“Heat,” with Bel or Baal, and the old Spartan Bela the sun.5 The third person, Ea, is a very remarkable one. He was
“the Lord of the Deep,” “Ea the fish,” but he was also “the impersonation of the Divine intelligence” and the teacher of
mankind. “The original sacred books were attributed to him.”6 "Ea was the god not only of the material watery sea,
but also of the mystic deep,” “the house of deep knowledge.”7 In Polynesia the word Ea means to appear above water,
to rise to the surface, liberty, salvation, spirit, &c., thus appearing to offer a translation of the name.

6. “Of the other goddesses, the most conspicuous are Anat or Nana (Earth), the wife of Anu (Heaven).”8 In both the
Chaldean
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and Polynesian legends Heaven and Earth are divided asunder, but they remain husband and wife. Nana in Maori
means a nurse; in Marquesan a woman recovering from child-birth; in Guaham a mother; so in many other languages
it means aunt or mother.9 The Maori Mother-Earth was named Papa, and her husband Heaven was Rangi or Raki.
Raki may be related to another Asiatic word for Heaven or sky used in Hebrew as Rakia, the firmament.10 Mama and
papa are words well known to philologists as interchangeable for father and mother over a large area of the world's
surface; papa means father in Maori and other Oceanic tongues, although (generally) translated “foundation” it is
also the name of the Earth-Mother.

7. For the purposes of this paper I include the Egyptians among the Asiatic peoples, relying upon the statements of
learned authors that the Egyptians were not Africans, but an Asiatic immigration into Africa.11

8. It has been a widely remarked fact that the Egyptian Ra, the sun, is the same word as the Polynesian Ra, the sun.
In fact, more prominence has been given to it than is desirable, since it is only a single coincidence, but, if it is backed
up by a hundred others, it becomes an important factor in argument. “Il or Ra is the Babylonian form of the Assyrian
Asshur, the name simply meaning god,”12 so the word was not only Egyptian but a widely spread sacred name. We
should notice too that pa which means a fortified town in New Zealand also means a town in Egyptian , so that pa-
ra, “Sun-town” (Heliopolis) in Egyptian meant the same in Polynesian. In spite of assertions made by early
missionaries that the Maori people had no gods and no idea of worship properly so called, we have since found out
that this is not the case. There is plain evidence, even of sunworship, in some of the older traditions. I may instance
the following quotation. “One of the party asked, while all the others were silent, ‘Where are the people?’ She
answered, ‘They are yonder, out on the plain.’ He asked, ‘What are they doing?’ She answered, ‘They are chanting
songs and offering sacrifices to Ra (the sun).’ He asked, ‘For what purpose?’ She answered, ‘To suppress the ill-feeling
of the people, and to give quiet to the land.’”13 This is a very ancient legend (that of Hapopo), fragments of which are
related by other authors, but its age is apparent in the very obscure and mystical state in which such fragments
appear.

9. In Sir George Grey's collection of Maori legends may be found the well-known tale of Maui's noosing the sun.14
Maui, having noosed the sun, began beating that deity with an enchanted weapon. “The sun screamed out, ‘Why am I
smitten by you? oh man! do you know what you are doing? Why should you wish to kill Tama nui te Ra?’ Thus was
learnt his second name.” So, before this, the sun was evidently known as Ra, afterwards as “the great Tama, the Ra.”
In Maori tama means son, and in Polynesian generally it means son or child. Although purists may object to such
pronunciation I have little doubt but that if written in English
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letters instead of Polynesian the word would more nearly resemble Tum-mah than Tah-mah, and if this be so it
makes a curious coincidence with another Egyptian name for the sun-god, viz., Tum. In the Funeral Ritual, LXII.,
we find, “I have been made a Lord of the Age, who has no limit, for I am an Eternal Substance. I am Tum, made for
Ever.” According to Brugsch, the sun temple at Heliopolis held a sacred sealed chamber in the form of a pyramid
called Ben-Ben, in which were kept the two barks of the sun. This explains the sentence, “He beheld his father Ra in
the exalted house of the obelisk; the morning bark of Ra, and the evening bark of Tum.”15 Tum being the evening sun,
perhaps explains why it was the “second name” in the Maori story. So also the Egyptian Osiris the sun was the son
of Ra—as Horus the later sun was the son of Osiris. That Tama (Tumma) was invoked may be inferred from the
baptismal ceremonial chant

“May Tu and Tane and Tama meet,

May the light come,
May the gods Tawhaki and Tama bring light.
Ball of light, come!” &c., &c16

The name of Tamas for the sun was widely known in Asia. It is almost certain that Dumuzi or Tammuz (Adonis) is the
same deity as the Samas or Shamas the sun-god of Chaldea.17 Tammus, or Tamzi means the “the son of life”—and
as zi means life, Tam means son. “Ishtar and her husband Tamzi, the son of life.”18 This shows too how the sound
Tum or Tumma or Tama was more persistent than any way of writing it—we find Tammuz, Dumuzi, Tamzi, Shamash,
Samas, Tamas.

10. “Sin on thy right hand, Shamash on thy left. . . Upon mankind trust not; bend thine eyes on me; trust to me; I am
Ishtar of Arbela.”19 Sin and Shamash were the lunar and solar deities of Chaldea. The second part of this paper
identifies Sin with the lunar Sina of Polynesia. Shamas has been discussed above in ¶9.

11. Manah was with the Arabians one of three goddesses, the daughters of God,20 and at Gaza, the deity Marnas was
the chief object of worship—the Greeks identified him with Jupiter.21 Whether either of these names is related to the
Maori mana (mahnah) power, especially supernatural power. &c., is doubtful, but Mana seems to be personified in
the incantation whereby the soul of the deceased Maori was helped towards heaven. Dr. Shorthand does not translate
either Ihi or Mana (Ihi is dealt with in the second part of this paper as a name of Sina)—but says:

“Now you mount up,

To your Ihi,
To your Mana,
To the thousands above,” &c.22

Although in most places in Polynesia, mana means power, prestige, &c., in some places it means thunder, and so
might be connected with the memory of Jupiter Tonans.

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12. Speaking of Hades and the Assyrian belief therein, Professor Sayce says of “the land of no return” “Here, Allat, ‘the
queen of the mighty country’ ruled together with Tu, the god of death.”23 In New Zealand Tu is not the god of death,
but of war, and is one of the most dreaded divinities. In Mangaia, he is essentially a god of Hades, residing in the
Land of Silence, “where the gift of speech is unknown.”24

13. After the first triad of the Chaldeans (Anu, Ea, and Bel) had passed away, a second triad took their place, viz., Sin,
Shamas, and Raman, as Moon, Sun, and the Power of the Atmosphere. Of Sin and Shamas we have already spoken,
but of Raman we may notice that his sign is generally the lightning, or triple forked thunder-bolt; he is, “the lord of
the flaming sword.” Whether he is connected in pre-historic thought with the Indian Rama25 (Moon-Rama) or not, it
is possible that the Polynesian word rama a torch (and as a compound, “light”) may be connected with this. In the
Gambier Islands rama means to illuminate, and marama is a common Oceanic word for moon, while in Tahiti
maramarama means light. Raman was also called Vul or Pur (πνρ) and the Polynesian word pura or pula to shine, to
glow, would seem to have kindred with the words for fire; in Fijian vula is the moon and vulavula (purapura) white.
The Assyrian word “to blow,” is formed on the root hau,26 which resembles the Polynesian hau wind.

