Page:Polynesian Mythology by George Grey (polynesianmythol00greyuoft).djvu/17

 and Scandinavian systems of mythology, could we have become intimately acquainted with them, would be found in no respects to surpass that one which the European reader may now thoroughly understand. I believe that the ignorance which has prevailed regarding the mythological systems of barbarous or semi-barbarous races has too generally led to their being considered far grander and more reasonable than they really were.

But the puerility of these traditions and barbarous mythological systems by no means diminishes their importance as regards their influence upon the human race. Those contained in the present volumes have, with slight modifications, prevailed perhaps considerably more than two thousand years throughout the great mass of the islands of the Pacific Ocean; and, indeed, the religious system of ancient Mexico was, probably, to some extent connected with them. They have been believed in and obeyed by many millions of the human race; and it is still more melancholy to reflect that they were based upon a system of human sacrifices to the gods; so that if we allow them to have existed for two thousand years, and that, in accordance with the rites which are based upon them, at least two thousand human victims were annually sacrificed throughout the whole extent of the numerous islands in which they prevailed (both of which sup-