Introduction

A Comparative study of the details of the religion in the different island groups of Polynesia reveals the interesting fact that, while some of the names of the gods are common and shared, a large number of names are purely local and are not shared by other islands. The historical time sequence shows that the shared gods had their birth before dispersal took place from some common center, and that the local gods, many of whose names occur in the family lineages, originated after the particular island was settled. Some of the local gods are so recent that on the advent of Christianity they were family gods that had not reached the status of tribal gods. The older gods that were shared by so many islands we may consider as major gods, while those of more recent date and of purely local origin we may regard as minor gods. Let us seek the home of the major gods, where the foundations of Polynesian belief were laid.

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