14 Referring to the triad spoken of in ¶ 13, the person called Sin, the moon, was called by the Acadians Uru-Ki, a word
denoting “shining.” “Elu (Bel) had a numerous family, his eldest son was the moon-god, called Ur.27 The most ancient
city of Ur (the home of Abraham) was the central seat of moon-worship in Chaldea. It was “the city of the light.”28
From ur, light, is derived the Assyrian uru light and day; the Hebrew aor.” The Maori ura to be red, to glow, and uru,
glow, seem akin to this, and so do some European roots, although I am aware that the Latin uro, I burn, is said to be
on a later root than us or ush.29 If the Hebrew Aor, light, is a relative of Ur, or a borrowed word, it has a curious
likeness to the Maori Ao, daylight, the bright day, the visible world. Ao was sometimes personified; “Come, O Ao! and
add thy power.”30 It appears in the Samoan Cosmogony “Then Immensity and Space brought forth offspring, they
brought forth Night and Day (Ao).”31 Sir W. Rawlinson speaking of the Chaldean god of the atmosphere says that “a
probable reading of his name is Air or Aur, the well known gods of the Mendaean pantheon, who presided over the
firmament.” Schrader writes that the twenty-eighth day was sacred to Ao,32 and the Assyrian deity Ao is called “The
Intelligent Guide, the Lord of the Visible World, the Lord of Knowledge, Glory, and Life,” by Cooper.33 Ao is the
Visible World in Maori.

15. Maia, mother or nurse, a name of Cybele, the Great Mother, presiding over childbirth—perhaps a sister of the
Indian Maya, the bountiful goddess—resembles the Tahitian maia a midwife and maiaa the dam of animals. Muta,
the goddess of silence also coincides with
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the Mangarevan mutu to keep silence (Maori mutu to cut short, muta to end) and with the Marquesan Mutuhei, the
god of silence. In Persian (Zend) atar is fire “both as a thing and a person.”34 In Polynesia, Ata is a person as “Dawn,”
and also is the morning light, to reflect as a mirror, the soul, the spirit of a thing, the essence. Schrader speaks of the
Chaldean goddess Atar as coinciding with Athare or Astarte the moon.35 The Maori ata is apparently compounded in
the word Atarau the moon, and is very like Athare. The Ouranos (Heaven) of India is called Varuna, a name which
reads in Polynesian as Va-runa, “the space above,” Maori Wa-runga. One of the Aryan deities was Pushan, the sun.
Of this deity the commentary on the Rig Veda says “Thy golden ships, O Pushan, which move across the watery
sky.”36 The Maori puhana, to glow, explains this name, and in doing so comments on another Vedic deity, Ahana the
Dawn, (Sk. ahan day), for these have apparently a relation to the Polynesian hana to shine to glow, the Paumotan
hana the sun, Tahitian hanahana splendour, glory, awfulness. Deva an Asiatic name for “gods” may be (not
originally, but dialectically, dyaus) a name for them as the people of the reva, the firmament or expanse of heaven in
Tahiti and Hawaii. The leva, reva, or deva are the visible heavens, the upper regions of the air.37 Reva was a name of
the Indian Venus, and was also a name of Karna the sun-god's child—Karna may be the Paumotan word Kana
shining, radiant. Tvastri or Tvashtar, the Vedic Creator and fashioner was apparently once “the thunderer”—“When
the clever Tvashtar had turned the well-made golden, thousand-edged thunder-bolt.”38 In the Island of Fate or Efate,
the word for thunder is Vatshiri, and is almost certainly the thunder (and thunder-deity) of the Maori as Whatitiri.
Conder makes allusion to the Egyptian Tanen as “the god of the heavens”39 and the name may be connected with
Tana the god of light, the first person in the Hawaiian Trinity.

16. Siva was one of the ancient gods of India, and his name means dark, black, destroying.40 Siva in Polynesian means
dark-colored, black, or blue; secondly “sacred” as a sacred offering. In Hawaii puaa hiwa is the black or sacred hog
offered in sacrifice, while Hiwa-hiwa was a name applied to gods and great chiefs.41 The double trident of the Hindu
Siva was found marked on some stones on the island of Molokai (Sandwich Islands). It is curious to notice that this
word siva means a dance-song in Samoa, in Tonga, a song, to sing, and a heathen festival.42 So also the Indian Sura
the sun43 seems connected with Polynesian festivals, as Samoan sula a song of thanks, Tahitian hura a native dance,
Hawaiian hula to dance. Soma, the sacred beverage offered to the Hindoo gods (the haoma of the Zend Avesta)
appears in Polynesian as the Mangarevan homa, an offering of fruits to the gods. Hari, a name of Vishnu, is perhaps
the Maori hari to dance in a ceremonial manner while holding up baskets containing offerings; Mangarevan (which
often drops h) Ari, the name of a god, &c. It would certainly appear that if the Polynesians have not kept the names of
Asiatic gods in reverence, some memory of them seems to linger in their festivals and dances. As to priesthood, a
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note in Darmestetter's Vendidad (Fargard V. p. 56) says “The Ratu is the chief priest, the spiritual head of the
community.” This title Ratu, is used in Fiji like Sir or Mr. before the name of a chief, and is in Samoa the title of the
Chief-Builder, as Latu. It is linked with the Javanese Ratu a king, the Datu or chief of the Malay Archipelago.

17. Summing up this necessarily concise account of many coincidences, we find—

Asiatic Sacred Words. Polynesian Comparatives

Par. 4. Anu,, Heaven. Anu, space.

” 5. Bel, the lord of Fire. Vela, heat.

” 5. Ea, the fish, the lord of Wisdom. Ea, to appear above water, spirit, &c.
” 6. Nana, the Earth-Mother. Nana, to nurse.

” 6. Rakia, the firmament. Raki, Heaven.

” 8. Ra, the Sun. Ra, the Sun.

” 9. Tum or Tamas, the Sun. Tama-te-Ra, the Sun.

” 10. Sin, the Moon. Sina, the Moon.

” 11. Manah or Marnas (Jove?). Mana, supernatural power.

” 11. Isis, the Moon, &c. Ihi (see second part of ¶ 30).
” 12. Tu, the god of death Tu, god of war and Hades.

” 13. Raman, god of the atmosphere. Rama, light.

” 13. Vul or pur (Raman) Vula, moon, and pura, fire.

” 14. Uru, the light. Uru, to glow.

” 14. Aor, light. Ao, day, daylight.

” 15.Maia, Magna-Mater. Maia, a midwife.

” 15. Muta, goddess of silence. Mutu, to keep silence.

” 15. Atar, fire. Ata, light, dawn.

” 15. Varuna, Heaven. Va-runa, space above.

” 15. Pushan, the Sun. Puhana, to glow.

” 15. Ahana, the dawn. Hana, to glow.

” 15. Deva, a god. Reva, abode of gods, the sky.

” 15. Karna, the Sun-god's child. Kana, shining, radiant.

” 15. Tvastri, the thunderer. Vatshiri, thunder.

” 15. Tanen, God of Heaven. Tane, god of light.

