other races have pictured in their visions of an
earthly paradise--the "talking tree of knowledge," the well of life, and
plenty without labor.[3] "Thus they dwelt at Paliuli," says Haleole of
the sisters' life with Laieikawai, "and while they dwelt there never did
they weary of life. Never did they even see the person who prepared
their food, nor the food itself save when, at mealtimes, the birds
brought them food and cleared away the remnants when they had finished.
So Paliuli became to them a land beloved."

Gods and men are, in fact, to the Polynesian mind, one family under
different forms, the gods having superior control over certain
phenomena, a control which they may impart to their offspring on earth.
As he surveys the world about him the Polynesian supposes the signs of
the gods who rule the heavens to appear on earth, which formerly they
visited, traveling thither as cloud or bird or storm or perfume to
effect some marriage alliance or govern mankind. In these forms, or
transformed themselves into men, they dwelt on earth and shaped the
social customs of mankind. Hence we have in such a romance as the
_Laieikawai_ a realistic picture, first, of the activities of the gods
in the heavens and on earth, second, of the social ideas and activities
of the people among whom the tale is told. The supernatural blends into
the natural in exactly the same way as to the Polynesian mind gods
relate themselves to men, facts about one being regarded as, even though
removed to the heavens, quite as objective as those which belong to the
other, and being employed to explain social customs and physical
appearances in actual experience. In the light of such story-telling
even the Polynesian creation myth may become a literal genealogy, and
the dividing line between folklore and traditional history, a mere shift
of attention and no actual change in the conception itself of the nature
of the material universe and the relations between gods and men.

_Footnotes to Section II, 4: The Earthly Paradise_

[Footnote 1: Grey, pp. 1-15; White, I, 46; Baessler, Neue Suedsee-Bilder,
pp. 244, 245; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 58-60.]

[Footnote 2: Compare Kraemer's Samoan story (in Samoa Inseln, p. 413) of
the quest after the pearl fishhooks kept by Night and Day in the twofold
heavens with the Hawaiian stories collected by Fornander of _Aiai_ and
_Nihoalaki_. Kraemer's story begins:

"Aloalo went to his father
To appease Sina's