In Tahiti, the people believed that the world was divided into the pô and the ao, the darkness and the light. Their great lord Taroa, the creator, was born in the pô—born at night, born into darkness. The missionaries, once they learned of this mythology, explained to the Tahitians that Jesus Christ, too, had been born in the pô—born into the night, sprung from the darkness and suffering. This had captured the attention of the Tahitians. It was a dangerous and mighty destiny to be born at night. The pô was the world of the dead, the incomprehensible and the frightful. The pô was fetid and
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