” 16. Siva, a Hindu god. Siva, sacred, a dance.

” 16. Sura, the Sun-god. Sula, a song and dance.

” 16. Hari, a Hindu god. Hari, to dance.

” 16. Ratu, a chief priest. Ratu, a chief.

” 16. Soma, an offering to gods. Homa, an offering to gods.

These comparisons seem to present sufficient data to allow us to consider whether there is not sufficient ground for
further study on this subject. The likeness of names may be the merest coincidence, but on the other hand it may
point our thoughts backwards to days behind Greek and Chaldean, behind Accadian and Polynesian, to times
concerning which there is neither script nor legend, and so cause us to remember what a tiny space of time our
history and even myth-history covers. This is good if it teaches us humility in our research, even if we can do little to
lift the impalpable, impenetrable veil which hides the childhood of our race.

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ISIS AND HINA.

This second part of my paper deals little with coincidences of name, but rather with those of action and of attribute.

The worship of Isis was so widely spread among the nations of the ancient world that her name brings manifold
recollections to every scholar. Of Hina, though little known in countries where literature has flourished, the story of
her doings is celebrated almost everywhere among the thousand islands of the Pacific, and she is the centre around
which many of the quaint and interesting legends of the South Seas group themselves. That each goddess should have
something in common is only to be expected, but that both should, have the same powers and be described as
performing, phase by phase, the same actions, are coincidences worthy of the attention of the Comparative
Mythologist.

18. The history of the goddess Isis is so well-known, and so accessible in countless books of classical research that it
may be passed over in its general form without comment, particularly as details will have to be dwelt on at
considerable length. The character of Isis differed, as do those of all ancient deities, according to the century, the
country, and the mental enlightenment of her worshippers. When men had grown up to refinement of thought and
expression, Isis became almost an abstract divinity; she was the female force personified and magnified to infinity,
the Virgin Genitrix containing all powers of life and reproduction, the great Mother-Nature herself, “whose peplum
no male hand had lifted.” But in the earlier days of simpler men, she too had been a simpler goddess, one of whom
many legends were told, one who wedded and bore a child, one who loved and wept and rejoiced. It is this humbler
side of her character with which we have to deal.

I have already compiled and compared together many of the legends concerning Hina, in a paper to be found in the
Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, Vol. XIX., p. 486, et. seq. Those who wish to read traditions concerning
her must turn to that paper, or to the fuller text of the references made therein.

19. The goddess of the Inundation.—Isis was worshipped in different countries, and under many names. She was Isis
in Egypt, Ishtar in Chaldea, Astarte in Greece, Ashtoreth in Phœnicia, Atergatis with the Hittites, Derketo in Tyre,
Diana in Crete, Cybele in Phrygia, Eastre and Ziza in Teutonic lands. These names represented her under different
aspects, but there is a similarity and a bond between them all. The chief link of this chain is her function as a water-
goddess.

In Egypt, Isis was the goddess who presided over the benificent inundation, the annual rising of the Nile. This was
supposed to proceed from the tears she wept over the murder of her husband Osiris by Typhon. She is mentioned as
being connected with the Chaldean deluge also. “In the heavens the very gods are afraid; they seek a refuge in the
highest heaven of Anu; as a dog in its lair the gods crowded by the railing of heaven. Ishtar cries aloud with sorrow
“Behold all is turned into mud, as I foretold to the gods.”44 This connection with the waters accounts for her being
representeds as a fish or a woman-fish. Lucian calls Semiramis the daughter of Derketo
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(Atergatis) whom he saw in Phœnicia as a woman with the tail of a fish.45 “At Joppa she appears as a mermaid.
According to Plutarch the Syrian Tirgata, the Derceto of Palestine was the goddess of moisture.”46 As Atergatis she
was worshipped by the Hittites at Karkhemish, her priestesses being beautiful girls. At Tyre, the fish-goddess Derketo
and the fish-god Dagon were worshipped together.47 Professor Sayce, our eminent Oriental authority, states that
Ashtoreth, Astarte, Aphrodite, Artemis, and Ishtar are the same goddess.48 Ashtoreth must have been worshipped in
Palestine before the time of Abraham, for Chedorlaomer when he advanced against the five kings smote (Gen. XIV. 5)
the Rephaim in Ashtoreth-Karnaim “the two-horned Ashtoreth.”49

20. Hina or Sina is also distinctively a water-goddess. In New Zealand she is best known in her character as “the great
swimmer,” when in her grief for the loss of her husband she made the long journey of many months through the
waves of the ocean to Sacred Island (Motu-tapu).50 In the same way had Ishtar mourned for her lord and wandered:

“ The darkling pathway o'er the restless waters

Of seven seas that circle Death's domain
I trod, and followed after earth's sad daughters
Torn from their loved ones and ne'er seen again.”51

In the Mangaian story Hina (Ina) also swims to Sacred Island, but mounted on a fish; she herself is called Ina-ika
“Ina the fish,” and the journey ends, as in the New Zealand legend, in her becoming “the wife of the King of all Fish.”
The same tradition is related in Tahiti. In Hawaii52 Hina was the wife of Kuula (Tu-kura) the god of fishermen, and
she was appealed to when her husband withdrew his favours.53 The Deluge in Hawaii is called “the Flood of Royal
Hina,” and in Samoa Sina was invoked by the Maui brothers to make their hook hold when the earth was drawn up
from the deep sea, just as in Hawaii the bait on the hook (when the land was drawn up) was the wing of Hina's
favorite bird. The Samoan poet sings—

“The fishes of the deep come inside the reef

To the hook of thy son, O Sina.”54

These quotations establish Hina's position as a water-goddess.

21. The Deluge-Bird.—A noticeable point in the tales concerning Isis is that she is often represented as a bird, usually
as the dove. The bird was a common emblem of the soul in former times sometimes even of deity. In ancient Persia
the song of the bird was sometimes thought to be a divine utterance or revelation.55 “The Ninevite sculptor typified
the Supreme Being as an orb with the wings and tail of the dove.”56 Of Isis, when she was worshipped by the Hittites
as the fish-goddess, it is said “a still more invariable and favourite attribution, however, was the white dove; it was
looked upon as an essentially holy bird, which it was sinful to kill for food or sport.”57
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Semiramis turned herself into a dove when she was to be gathered to the immortals. “Semiramis (whose Assyrian
name Shammuramat means simply “dove,”) is beyond doubt none other than the goddess Ishtar”58—that is, Isis.
Massey, speaking of this goddess says, “Ishtar-Belit, the genitrix. . . . as a statute with a golden dove on her head. . . .
The fish denoted the element of water, the dove signified the soul of breath.”59 Ashtoreth was represented with the
dove on her head.60 These instances may suffice to identify Isis with the dove.

