They are not these forms themselves, but
have them at their disposal, to use as transformation bodies in their
appearances on earth, or they may transfer them to their offspring on
earth. This is due to the fact that the gods people earth, and from them
man is descended. Chiefs rank, in fact, according to their claim to
direct descent from the ancient gods.[4]
Just how this came about is not altogether uniformly explained. In the
Polynesian creation story[5] three things are significant--a monistic
idea of a god existing before creation;[6] a progressive order of
creation out of the limitless and chaotic from lower to higher forms,
actuated by desire, which is represented by the duality of sex
generation in a long line of ancestry through specific pairs of forms
from the inanimate world--rocks and earth, plants of land and sea
forms--to the animate--fish, insects, reptiles, and birds;[7] and the
special analysis of the soul of man into "breath," which constitutes
life; "feeling," located in the heart; "desire" in the intestines; and
"thought" out of which springs doubt--the whole constituting _akamai_ or
"knowledge.
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