Such is the bare outline of the myth, but notice how, in humanizing the gods, the action presents a lively picture of the ordinary course of Polynesian life.  Such episodes as the concealment of the child to preserve its life, the boxing and surfing contests, all the business of love-making—­its jealousies and subterfuges, the sisters to act as go-betweens, the bet at checkers and the Kilu games at night, the marriage cortege and the public festival; love for music, too, especially the wonder and curiosity over a new instrument, and the love of sweet odors; again, the picture of the social group—­the daughter of a high chief, mistress of a group of young virgins, in a house apart which is forbidden to men, and attended by an old woman and a humpbacked servant; the chief’s establishment with its soothsayers, paddlers, soldiers, executioner, chief counselor, and the group of under chiefs fed at his table; the ceremonial wailing at his reception, the awa drink passed about at the feast, the taboo signs, feather cloak, and wedding paraphernalia, the power over life and death, and the choice among virgins.  Then, on the other hand, the wonder and delight of the common people, their curious spying into the chief’s affairs, the treacherous paddlers, the different orders of landowners; in the temple, the human sacrifices, prayers, visions; the prophet’s search for a patron, his wrestling with the god, his affection for his chief, his desire to be remembered to posterity by the saying “the daughters of Hulumaniani”—­all these incidents reflect the course of everyday life in aristocratic Polynesian society and hence belong to the common stock of Hawaiian romance.

Such being the material of Polynesian romance—­a world in which gods and men play their part; a world which includes the heavens yet reflects naturalistically the beliefs and customs of everyday life, let us next consider how the style of the story-teller has been shaped by his manner of observing nature and by the social requirements which determine his art—­by the world of nature and the world of man.  And in the first place let us see under what social conditions Polynesia has gained for itself so high a place, on the whole, among primitive story-telling people for the richness, variety, and beauty of its conceptions.[1]

Polynesian romance reflects its own social world—­a world based upon the fundamental conception of social rank.  The family tie and the inherited rights and titles derived from it determine a man’s place in the community.  The families of chiefs claim these rights and titles from the gods who are their ancestors.[2] They consist not only in land and property rights but in certain privileges in administering the affairs of a group, and in certain acknowledged forms of etiquette equivalent to the worship paid to a god.  These rights are administered through a system of taboo.[3]