22. Hina was not only the sister and wife of Maui, whose favourite transformation61 was into the dove, but another
brother, Rupe, (whose name means “Dove”) came to her in that shape to Sacred Isle and bore her away.62 It was as a
bird that the spirit of her future husband Tinirau came to her63 in the Mangaian legend.64 When New Zealand was
pulled up out of the waters by Maui the string was given to the dove to haul on.65 Maui “was three months hauling it
above the water, and would not then have succeeded, had he not caught a dove, put his spirit into it, tied the line to
which the land was fastened to its beak, and then caused the dove to fly to the clouds and draw up the islands above
the surface of the water.66 But this dove drawing land above the waters is certainly the deluge-bird, that is Hina. In
Tahiti, the great uncreated god Taaroa (Tangaroa), dwelling in the Reva (the Expanse, the upper Heavens) made
Hina as his first act of creation, and in the Samoan story the deity Tangaroa sent down from heaven his daughter Sina
(Hina) in the form of a bird. “She flew about, but could find no resting place, nothing but ocean. She returned to the
heavens, but was again sent down by Tagaloa to search for land. First she observed spray, then water breaking, then
land above the surface, and then a dry place where she could rest.”67 This resembles the Biblical narrative of the bird-
messenger of the deluge, and the Chaldean version also. “At the dawn of the seventh day I took out a dove and sent it
forth. The dove went to and fro, but found no resting place and returned.68 Sina chose the dove as her incarnation.”69

23. The Rainbow.—The Rainbow was an accompaniment or attribute of Isis. In the Chaldean Deluge Tablets, it is said
of Ishtar after the flood: “And when the goddess Ishtar came she spread out on high the great bows of her father Anu.
‘By the necklace of my neck’ she said, ‘I shall be mindful of these days.’”70 Keridwen, the Isis of the ancient Britons,
also used the rainbow symbol. “The rainbow was adopted as a type of peace after storm. It was an image of Isis and
Keridwen; the smile of serenity dawning after the deluge.”71 Hina also appeared with the rainbow. Tangaroa (a
Mangaian legend this) fell in love with her, “the god unfastened his girdle which mortals call the rainbow, and by this
dazzling pathway descended to earth.”72 The celestial arc then seems to have become the property of the god-
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dess, because when she had taken a mortal husband to the skies and he grew old (the Greek story of Tithonus), “Ina
caused a beautiful rainbow to span the heavens, by which her disconsolate aged husband descended to earth to die.”73
This story belongs properly to Hina as the Moon-goddess (see ¶ 24). In Hawaiian legend we are told that it is only by
the rainbow that Hina's heavenly home can be approached.74

24. The Moon-goddess.—We must now consider the most prominent aspect in which Isis appeared to the ancient
world. She was emphatically the lunar goddess, the wife of Osiris the sun. The moon-deities of other nations than
Egypt are probably adaptations or reflections of her. “They also declare Isis to be the moon, and say that such statues
of her as are horned were made in imitation of the crescent.”75 “Ishtar, wedded to the beautiful sun-god descended to
Hades.”76 “Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns.”77 “Ashtoreth or Ashtaroth,78 a Phœnician goddess-moon.”
“Ishtar and Shamas the sun-god were children of Sin.”79 It is from this name of Sin (Sina) for the moon-deity that
Mount Sinai and the desert of Sin were named.”80 The sister goddesses worshipped by European peoples, agreeing
with Isis in many of her attributes (ut infra) were also represented with the crescent moon. So Artemis was Bicornis
regina siderum,81 and as Luna, Phœbe, Selene, Hecate, &c., is thus represented.

That Hina is the moon, is most certain. The original meaning of Sina or Hina seems to have been “white” or “silvery.”
The common word for “the moon” in Polynesian is either mahina or marama.82 It is masina in Samoan, mahina in
Tahitian, Tongan, Hawaiian, &c., but when personified the ma of mahina is omitted. Sina is “the woman in the
moon” in Samoa,83 and was worshipped as a goddess in one of the islands of the group, the month of May being
called after her. In New Zealand “To Hina (the moon) belongs night and day” is a proverb quoted by White.84 In
Raratonga and the Hervey Group, Hina (Ina) was wedded to Marama the moon-god, and became the moon
goddess.85 In Tahiti, Hina, after many adventures went up to the moon to dwell, as she is also said to have done in the
legends of Hawaii.86 The most interesting proof of this phase of Hina's existence as a goddess is her connection with
Maui, and its likeness to the Asiatic and Kamic stories. There can be little doubt in the mind of anyone who has read
Professor Max Müller's paper on the subject87 but that Maui is a personification of the sun. I may perhaps add to his
argument a few additional points of identification. Maui not only brought fire for the use of men88 but in doing so
assumed the shape of a hawk, the solar “bird of fire.” “The hawk was her child and was the god of fire.”89 So of Osiris
it was said “sometimes he appears with the head of a hawk, as that bird from its quick and piercing eyes is a proper
emblem of the sun.90 At
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Nineveh, Layard says it was recognised that “God is he who has the head of a hawk.”91 Even the name seems to have
been known in Egypt for we are told that “one of their gods was Moui, apparently the same as Gom or Hercules, the
splendour and light of the sun, and therefore called a son of Re,”92 and this Moui had also the name of Ao,93 which as
we have seen is the Maori word for “daylight,” and therefore appropriate to the Solar Hercules (see ¶ 14). In Egypt the
constellation sign of “The Scorpion” was used as a symbol of the drying up of the inundation, because the scorpion
could only live in dry places, and therefore was an emblem of the sun. Thus it is said “I am like the Sun in the Gates. I
give the breath of life to Osiris. I have come like the Sun through the Gate of the Sun-goers, otherwise called the
Scorpion.”94 It is certainly a curious coincidence that the constellation Scorpio is pointed out in Polynesia as being the
great fish-hook with which Maui hauled up the dry land out of the depths of the waters.95 Just as Isis was the sister
and wife of the sun-god Osiris, so was Hina the sister96 and wife97 of the solar deity Maui, and in establishing the
identity of Osiris with Maui we establish also that of Isis with Hina.

Professor Max Müller in his introduction to the Rev. Dr. Gill's Myths and Songs, says “That the name of the sun-god
in Mangaia is Ra has been pointed out as a strange coincidence with Egypt, but more really important is the story of
Ra being made captive, as reminding us of similar solar legends in Greece, Germany, Peru, and elsewhere.” I may
point out a still more curious identity in the body of this story. When Maui was noosing the Sun all the ropes he tried
burnt up in the fierce heat, until at last he made a noose of the hair of his beautiful sister,98 and this was
unconsumed. This incident is repeated in far-off North America, where the sun-catching story is related by the Dog-
rib Indians, who say that the noose which held the sun was made from the hair of the hero's sister.99 It is idle to talk
of coincidence in cases like this; the incidents are identical. However the stories have travelled, the myth is one,
although why Hina's hair should have possessed this virtue is a problem for ethnologists to solve.

