Wellington Philosophical Society. 653 



those who had previously spoken. With reference to the supposed absti- 

 nence from food, he conjectured that the albatros was a night-feeder, and 

 was enabled to capture its chief prey, the cuttlefish, by its phosphorescent; 

 luminosity, which must make it easier seen and captured in the dark 

 than in the daylight. The penguin uses its wings in the water for 

 swimming. 



Fifth Meeting : 8th August, 1894. 

 Sir James Hector in the chair. 



New Member.— Major E. H. M. Elliot. 



Papers. — 1. "On Ceremonial Language," by E. Tregear, 

 F.E.G.S. {Transactions, p. 593.) 



Mr. Maskell said he was not an admirer of Mr. Tregear's theories, 

 but he was one of the men who had done most to lay before the Society 

 facts which without his industry would not have been known to those 

 south of the line. He believed every fact brought to our notice by Mr. 

 Tregear, but he did not agree with the theories he founded his facts on. 

 There might, perhaps, be an explanation of the ceremonial language that 

 had not occurred to Mr. Tregear — namely, that in the human heart there 

 lies an essential acceptance of the fact, which is denied by modern 

 liberalism, that all men are not equal; and this may account for the 

 universal prevalence of class distinctions, inferior and superior. 



Mr. Coleman Phillips said that if any one saw the chiefs and the 

 common people on the islands they would observe that they are quite 

 different. The common people look like slaves and the chiefs like nobles 

 in comparison, both physically and mentally; and their language is 

 quite different. This will be seen in their old songs ;. but the dialect has 

 altered much, as in England. Is it in the alteration of the dialect that 

 the difference in language arises ? The people remain the same, but the 

 language has altered in course of time. 



Sir James Hector suggested that one cause for the gradual change in 

 language was due to the fact that certain words became tapu — as, for 

 instance, the name of a fish or bird — on the death of a chief who was 

 called by the same name. 



Mr. Tregear, in reply, said it was true, as Sir James Hector had 

 said, that words got out of use through being tapu when forming parts of 

 chiefs' names. This is the custom throughout the whole Pacific, and it is 

 likely (as explained in the paper) that after a time the disused words 

 might grow into a kind of chiefs' language, not to be used by the common 

 people. It happened, however, that the tapu on such words only exists 

 during the life of the chief in whose name they appear. The substituted 

 words are not gibberish or foreign words ; they are pure Polynesian, and 

 without historical interest. It is a fact, as Mr. Phillips has said, that 

 in some of the islands the chiefs are invariably superior in physique to the 

 common people, but there is no substantial ground for the theory that 

 these men are aristocracy because representing the conquering race, as the 

 Normans did in England. The chiefs' families are people having large 

 bodies (sometimes far too fat), because they are better fed than the others, 

 and their direct forefathers have also been well fed. No hereditary 

 racial difference between them and the common people has been esta- 

 blished. Ceremonial language could not certainly be attributed to the 

 cause suggested by Mr. Maskell — namely, that there was an inherent 

 and instinctive division of mankind into superior people and inferior, 

 necessitating that language should adapt itself to such feelings. These 



