The Polynesian ideas of a future state were sufficiently curious. While believing in its existence, the natives had no conception of the value and immortality of the soul, no conception of the Everlasting. According to the Tahitians, there were two places of existence for separated spirits: one called _Roohutu noanoa_, or sweet-scented Roohutu, which in many points resembled the paradise of the Rarotongans; and the other was _Roohutu namu-namua_, or foul-scented Roohutu, of which it is impossible to furnish a description. According to the Rarotongans, paradise was a very long house, surrounded with beautiful shrubs and flowers, unfading, and of perpetual sweetness; its inmates enjoyed a beauty which never waned, and a youth which never waxed old, while passing their days, without weariness, in dancing, merriment, and festivity. This was the highest idea of Heaven and future blessedness to which they could attain, and was as materialistic as that of the Mohammedans.
It was not necessary that a man should live a pure, true, and noble life to gain admission to the Polynesian paradise, nor was he excluded from it on account of his sins. In order to pass the departed spirit into elysium, the corpse was dressed in the best attire the relatives could provide, the head was wreathed with flowers, and other decorations were added. A pig was then baked whole, and placed on the deceased's body, surrounded by a pile of vegetable food. After this, supposing the departed to have been a son, the father would deliver some such speech as the following:--"My son, when you were alive I treated you with kindness, and when you were taken ill I did my best to restore you to health; and now you are dead, there's your _momoe o_, or property of admission. Go, my son, and with that gain an entrance into the palace of Tiki, and do not come to this world again to disturb or alarm us." Body, pig, and food would then be buried; and, if the kinsman received no contrary intimation within a few days of the interment, they believed that the offerings had obtained for the departed the desired admission. But if a cricket were heard on the premises, it was considered an ill omen, and they would utter the dismalest howls, and such expressions as the following: "Oh, our brother! his spirit has not entered the Paradise; he is suffering from hunger, he is shivering with cold!" The grave would immediately be opened, and the offering repeated,--generally with success.