25. The rending of Osiris.—The connection of Isis-Hina with Osiris-Maui is made yet more plain by reference to the
Polynesian calendar of nights of the month. In the Osiris-myth we are told that Typhon tore the body of Osiris into
fourteen parts, and this act is supposed to typify the conflict between the powers of light and darkness. “One
character of Osiris is that of Lord of Light in the Moon, the reflector of the solar light. The fourteen parts are the
fourteen days or nights from full to new moon.”100 (This was the month of four weeks or 28 days—for three nights the
moon entered the realm of darkness.) So also Hesiod says “The fourteenth is a day sacred beyond
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all others.101 If we now turn to the Polynesian lunations, we shall find that the fourteenth night is called by the
Marquesans, Atua, i.e., “god”—it is also called by the Hawaiians Akua “god”—and by the Maoris (in its full name)
Atua-whaka-haehae. Whaka-haehae is properly a verb, of which whaka is the causative prefix, signifying “to make,
to cause,” while hae means “to tear, to rend.” If the fourteenth lunar day was sacred in Egypt and Asia as the day of
“the rending of the sun-god” it is a strange coincidence that the fourteenth lunar day in Polynesia was the day of “the
rending of the god.”102

26. A goddess of the dark.—Although the moon-goddess was herself essentially a light-bearer, yet she was often
alluded to strangely as “the Dark One” at times. She is represented with a black veil as the dark-robed Latona103—the
black Demeter (Pausanias, 8, 42) and furva Persephone (Hor. Od. 2, 13). So also we hear of the other forms of Isis, as
the black Aphrodite, the black Diana of Ephesus, &c., &c. “They also declare Isis to be the moon. . . . and that the
black habit in which she so passionately pursues the sun sets forth her disappearings and eclipses.”104 As Hecate she
is the goddess of the darkness of night and the infernal regions, as Ceres she was called Nigra because moaning for
her daughter Kore or Persephone, and she is presented with a black veil and with a dove on her head. “Darkness was
the first Revealer of Light in the stars, and therefore a form of the genitrix, the mother who is called Mistress of
Darkness and the Bringer-forth of Light. In the last of the Izdubar legends, the mother of all is Ishtar, ‘She who is
Darkness, the Mother, the emaner of the Dawn.’”105 The ibis as a black and white bird was sacred to Isis, and the
robes of her priests were pied. By means of this knowledge we can understand the New Zealand name for Hina, viz.,
Hina-uri. Uri in Polynesian means “black,” “dark,” sometimes dark-blue.106 Hina's name in Hawaii was Hinaiaeleele,
and eleele means black or dark. Such an epithet applied to one whose chief name means white or bright, and her
compound name (Hina-uri) “Light-Dark” would be incomprehensible unless as a lunar appellation.

27. The Water of Life.—This singular myth is as well-known in Polynesia as in Asia. In Chaldea the Miebalati, the
“waters of life” are in legend connected chiefly with Ishtar (Isis), and some of the most beautiful ancient poetry we
have yet discovered is that relating to her visit to the fountain of life in the Land of Shadows. Those who wish to read
on the subject may turn to Professor Louis Dyer's poems of Ishtar in Urugal, Ishtar's Lament, and the prose
description in the same volume.107 Ishtar goes to the land of the Dead, to find her fair young bridegroom the sun-god,
who has set in the night of winter—when “the women are weeping for Tammuz.”108 As Isis is connected with “the
waters of life” so also is Hina. “When the moon dies she goes to the ‘Living Water of Tane,’ to the great lake of Aewa—
to the water which can restore all, even the moon to its path in the sky.”109 “The women assembled and bewailed
those who had died
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since the last (new moon), uttering the following lament: “Alas! Alas! thou O Moon hast returned to life, but our
departed beloved ones have not. Thou hast bathed in the living waters of Tane, and had thy life renewed, but there
has been no fountain of living water to restore life to our departed ones. Alas! Alas!”110 As it has been shewn that the
Moon is Hina, her connection with “the waters of life,” is certain.

28. The Mother-goddess.—Professor Max Müller, speaking of our goddess Hina, says “It is impossible to read the
Polynesian story of Ina and her mortal lover, who, as he grew old and infirm, had to be sent back to the earth to end
his days there, without thinking of Selene and Endymion, of Eos and Tithonos, though few would venture to connect
her name with that of Ino Leucothea.”111 This is quite true, it is impossible; although Leucothea is an epithet which
may well be applied to Hina the Shining. The real identity of Ina is not with Ino, but with Inachis, that is with Io, the
daughter of Inachus a water-deity.112 A hundred allusions in classical story tell us how Zeus fell in love with Io, and
how, in the shape of a beautiful white heifer, she fled to Egypt and became the mother of Apis by “a ray from Heaven”
(Osiris).113 The mythological identity of Io and Isis is fully accepted.114 An early Egyptian moon-god was called Ioh,
and bore a crescent on his head.115 Bunsen116 also mentions this deity. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that the name Io is
connected with ehe “the cow” and in a note adds that this refutes the idea of the modern introduction of the story of
Io into Egypt.117 That the early androgynous moon-deities of Egypt should merge in Isis, the great moon-horned
goddess, was to be expected. The name of Io, we are told by three Maori scholars, was the name of the Supreme Deity
among the Maoris.118 White says “Io is really the God, he made heaven and earth.”119 So also C. O. Davis wrote “The
oldest Maori prayers were those addressed to the sacred Io”120 and both writers give incantations to this deity. That
published by Davis states that “the two of Taingahue” that is, the sun and moon, were placed under the maru
(shadow or protection) of Io. It is quite possible that there is no connection between the great Maori deity Io (who is
possibly Iao) and the Io who is Isis, it may be a mere sound-resemblance in words, but there is one curious point of
coincidence between Hina and the heifer-goddess, viz., their being watched by a many-eyed guardian. Juno was
jealous of the beautiful heifer in which was embodied the form of the maiden loved by Jove, so she set the hundred-
eyed Argus, the brother of Osiris, to watch her. So, also, when Sina (Hina) was watched by the sister of her husband,
in the shape of a bird having nine eyes: “Sina said to her husband “My dear, tell your sister to shut some of her eyes.”
So he said to his sister “Shut your eyes; Sina is terrified,” &c., &c.121 With one exception, this is is the only instance I
know of in Polynesian tradition of any supernatural person having an abnormal number of limbs or features, and that
exception is Maui,
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who in Mangareva is called matavaru, “the eight-eyed”—but as Maui is the sun, this probably relates to him as “the
four-faced Baal”—“the four-faced image of Baal (Zeus) which Manasseh set up in the House of the Lord (Souidas in
voc. Manasses),” or as “the four-faced solar deity in the Kerameikos.”122

29. The dog-deities.—By some astronomically-born myth there is relation between the Dog-Star and the Deluge. We
find in the Bundahish that Tishtar (Sirius) produced the deluge. In Egypt, where there was an annual inundation of
the Nile, the myth connected itself with Isis the presiding goddess of the waters, so it was fabled that Anubis, the dog-
headed deity was a son of Osiris. Anubis was “the barker,” he who gave warning of the rising waters,123 and Plutarch
says that “the soul of Isis was called the dog by the Greeks.”124 This then explains the connection between Hina and
Owa (or Irawaru); Maui changing Hina's first husband into a dog,125 and she is shewn also to be the mother of Pero (a
Maori word for “dog”) who was the tutelary deity of dogs.126 On this account Maori women were forbidden to eat the
flesh of the dog, which was a luxury reserved for men.

