i pa tai_), who warded off bad spirits coming from the west. Besides
this primary ghostly function, many other important duties devolved upon
these royal personages. The secondary or shore king was not infrequently
a natural son of the great inland king. By virtue of their office all
kings were high priests of Rongo, the tutelary god of Mangaia.[19]

[18] In the Hervey Islands a _marae_ seems to have been a sacred
grove. So it is described by W. W. Gill (_Myths and Songs from
the South Pacific_, p. 14), who adds in a note: "These _maraes_
were planted with _callophylla inophylla_, etc., etc., which,
untouched by the hand of man from generation to generation,
threw a sacred gloom over the mysteries of idol-worship. The
trees were accounted sacred, not for their own sake, but on
account of the place where they grew."

[19] W. W. Gill, _From Darkness to Light in Polynesia_, pp. 314
_sq._ As to the installation of the priestly king by the
temporal lord, see also _id._, "Mangaia (Hervey Islands)," _op.
cit._ pp. 339 _sq._

But Rongo was not peculiar to the Hervey Islands. He was a great
Polynesian deity worshipped in almost every part of the Pacific, and
though his attributes differed greatly in different places, a universal
reverence was paid to him. In the Hervey Islands, he and his twin
brother Tangaroa were deemed the children of Vatea, the eldest of the
primary gods, a being half man and half fish, whose eyes are the sun and
the moon. The wife of this monstrous deity and mother of the divine
twins was Papa, whose name signifies Foundation and who was supposed to
be a daughter of Timatekore or "Nothing-more." The twin Tangaroa,
another great Polynesian deity, was specially honoured in Rarotonga and
Aitutaki, another of the Hervey Islands.[20] The famous Polynesian hero
Maui was also well known in the Hervey Islands, where people told how he
had brought up the first fire to men from the under world, having there
wrested it from the fire-god Mauike;[21] how he raised the sky--a solid
vault of blue stone--to its present height, for of old the sky almost
touched the earth, so that people could not walk upright;[22] and
finally how he caught the great sun-god Ra himself in six nooses made of
strong coco-nut fibre, so that the motions of the orb of day, which
before had been extremely irregular, have been most orderly ever
since.[23]

[20] W. W. Gill, _Myths and Songs fro