s not conceived
of as a punishment inflicted on wicked people after death; for good and
bad souls had alike to submit to it. Rather, Captain Cook tells us, the
natives considered "this coalition with the deity as a kind of
purification necessary to be undergone before they enter a state of
bliss. For, according to their doctrine, if a man refrain from all
connexion with women some months before death, he passes immediately
into his eternal mansion, without such a previous union; as if already,
by this abstinence, he were pure enough to be exempted from the general
lot."[228] A slightly different account of this process of spiritual
purification is given by the first missionaries to Tahiti. They say that
"when the spirit departs from the body, they have a notion it is
swallowed by the _eat[=o]oa_ (_atua_) bird, who frequents their
burying-places and _morais_, and passes through him in order to be
purified, and be united to the deity. And such are afterwards employed
by him to attend other human beings and to inflict punishment, or remove
sickness, as shall be deemed requisite."[229]

[224] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396. Compare J. Wilson, _op. cit._
p. 346; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 431; D. Tyerman and G.
Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 330.

[225] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.
cit._ i. 433.

[226] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and
Travels_, i. 273; compare _ib._ pp. 330 _sq._

[227] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 521 _sq._

[228] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 150.

[229] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 345 _sq._

In spite of the purification which the souls of the dead underwent by
passing through the body of a god or of a divine bird, they were
believed to be not wholly divested of the passions which had actuated
them in life on earth. If the souls of former enemies met in the world
beyond the grave, they renewed their battles, but apparently to no
purpose, since they were accounted invulnerable in this invisible state.
Again, when the soul of a dead wife arrived in the spirit land, it was
known to the soul of her dead husband, if he had gone before, and the
two renewed their acquaintance in a spacious house, called _tourooa_,
where the souls of the deceased assembled to recreate themselves with
the gods. After that the pair retired to the separate abode of the
husband, where they remained for ever and had offspring, which, however,
was