30. The evidence of names.—We cannot pursue this subject further without considering the identity of names. Hina
had several Polynesian names, some only dialectical variants as Hina, Sins, or Ina; others were epithets as Hina-uri,
Hina-ika, &c., while the names of Isis, as we have seen, were very numerous. If the name of Isis should be written in
Polynesian letters, it would be Ihi or Ihihi. A name actually given to Hina by the New Zealanders was Ihi-ihi.127 The
meaning of the word ihi is difficult to give in a precise translation, but all its meanings refer to points noticeable in
Isis-worship. For instance, it means “a ray of the sun,” and we are told that Isis became pregnant by a ray which was
Osiris.128 “Slavic idols such as Perun and Podaga have rays round their heads, as has the rune R when it stands for
Radegast. Did rays originally express the conception of divine and lustrous beauty?”129 Ihi is also “supernatural
power,” and we find it personified and invoked (ut supra ¶ 11). Again it means “a furrow”—“to split and divide,” and
the furrow-making plough was the car of Isis (ut infra ¶ 32). It was “an emanation,” and as both
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light and dawn it was a type of Isis.130 Ihi-ihi, a ray of the sun, is probably a secondary meaning—philologically, I
venture to suggest that primarily the word was like the Tongan isi to hiss, and once had a consonant before it as hihi,
hisi, shishi, kisi, or some sound phonetically indicating the rush of water, as in the Maori hihi to hiss. The real
meaning of Isis, as of Ihi, is lost in the darkness of the centuries, but though many guesses have been made, the origin
is lost in the secondary meanings, such as rays, furrows, sacred, &c., &c. Another name of Hina is that of Hina-te-
iwaiwa (or Hine-te-iwaiwa or Hine to hivahiva).131 The spellings are various, but all have meanings if translated. If
iva or iwa is correct, this is the Polynesian word for “nine” and is probably a mystical allusion to the nine months of
gestation in women, because it was particularly under this name that Hina was invoked by women in childbirth,132
and and for the same reason that the necklace of Isis contained the nine beads. It may be a reference to her as Iva, she
being the first woman created, and some word-juggle has connected her with “the barker.”133 In Aitutaki (Hervey
Islands), the “fair land of souls” is called Iva, and seems to answer to the “bright land of Sina in the skies” to which
the spirits of the blessed dead pass from Niue (Savage Island), just as in old Chaldea a man prayed for his king to live
hereafter “in the land of the silver sky.”134 If again the name should be read as Hiva or Siva it might either be a
memory of the Indian Siva, “on whose diadem is a crescent”135 and so be a lunar appellative, or as siva means ‘dark’ it
may be an additional epithet as ‘the Dark One.’

31. The goddess of childbirth.—It has been remarked that “it may seem difficult at first to trace the connection
between the moon, a water-goddess, and a deity presiding over child-birth, yet it is certain that such a connection did
exist.”136 It is as certain that the relation existed in the case of Hina as in that of Isis. It is acknowledged by classical
authorities that Lucina, Diana, Bona-Mater, and the other mother-protecting goddesses of the ancient world were
only forms of Isis, the Eternal Mother. In the hour of parturition the Maoris appealed to Hina as Hine-te-iwaiwa, with
the invocation

“Weave, weave the mat,

Couch for my unborn child,” &c., &c.137

32. The goddess of agriculture, weaving, &c.—The inundation in Egypt was of so useful a nature that the water-
goddess became the deity nourishing the growth of crops, &c. It is said that Ceres is Isis when representing “the earth
changed by the flood,” and Minerva is Isis as “proclaiming the season of the year when husbandmen were to apply
themselves to the fabrications of linen.” As the Isis of Sais, she (Minerva) appears with an owl at her feet. “Isis
signified the harvest.”138 Wherever the Great Mother was celebrated in festival her chariot took the form of the ark
(boat) or else of the plough. In her crescent-boat, the moon, Isis had for ever floated through the skies, and on the
plough her image was borne along at feasts till late
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in the middle ages. Isis139 was identified by Grimm with a Teutonic goddess Ziza, who was carried on a boat or car in
the 14th century and at Ulm so late as a.d. 1533.140 The Romans bore her bark laden with the first fruits of spring on
the 5th March, at the feast of Isidis Navigium. For the boat of the water-goddess was sometimes substituted the
plough of the Corn-mother, and the plough adorned with ribbons was drawn in triumph by young men and maidens.
“The furrow or kesh plays a greater part in the Mazdean liturgy than any other,”141 and we find that in New Zealand
that ihi means not only “a ray,” but “a furrow,” and “to divide by a line.” Maui and Hina, the deities whom we have
seen to be inseparable in myth, appear to have divided their duties as patrons of agriculture, &c. Thus it is said that
“Maui is the Ceres of New Zealand. When the heavens appear chequered with white clouds on a blue surface, the god
is said to be planting his potatoes.”142 When the Romans worshipped the Magna Mater a “left hand” was carried in
procession; the left hand is called maui in Maori. Maui was invoked for success in planting the kumara crops (sweet
potatoes), and in fishing.143 The charm or invocation at planting the kumara was addressed to Pani,144 and this Pani
was the wife of Maui-whare-kino.145 Colenso adds that at such seasons (root-planting) a peculiarly-shaped, abnormal
and rather large kumara root was met with, though by no means freqnently (sometimes not one such in the whole
cultivation), and that this was called Pani's canoe=Pani's medium between her and her priests and the crop; it was
consequently highly sacred and was never eaten by the people.146 It was sure to presage fertility. If it was Pani's vaka
(“canoe” or “medium”) it was probably only because it was emblematic of the bark, (vahka) or ark, which was the
boat or a symbol of the ancient goddess.147 Perhaps the most singular coincidence of names to be found anywhere is
that of the name of Isis (or Io) as Inachis148 with the Inachi ceremony of Tonga, wherein the first-fruits of the yam-
season were offered to the gods; the yams for offering being bound spirally with ribbons exactly in the manner the
pine-cones were bound in honour of Isis-Ceres at the Eleusinian Mysteries.149 Swine were offered to Ceres in the
Mysteries,150 and swine were also offered to Hina by the Polynesians of Hawaii. Isis invented spinning or weaving,
and, in Polynesia, where the tapa or cloth made from bark superseded the ordinary weaving of other lands, Hina was
always regarded as the supreme maker of cloth. In Samoa she is supposed to be still beating cloth (in the moon), and
in Raiatea they show the place where she used to make her tapa.

33. The son of the goddess.—The famous son of Osiris and Isis was Orus or Horus, himself the later Sun. He was often
pictured as a fish, or with the fish-sign over his head, probably because his mother was the goddess of the waters. “In
the Hermean Zodiac, Pisces is named Ichton, and the fish is the female goddess who brought forth
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the young sun-god as her fish,”151 Hina brought forth to her husband “the king of all fish,” a son named Koro or Oro.
Fornander has noted his opinion that Orus is connected with Oro and mentions that the Bacchus of the Arabs, the
Orotal of Herodotus (III. 8) is probably Oro.152 Whether the name is coincident or not, I may explain that Koro or
Kolo in Polynesia means a loop or circle, and has many compounds,153 while the Egyptian Orus is represented with
a hoop as a symbol.154 In the Transformation of Horus, the re-begotten, the sun or god has to cross the waters.155 Not
only had the child of Hina to cross the waters, but when he, the newly-born, was being carried across the waters by
the Dove (Rupe) the placenta fell into the water and was devoured by a shark.156 This was most necessary from the
Polynesian point of view, the place were the placenta (whenua) was buried, marked the country (whenua) of the new-
born child, and a shark's maw was the proper home for the birth-sign of the son of “the king of all fish.” The fifth day
of the moon's age wae called Akoro or Okoro (“of Koro”) after this child of the lunar goddess Hina. In Dr. Gill's
interesting legends we find that Koro planted the first pandanus tree in Mangaia157 and taught the natives the art of
dancing, which he had learnt from his great father when they had called up the fishes of the ocean to dance upon the
shore.158 Thus Koro, “the circle,” first taught dancing, the mystic Cyclic Dance, on the shore which was the realm of
his parents. The Greek poet says “And the moon dances, and the fifty daughters of Nereus who are in the sea and in
the eddies of the overflowing rivers, celebrate in choric dance the golden-crowned damsel and her awful mother,”159
and an English poet “The sounds and seas with all their finny drove, Now to the moon in wavering morrice move.”

