latter appear to have been more distinctly anthropomorphous; at least, they are credited with human passions, and are said to have performed divers manual feats and tasks. The primal beings above mentioned would seem to have been animistic conceptions, personifications of eras and æons of time. They represented chaos, they emerged from nothingness, from the dark void, from the womb of time. They were the origin of the Maori cosmos, and as time rolled on the universe became more ordered, the elements came into being through the same agency of sex, the heavenly bodies appeared as offspring of sexed personifications, after which came the heroes of Maori mythology, gods and demigods, and then man appeared—that is to say, man as we know him, man of the world of light, the world of life and being. Such is, in few words, the spirit of the Maori cosmogony and anthropogeny, as also the origin of sex. In fine, Maori myths and origins are noted for the mytho-poetic ideas and animistic conceptions which they contain and are based upon. When Rangi and Papa, the Sky Parent and the Earth Mother, came into being they embraced each other as husband and wife, and produced certain beings who were the origin or personification of trees, birds, fish, winds, war, peace, &c.; and these children, objecting to the state of darkness in which they lived, on account of the sky lying pressed down upon the earth, cast about for a plan whereby they might enjoy light and space. This ended in their forcing their parents apart. Tane, tutelary deity of trees, forests, and birds, thrust the sky upwards and propped it up with poles. Observe here the origin of divorce, and the name thereof. Toko (noun), a pole; also; a ray of light. Toko (verb), to propel with a pole. Now, the Maori term for divorce is toko, and in the invocation repeated by the priest during the performance of the divorce rite occur the words— Ka tokona atu nei korua Tu ke Rangi, tau ke Papa— (You two are forced apart as were Rangi and Papa). But of divorce and its ritual more anon. We have not yet married our Polynesian couple. The first marriages mentioned in Maori myth in which members of this world (te ao marama, the world of life, light, or being) were concerned were those of Tiki and Tane. Tiki, who was of the Po (world of Darkness or Chaos), married Ea,* Compare Ea of Phœnician mythology. who was of this world. They had Kurawaka, who married Tane-nui-a-rangi, one of the offspring of Rangi and Papa. Hence the expression Te Aitanga a Tiki (the Offspring of Tiki) is applied to man by the Maori people.