the opinion of the Society
Islanders, as of many other peoples, a man's soul or spirit is a
faithful image of his body.[172]

[170] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 346. In the Polynesian languages
_po_ is the word both for "night" and for "the shades," the
primaeval darkness from which all forms of life were evolved,
and to which the souls of the dead return. See E. Tregear,
_Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 342, _s.v._ "po."

[171] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 378 _sq._

[172] Compare W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396, "What their precise
ideas of a spirit were, it is not easy to ascertain. They
appear, however, to have imagined the shape or form resembled
that of the human body, in which they sometimes appeared in
dreams to the survivors."

They believed that in the pangs of death the soul keeps fluttering about
the lips, and that, when all is over, it ascends and mixes with or, as
they expressed it, is eaten by the deity.[173] When one of their sacred
recorders (_harepo_), who had been famous in his life for his knowledge
of the ancient traditions, was at the point of death, it was customary
for his son and successor to place his mouth over the mouth of the dying
man, as if to inhale the parting soul at the moment of quitting the
body; for in this way he was supposed to inherit the lore of his father.
The natives, it is said, were convinced that these sages owed their
learning to this expedient, though none the less they studied day and
night to perfect themselves in their profession.[174]

[173] J. Cook, _op. cit._ vi. 150.

[174] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 507.

Sec. 7. _Disease, Death, and Mourning_

Every disease was supposed to be the result of direct supernatural
agency, and to be inflicted by the gods for some crime committed against
the law of taboo of which the sufferer had been guilty; or it might have
been brought upon him by an enemy, who had compassed his destruction by
means of an offering. They explained death in like manner: according to
them, it was invariably caused by the direct influence of the gods.[175]
They acknowledged, indeed, that they possessed poisons which, taken with
food, produced convulsions and death, but these effects they traced to
the anger of the gods, who employed the drugs as their material agents
or secondary causes. Even when a man was killed in battle, they still
saw in his death the hand of a god, wh