34. Space and the attention of readers, I fear, fail me in showing the many coincidences of these curious stories. I will
now sum up the many points in which Isis and Hina have concurrent legends. They were water-goddesses, moon-
deities, invoked in child-birth, associated with the Dove, with the rainbow, the 14th day of the moon, the growth of
crops, the preparing of cloth, the plough or furrow, the ray, the dog-deities, the many-eyed watcher, the Water of Life,
&c., &c.

1 The ancient Turanian names of the gods are gradually translated into the new Cushite-Semitic language. . . . existed in its completed form in
the fifth thousand, B.C. Ragozin's Chaldea, p. 362. “In adopting the pantheon of Accad, the Semites made three important changes.”
Sayce's Assyria, p. 57.
2 Schrader's Cuneiform Inscriptions, Vol. I., pp. 168 and 278.

3 Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 55.

4 Ragozin's Chaldea, p. 239 (Story of the Nations). See also Sayce's Assyria, p. 58.

5 The Polynesian Race, Vol. I., p. 53.

6 Ragozin's Chaldea, p. 260.

7 See Lectures on Babylonia by W. St. Chad Boscawen, p. 28, in Religious Systems of the World.

8 Ragozin's Chaldea, p. 245.

9 It is probable that the Chaldean Nana, Earth, and Nannar, Moon were originally forms of one word, for, as will hereafter be shown, the idea
of the moon-goddess as the primal genitrix was very prominent. Perhaps the Scandinavian goddess Nanna, the wife of Balder, has a name
of the same signification, for nanna is used as “woman” by the Icelandic poets.
10 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

11 See Bunsen's Egypt's Place, pp. 331, 332. Lenormant's Ancient History of the East I., p.202. Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, II., p.
286. Renouf's Religions of Egypt quoted in Conder's Syrian Stone Lore, p.11.
12 Rawlinson's Lecture on Religion of Assyria, p.11.

13 White's Ancient History of the Maori, II., p. 53.

14 Polynesian Mythology, p. 22 (edition 1885).

15 See Lethaby's Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, p.39.

16 White's Maori Superstitions, p. 121. (See also Grey's Poems, 362.) Although White in another place refers to this name as to that of Tama-
te-Kapua, there is no ground for this, and the name of a man like that of Tama-te-Kapua would be out of place when joined with those of
such mighty deities as Tu, Tane, and Tawhaki.
17 Schrader speaks of the Babylonian, S, becoming the lisped T. Cuneiform Inscriptions, I., 168.

18 Brown's Great Dionysiac Myth, II,, 331 & 335.

19 Translated by Thomas G. Pinches in Records of the past, Vol. xi. See Assyria, (Story of the Nations).

20 Commentary on Homer and Virgil (pub. J. Murray, 1829), p. 526.

21 See Conder's Syrian Stone Lore, 286.

22 Maori Religion and Mythology, pp. 24 and 119.

23 Fraser's Magazine, Vol. IX., p. 706.

24 Gill's Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 6.

25 In Sanscrit Ra means “fire.”

26 Schrader's Cuneiform Inscriptions, I. p. 26. Note.

27 Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 69.

28 Transactions Society Biblical Archæology, I, p. 64.

29 Respectfully, I feel doubtful as to this, and fancy that the ur root ie ae ancient—that Eos and Aurora are sisters.

30 White's Ancient History of the Maori, I, 71.

31 Pratt's Folk songs and myths from Samoa.

32 Cuneiform Inscriptions, I.,19.

33 Archaic Dictionary—Ao.

34 Darmestetter's Vendidad, preface LXII.

35 Cuneiform Inscriptions, 134.

36 Rig Veda Sanhita, by Max Müller, p. 47.

37 Cf. the Latin sub-dio as on the div or dev root.

38 Rig Veda. F. Max Müller. p. 111.

39 Syrian Stone Lore. p. 78. Note.

40 Dawson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology.

41 Fornander's The Polynesian Race, I., p. 47.

42 “Siva dances furiously with his wife Devi the dance called tandava” Dawson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology.

43 Rig Veda, p.139.

44 Ragozin's Chaldea, 316.

45 De Dea Syria. C.14.

46 Baring-Gould's Curious Myths. II., 232.

47 Mahaffy's Assyria, pp. 110, 111, 114, &c.

48 Assyria, its princes, princes, and people, p. 163.

49 Guest's Origines Celticœ. Vol. I., 303.

50 Grey's Polynesian Mythology, 49. White's Ancient History of the Maori, II., 122. Wohlers in Transactions New Zealand Institute, VII., 25.

51 Poems by Louis Dyer, in Appendix to Ragozin's Chaldea. p. 369.

52 See H. M. King Kalakaua's Legends and Myths of Hawaii, pp. 44 & 52.

53 As Derketo and Dagon were worshipped together at Tyre. Ut ante ¶ 19.

54 Pratt's Folk Songs and Myths from Samoa, p. 252.

55 Darmstetter's Vendidad, note p. 21

56 Jones' Credulities Past and Present, p. 411.

57 Assyria, 111.

58 Assyria, 201.

59 The Natural Genesis, I., 471.

60 Conder's Syrian Stone Lore, 78.

61 Grey's Polynesian Mythology, 16.

62 Grey's Polynesian Mythology, 52. White's Ancient History of the Maori, I., 82.

63 Gill's Myths and Songs, 90

64 Paumotan legends relate that restless spirits escaping from heaven, take the form of birds. Fornander, The Polynesian Race, I., p. 65.

65 White's Ancient History of the Maori. II., 88.

66 Yate's New Zealand, 142.

67 Turner's Samoa a hundred years ago, p. 7.

68 Ragozin's Chaldea 301 and 316.

69 The Song of Tigilan and Sina, Pratt, 197.

70 Chaldea, p. 316.

71 Massey's Natural Genesis, II., 209.

72 Gill's Myths and Songs, 118.

73 Gill's Myths and Songs, 47

74 Fornander's The Polynesian Race, II., 16 and note.

75 Plutarch's Morals, Isis and Osiris, 52.

76 Sayce's Assyria, 64.

77 Milton's Paradise Lost.

78 Brewer's Dictionary of Phase and Fable.

79 Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 59.

