gs from the South Pacific_, pp.
29 _sq._

[27] W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, pp.
79 _sq._

[28] W. W. Gill, "Mangaia (Hervey Islands)," _op. cit._ p. 349.

[29] W. W. Gill, "Mangaia (Hervey Islands)," _op. cit._ p. 347.
Yet in the same passage the writer affirms that "there is no
trace in the Eastern Pacific of the doctrine of transmigration
of human souls, although the spirits of the dead are fabled to
have assumed, temporarily, and for a specific purpose, the form
of an insect, bird, fish, or cloud."

[30] _Id._, _Life in the Southern Isles_, p. 289.

[31] _Id._, _Life in the Southern Isles_, pp. 96, 308, 309.

[32] _Id._, _Life in the Southern Isles_, p. 96.

[33] _Id._, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, pp. 34
_sq._

[34] _Id._, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, p. 32.

[35] _Id._, _Life in the Southern Isles_, p. 96.

[36] _Id._, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, p. 35;
_id._, "Mangaia (Hervey Islands)," _op. cit._ p. 349.

Originally, it is said, the gods spoke to men through the small land
birds, but the utterances of these creatures proved too indistinct to
guide the actions of mankind. Hence to meet this emergency an order of
priests was set apart, the gods actually taking up their abode, for the
time being, in their sacred persons. Hence priests were significantly
named "god-boxes" (_pia-atua_) a title which was generally abbreviated
to "gods," because they were believed to be living embodiments of the
divinities. When a priest was consulted, he drank a bowl of kava (_Piper
methysticum_), and falling into convulsions gave the oracular response
in language intelligible only to the initiated. The oracle so delivered,
from which there was no appeal, was thought to have been inspired by the
god, who had entered into the priest for the purpose.[37]

[37] W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, p.
35; _id._, "Mangaia (Hervey Islands)," _op. cit._ p. 349.

Sec. 5. _The Doctrine of the Human Soul_

Like other Polynesians, the Hervey Islanders believed that human beings
are animated by a vital principle or soul, which survives the death of
the body for a longer or shorter time. Indeed, they held that nobody
dies a strictly natural death except as an effect of extreme old age.
Nineteen out of twenty deaths were believed to be caused either by the
anger of th