PBESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION G. 351 



pologist to ascertain the principles on which the ceremonies 

 are founded, and the objects which they are intended to gain. 



It may be possible, on careful examination of the various 

 works of travellers and other writers on Australian subjects, to 

 discover passages which bear upon the initiation ceremonies, 

 and from them by a process of comparison to arrive at slight 

 conclusions at least as to their character in the tribe described. 

 It is also to be hoped that, while there are tribes which are so 

 far unbroken as to maintain their ceremonies, some one may 

 have the opportunity or may make the opportunity of witness- 

 ing them, and by a record of the proceedings add to the scanty 

 literature of a subject which is one of those having very great 

 interest to the anthropologist, and also, from having un- 

 doubtedly a bearing by comparison upon the history of races 

 which are now civilised, is of interest to the historical and 

 classical student. 



1. Old Stories of Polynesia. 

 By E. Tregeak, F.R.G.S. 



The author commenced by pointing out that in some of his 

 earlier writings he had stated that the study of the New Zea- 

 land and other Polynesian peoples was of value to the ethnolo- 

 gist mainly because it enabled him to see our own ancestors 

 during the stone age, and thus to enter more fully into the 

 discussion of the conditions out of which modern civilisation 

 had evolved itself. He stated that he had not altered his 

 opinion as to the valuable light which many of the usages of 

 the modern savage throw upon the customs of the ancient 

 savage ; but he had modified his views in consideration of the 

 great danger to wdiich investigators exposed themselves by 

 hasty generalisation and by conclusions based on perhaps false 

 analysis. The result of his researches had been, philologi- 

 cally, that he was very strongly impressed with the fact that 

 the language of Polynesia bore strong internal evidence of 

 a far higher culture, of a far higher civilisation, than any- 

 thing now to be found amongst the natives of the Pacific 

 Islands. After dealing with the question whether a nation 

 once in possession of a high state of civilisation ever lost this, 

 and showing that instances of this fact had occurred (notably 

 the case of the Portuguese at Malacca), the paper went on to 

 point out the remarkable fact that the Maori-Polynesians did 

 not use pottery, and also that wherever the Papuan held sway 

 there was a pottery-making people, and that they also used 

 the most mighty of ancient weapons, the bow, which was 

 rejected by tlie Polynesians. Reference was also made to the 

 fact that when Tasnaan first saw the Maoris two hundred years 

 ago they used double canoes, and when Cook visited New Zea- 



