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The Myths of the Deluge are coloured by
the Bible, not so the Myths of the Under-world

(17) We can have little hesitation about the ultimate source of this element in the Polynesian religion. There are others, mythological events, that are not so unambiguous. The story of a deluge appears all through Polynesia, as it does in so many regions of the world. There are three or four different versions of this in New Zealand, with varying incidents, and personages and causes; we may be sure, therefore, that either the South Asiatic immigrants or the aboriginals from the north, if not both, had some form of it. But all the later forms preserved are manifestly vitiated by knowledge of the Old Testament version; and we can trust no feature as being local or primal.

(18) It is different with the Polynesian myths of the underworld or world beyond death. These are quite untainted by the Christian idea of hell, which, differing from the old Judaic Sheol, was a place of punishment and torture for the wicked. Like all primitive hells or worlds of shadows, there is no morality in it; it is the place of the spirits of the dead, whether bad or good. What distinction there is lies between the aristocrats and the common people, and if any difference lies amongst the aristocrats, it is between the heroically warlike and the feeble and undistinguished.