October 20, 1923] 



NA TURE 



;69 



creeds, and these again he places within the setting of 

 tribal life, not forgetting to give us a picture of the 

 physical environment. 



Thus, in one archipelago after the other, we receive 

 a vivid though fleeting vision of the lofty volcanic 

 peaks, the forest-clad slopes, and the shaded coral 

 beaches where clearings, smoke, palm plantations, and 

 gabled roofs indicate the sites of villages. We are 

 then led over the settlements, shown the eager gardeners 

 and the skilled fishermen at work, the talented and 

 industrious artists carving and decorating various 

 objects with their fantastic designs, the indefatigable 

 manufacturers weaving mats, shaping and polishing 

 stone implements, building canoes, and erecting huge 

 houses. They are doing all this, in pre-European 

 times, with the aid of stone implements only, without 

 the help of any metal. We see the adventurous sailors 

 setting out on some distant expedition, whether as a 

 semi-religious, semi-dramatic company of wandering 

 performers in the Society Islands, or as a formidable 

 raiding party in Samoa, or as a trading expedition 

 from Tonga to Fiji. We are shown some of the strange 

 and licentious customs of the South Sea Islanders, 

 where a natural exuberance and a touch of artistry 

 redeem them of their cruder features. The ceremonial 

 and festive Hfe of the islanders, culminating in the 

 Areoi performances of the Otahitians, is recorded here 

 in a very complete manner, and the critical caution 

 and constructive talent of Sir James allow us to learn 

 all that is genuine and true about these institutions of 

 which much must, alas, remain for ever a mystery. 



It is impossible to summarise briefly this masterly 

 account of Polynesian civilisation, giving due con- 

 sideration to the differences as well as to the similarities 

 between its various branches. The great uniformity 

 of this culture is indeed rerriarkable in a people scattered 

 over a wide area in small and isolated communities. 

 Linguistically they are so alike that one must speak, 

 as Sir James does, of one Polynesian language with 

 dialectic varieties. In social organisation they show 

 a remarkable uniformity in structure, with their 

 permanent village communities, with the simple system 

 of kinship terms and the institution of social rank, 

 hereditary and hedged round with taboos and cere- 

 monial observances. Rank gives also political power 

 in a highly developed chieftainship or kingship carried 

 almost to deification. In economic pursuits they are 

 similar, cultivating the same staple plants (taro, sugar- 

 cane, bread-fruit, kava, and palm), and showing the 

 same gaps and developments in arts and crafts. 



But, for the student, the differences between the 



various Polynesian branches are quite as important 



as their similarities, and the present volume will be 



of special value and interest just because it does not 



NO. 2816, VOL. I 12] 



lump all Polynesians together, but gives a series of 

 monographs, on the Maoris of New Zealand, on the 

 inhabitants of the Tonga archipelago, on the Samoans, 

 the Hervey Islanders, the Otahitians, the Marquesans, 

 and the Hawaiians. 



In each chapter, the local beliefs in immortality 

 occupy a dominant position, though always kept in 

 proper proportion within the general picture. It 

 would be useless to summarise each type of Polynesian 

 afterworld. Like their customs and institutions, like 

 their decorative art and mythology, the paradise of 

 these natives is at the same time fantastic and beautiful, 

 quaint and romantic. Born of hope and fear and human 

 presumption, as all such beliefs are, it is a dream- 

 land built up on the pattern of this life, improved and 

 yet formidable, attractive and yet never really desired. 



There is no doubt that the beliefs in human im- 

 mortality, together with the fear of the dead and the 

 hope of their beneficent intercession in earthly affairs, 

 have been among the most important moulding forces 

 of human religion. The chronicles of these beliefs, 

 ranging over the whole world and over all levels of 

 civilisation, which Sir James Frazer is now giving us 

 in one volume after the other, will rank among the 

 most important documents for the study of compara- 

 tive religion. For the present, Sir James, engrossed 

 in the quest of the immortality of all the peoples of 

 the world, seems to be oblivious of his own : in this 

 descriptive volume, as in the previous one on Australia 

 and Melanesia, he wisely resists the temptation to put 

 forward brilliant theories and daring hypotheses. But 

 those who know Sir James's method realise that before 

 framing any theory he has to study the facts, to collect 

 world-wide material, and examine it by the compar- 

 ative method. Collected with the author's width and 

 depth of outlook, with his unrivalled grip of sources, 

 and his genius for an all-round presentation, it is given 

 out to scholars, who will thus have before them all the 

 facts bearing on this problem of highest importance. 

 But all anthropologists hope, of course, that there will 

 come a last and crowning volume in this series, in which, 

 as in the fourth part of his " Totemism and Exogamy," 

 Sir James will develop another of his theories which 

 have so greatly influenced modern humanistic thought. 



The Rise of Civilisations. 



The Cambridge Ancient History. Edited by J. B. 

 Bury, Dr. S. A. Cook, F. E. Adcock. Vol. i : Egypt 

 and Babylonia to 1580 B.C. Pp. xxii -f- 704 -h 12 maps. 

 (Cambridge : At the University Press, 1923.) 355. net. 



THE most valuable and scientific part of this work 

 is the first sixth of the volume, by Prof. Myres, 

 which is an elaborate correlation of Tertiary geology, 



Q I 



