“O son of Peleus, my father, receive from me this libation, appeasing, alluring, the dead. Come now, that you may drink the black pure blood of a virgin, which we give to thee—both I and the army. And be kindly disposed to us, and grant us to loose the sterns of our ships, and the cables fastening to the shore, and all to reach home favoured with a prosperous return from Ilium.”⁵ ⁵ Hecuba, l. 533-9. Euripides would not have put these words into the mouth of the son of Achilles had they not been in accord with the sympathies of an Athenian audience. Comparing the Greek mythological traditions, such as they have come down to us, with those of the _Maori_, some striking resemblance is to be observed. First, there is the fact that both treat the elements of nature, and abstract notions as persons capable of propagating from each other by generation. In both Light springs out of Darkness. The sons of Heaven and Earth in both accounts conspire against their father for the same reason—that their father had confined them in darkness. And lastly the first human female, in both, is said to have been formed out of earth. The first woman, in the _Maori_ Mythology, drags down her offspring to Po (=Night), meaning to death. And the first woman of the Greek Mythology, Pandora, introduces all kinds of afflictions as an heritage for hers. It is also to be noticed that just as Zeus and the Olympian Gods were national deities for Greeks, so their old mythical deities—Po, Rangi, Papa, Tiki, &c., were invoked alike by the whole _Maori_ race, especially in the ceremonies required to free a person from the sacred restrictions comprised under the term _tapu_. They were the _Maori_ national Gods, for they were their common ancestors. But at the same time every _Maori_ tribe and family invoked independently each its own tribal and family ancestors, just as was the practice of the Greeks and Latins. CHAPTER II. MAORI COSMOGONY AND MYTHOLOGY. An quoquam genitos nisi Cœlo credere fas est Esse homines.—_Manilius._ The _Maori_ had no tradition of the Creation. The great mysterious Cause of all things existing in the Cosmos was, as he conceived it, the generative Power. Commencing with a primitive state of Darkness, he conceived Po (=Night) as a person capable of begetting a race of beings resembling itself. After a succession of several generations of the race of Po, Te Ata (=Morn) was given birth to. Then followed certain beings existing when Cosmos was without form, and void. Afterwards came Rangi (=Heaven), Papa (=Earth), the Winds, and other Sky-powers, as are recorded in the genealogical traditions preserved to the present time. We have reason to consider the mythological traditions of the _Maori_ as dating from a very antient period. They are held to be very sacred, and not to be repeated except in places set apart as sacred.