Note 1349 — Chapter VII · INCARNATE HUMAN GODS

C. S. Stewart, A Visit to the South Seas (London, 1832), i. 244 sq.; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, Îles Marquises ou Nouka-Hiva (Paris, 1843), pp. 226, 240 sq. Compare Mathias G * * * , Lettres sur les Îles Marquises (Paris, 1843), pp. 44 sq. The general name applied to these human gods was atuas, which, “with scarce a modification, is the term used in all the Polynesian dialects to designate the ideal beings worshipped as gods, in the system of polytheism existing among the people. At the Washington Islands, as at other groups, the atuas, or false gods of the inhabitants, are numerous and vary in their character and powers. Besides those having dominion respectively, as is supposed, over the different elements and their most striking phenomena, there are atuas of the mountain and of the forest, of the seaside and of the interior, atuas of peace and of war, of the song and of the dance, and of all the occupations and amusements of life. It is supposed by them that many of the departed spirits of men also become atuas: and thus the multiplicity of their gods is such, that almost every sound in nature, from the roaring of the tempest in the mountains and the bursting of a thunderbolt in the clouds, to the sighing of a breeze through the cocoa-nut tops and the chirping of an insect in the grass or in the thatch of their huts, is interpreted into the movements of a god” (C. S. Stewart, op. cit. i. 243 sq.). The missionary referred to in the text, who described one of the human gods from personal observation, was the Rev. Mr. Crooke of the London Missionary Society, who resided in the island of Tahuata in 1797. On the deification of living men see Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), Origin of Civilisation⁴ (London, 1882), pp. 354 sqq.