440 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



which it is perpetuated. The song, the proverb, the fable, or 

 the history inscribed in set form of words upon the tablet of 

 the human memory is as truly literature as if with an iron 

 pen and lead it were graven in the rock for ever. 



At a recent meeting of this Society some disparaging re- 

 marks were made on the subject of Polynesian poems and 

 traditions. They were described as barbarous, the productions 

 of savages, untrustworthy historically, and scientifically worth- 

 less. It is quite in the spirit of the nineteenth century to 

 despise people who have not, like us, inherited the traditions 

 of a remote civilisation. With some considerable knowledge 

 of metals, it is easy to disparage those races who have had no 

 more efficient tools than they could construct from stone or 

 shell. But I am inclined to question whether this assump- 

 tion of superiority is an evidence of the scientific spirit. The 

 seeker after truth, no matter in what sphere, should hesitate 

 before he assumes any fact to be worthless. The rejected 

 materials of to-day may be the prized treasure of to-morrow ; 

 and, however little they may seem to bear upon the special 

 pursuit of the inquirer, the various branches of science are so 

 closely correlated that if one suffers the others must share 

 the loss. 



To the anthropologist, the language, the folk-lore, proverbs, 

 and traditions of any people, however rude and primitive, are 

 far from worthless ; and their careful study has thrown, and 

 must yet throw, more light upon the most fascinating of all 

 studies, and one of the most important — the past history of 

 mankind. Archaeology has shown that many ancient tradi- 

 tions, long rejected as myths or fictions, are actual historic 

 facts ; and the oldest historians, once ridiculed for their credu- 

 lity or branded as liars, are now treated with growing respect, 

 as discoveries of buried cities and ancient inscriptions confirm 

 their histories to the letter. It is no doubt the tendency of 

 all traditional history to shade by imperceptible degrees into 

 the mythical or the allegorical ; and the Polynesian genealogies, 

 reaching back to deities of the heavens and earth, or even to 

 fabled saurians and sea-monsters, are paralleled by the classic 

 traditions of civilised Greece and Eome. 



It is not, however, to the historic value or otherwise of 

 these traditions that I would specially refer. I would merely 

 note that they must have descended from remote times with 

 very little change, as they are in many cases the common pro- 

 perty of races far apart, and have survived many changes of 

 language and external conditions. The purpose of this paper 

 is to inquire how far, if at all, these primitive peoples — the 

 Polynesians specially — possessed what may be called literature. 



It is first necessary to endeavour to place ourselves men- 

 tally in the position of the people whose inheritance of tradition 



