Although one might argue whether the gods created the Polynesians in godlike form or the Polynesians created the gods in their own image, it is a truism that in Polynesia gods and people are aspects of the same reality and form a continuum of the sacred and the profane. Even as, in relative terms, the gods are sacred and the people profane, so also are the chiefs sacred and the commoners profane. This axiom underlay the sociocultural organization of the Polynesians and gave religious justification to ranked social and kinship structures. The mythological threads of Polynesian religions developed an intimate association among gods, chiefs, priests, and people. High gods, demigods, ancestral gods, culture heroes, spirits, elves, and people were intertwined in different ways in each island group to create separate religions that were particularized and parochial while at the same time part of a homogenous religious...