80 Sayce's Assyria, p. 92.

81 Horat. Carm. Sœc. 35.

82 For marama “light” see ¶ 13.

83 Turner's Samoa, 203.

84 Ancient History of the Maori II., 87.

85 Gill's Myths and Songs, 45 and 46.

86 Fornander's The Polynesian Race II., 17, also 399, note.

87 Solar Myths. Nineteenth Century Magazine, Dec. 1885, p. 900.

88 White's Ancient History of the Maori, II., 83. Grey's Poly. Myth., Maori part 26.

89 White's Ancient History of the Maori, II., 71.

90 Lempriere's Classical Dictionary.

91 Vaux's Nineveh, p. 32.

92 Rawlinson's Herodotus, II, 243.

93 Cooper's Archaic Dictionary.

94 The Gates of Elysium. Ritual, ch. CXLVIII. Birch.

95 Gill's Myths and Songs, 48 and 74.

96 White's Ancient History of the Maori, II., 76 and 88. Yates' New Zealand, 142.

97 White's Ancient History of the Maori, I., 85. Grey's Polynesian Mythology, 30. Turner's Samoa, 278. In Lessong's Les Polynésiens, Vol. II.,
p. 449, is a Samoan song commencing, Sou funa Sina, &c. In this song occurs the following passage: “O my dear Sina, O my dear Sina, my
sister, my wife! My sister listen to the song of thy husband, O white sea-swallow!” &c.
98 The Mangaian version Myths and Songs, 70. Miss Teuira Henry says that the same legend is found in Tahiti.

99 Tylor's Early History of Mankind, p. 341 quotes, Schoolcraft's Onéota, p. 75.

100 Massey's Natural Genesis I., 308.

101 Works and Days 119, Bohn.

102 Whaka-haehae has now the meaning of “to frighten” but this is merely a local meaning, peculiar to New Zealand. The verb hae or haehae
has the signification of “to tear to pieces” in all parts of Polynesia.
103 Hesiod Theog. 22.

104 Plutarch's Morals Os. & Is. 52.

105 Massey, Nat. Genesis I. 296.

106 Thetis, the “azure-mother.”

107 Ragozin's Chaldea 326 (Poems in Appendix) Sayce's Assyria, 64.

108 Ezekiel VIII., 14.

109 White's Ancient History of the Maori, I., 142.

110 Taylor's Te Ika a Maui, p. 54.

111 Natural Religion, p. 460.

112 Again referred to in ¶ 32.

113 See ¶ 30.

114 See Lempriere's Classical Dictionary, and Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

115 Murray's Manual of Mythology, p. 52.

116 Egypt's Place, I., 407.

117 Rawlinson's Herodotus, II., 62.

118 Major Mair gives an alternative name. “Io, or Te Ahau o te Rangi,” (that is “The ‘I’ of Heaven, the celestial Ego.”) See Tregear's Maori Poly.
Dict. p. 667.
119 Ancient History of the Maori II., pp. 1 and 2, also I. 32.

120 The Life and Times of Patuone, p. 12.

121 Pratt & Powell's Folks Songs and Myths from Samoa. In a note, Dr. John Fraser has drawn attention to this coincidence with the story of
Argus.
122 Brown's Great Dionysiak Myth, 361.

123 Bonwick's Orion and Sirius, pp. 92 and 108. Bonwtck adds that the Awa or Eve is the female barker. Hina's name was Iva (see ¶30), and
her husband, the dog, was Owa.
124 Morals, 38.

125 Grey's Polynesian Mythology, 30. White's Ancient History of the Maori, II., 118, 121, &c.

126 See appended Mythological Chart at end of White's Vol. I. of Ancient History of the Maori, Hina is Ihi-ihi, see next ¶.

127 White's Ancient History of the Maori, appended Chart.

128 As to the impregnation of a Polynesian maiden by the Sun-god, the following tale is interesting, it relates to the Tonga Islands. “At
Tonumea, the most southerly of the Haavai Islands, there is a rock, which traditions say was formerly a female. While yet a virgin she was
found to be with child. Her friends were astonished, and asked her how it was. She said she had committed no sin, but she was with child by
the sun. As the child (a boy) grew up, he was naughty; they accordingly sent him in a canoe to go and live with his father the sun in the
sky.”—Lawry's Friendly and Feejee Islands, p. 114. The reverend author of course sees in this some reference to the Christian Incarnation,
and suspects biblical influence.
A curious Solar myth has been handed to me by Mr. S. Percy Smith. It is an extract from an old Maori legend, and relates that “Bird from-
the-Sun” warned Tawhaki and his wife that if they performed a certain action in the open air they would be pierced by the divine rays. The
warning was not attended to, and “Bird-from-the-Sun” carried off the woman. Unfortunately the legend cannot be translated with decency.
“Ka puta te kupu a Te Manu-i-te-ra kia Tawhaki, ‘Kaua e puta ki waho i to korua whare mahimahi ai, kei werohia e nga hihi o to Manu-i-te-ra.’
Kihai i whakarongo a Tawhaki, puta ana ki waho mahimahi ai. Na, ka mutu to raua mahimahi, haere ke ana a Tawhaki ki tetehi wahi ke atv.
Hoki raua mai, kua riro te wahine i a Te Manu-i-te-ra. Katahi ia ka rapu, na katahi ia ka tu ki te taha o te moana—Katahi ia ka karakia,” &c.,
&c.
129 Grimm's Teut. Myth. 323.

130 In Tahitian and Hawaiian (in which dialects e and i often change places), ihe=a spear or javelin, probably because as Macrobins observes
(Sat. I., 17) Under the name of arrows the darting of the rays is shown.” There is also phonetic resemblance between Io and the Greek ios,
an arrow; Sanscrit, ishu, an arrow; ish, energy.
131 See ¶ 16.

132 See ¶ 31.

133 See ¶ 29.

134 Sayce's Assyria, 77.

135 Hitopadesa.

136 Baring Gould's Curious Myths II., 235.

137 See Shortland's Maori Religion and Myth. pp. 28 & 109.

138 Commentary on Homer & Vigil, pp. 46, 112 & 342.

139 See Tacitus' Germania IX.

140 Grimm's Teut. Myth. I., 237. Conder's Syrian Stone Lore, 84. Baring-Gould's Curious Myths II., 66 & 71. Cox's Myths of the Aryan Nations
II., 119.
141 Vendidad Fargard IX. p. 123.

142 Polack's Manners and Customs in New Zealand 1., 244.

143 Taylor's Te Ika a Maui, 133, and White's Ancient History of the Maori, III., 11?.

144 Colenso, Transactions N.Z. Institute, XIV. p. 44.

145 White's Ancient History of the Maori, III. p. 114.

146 Colenso, Transactions NZ. Institute, XIV. p. 48.

147 One of the names of Artemis Isis, was Pania. Mr. Blyth has noticed that Pani and Isis were probably the same. Transactions New Zealand
Institute, XIX., 529.
148 See ¶ 28.

149 See Mariner's Tonga Islands, II., 196. Brown's Great Dion. Myth., II., 49.

150 Macrobius Sat. I., 12, 33. See Frazer's Golden Bough, II., 44 and 47.

151 Pl. II., Vol. II., BB; quoted by Massey, I., 452.

152 The Polynesian Race, 1. 45.

153 In Maori, pukoro to surround with a halo, koropewa a ring, koromeke in coils, &c.

154 Com. on Homer & Virgil. Grimm says that the Slavonic kolo means “a wheel.” Teut. Myth. 249.

155 Massey Nat. Genesis I., 549.

156 Grey's Polynesian Mythology 53.

157 For he was child of the Corn-mother.

158 Gill's Myths and Songs, 100.

159 Ion. 1074 et. seq.