PHILOLOGY. 395 



The collection of myth and tradition constitutes the body of the 

 social history of the Samoans. We have records of the creation of 

 the world, we have tales of heroes derived from an age of fable, we are 

 able to distinguish the beginning of real history, and we are able to 

 identify the course of events during the more modern period which 

 will prove of distinct historical value. These traditions, never before 

 published, scarcely even known to be in existence, will yield a rich 

 supply of words to be set into the dictionary and thus to become avail- 

 able for the purpose of this special hnguistic study. 



The third important group of manuscript material consists in cour- 

 tesy phrases arranged by the units of Samoan social hfe, the hamlet 

 and the district as made up of a group of associated hamlets. This 

 amounts in Samoan life to a social register, in effect to a "Who's Who 

 in Savagery"; it is known as thefa'alupega; it is absolutely essential to 

 intercourse with the Samoan upon the terms of gentility and courtesy 

 which so strictly characterize their hfe. It is rich in linguistic material, 

 and it is absolutely essential to the proper ordering of the genealogical 

 material and to the proper comprehension of the traditions and his- 

 torical matters. 



This material must be edited and brought to print before it can be 

 employed in its proper place in the dictionary. This dictionary, as 

 the resultant of the study of the foregoing material, will in turn serve 

 as the base whereupon we are to proceed to the examination of speech 

 evolution at this focus of human development in the Pacific and imme- 

 diately adjacent waters. It has already been mentioned that my 

 manuscript dictionary contains a complete collation of every word 

 employed in the Samoan version of the Scriptures. In addition, the 

 alphabetical order of the dictionary cards contains all that has been 

 published in the vocabularies of Samoan speech issued under the direc- 

 tion of the London Missionary Society. To this has been added a 

 most extensive collation of the other languages of this family and all 

 material available for the study of its comparative philology that may 

 have been derived from the other languages of Melanesia and Indonesia. 



In the course of elaborating this dictionary material for publication 

 it would be necessary to work out the principles of Samoan grammar. 

 It is, therefore, expected that the work upon the dictionary and the 

 work upon the grammar will proceed with even steps and that they will 

 advance to completion at practically the same time. It will be recog- 

 nized that it would be inadvisable to employ merely the dictionary in 

 the study of the beginning of this speech, and that the comparison of 

 its grammar with the usage of other speech would be ineffective without 

 the dictionary material. Therefore, it is manifest that these two 

 chapters of one work must be dealt with as an indissoluble unit. 



Accordingly, I sum briefly the work in prospect under this project 

 of research in primitive philology. A certain considerable mass of 



