266 JOSHUA RUTLAND, ESQ., ON 
the care bestowed on the paper mulberry tree—which was 
only grown from cuttings—together with their having in use 
textile materials, discountenances the supposition that the 
art of weaving might have been lost. 
Regarding the absence of pottery the information we 
possess is very unsatisfactory. If the people of Easter 
{sland had earthenware vessels when Europeans discovered 
the place, we are almost forced to conclude that the art was 
elsewhere lost, but how such a simple and useful art: fell 
into disuse, while other arts far more complex were preserved, 
and how the numerous scattered communities all alike fell 
back on the rude laborious method of boiling water with 
heated stones, it is impossible to conceive. It could not have 
been the lack of a material Easter Island was capable of 
supplying, as every group throughout the region contains 
similar voleanic rocks. Should future research prove that 
at some period previous to the advent of Europeans pottery 
was ip use throughout the whole of Polynesia, we may rest 
assured that, like the article manufactured in Fiji and New 
Guinea, it was of the very rudest description. Instead of the 
homogeneous society that called forth Cook’s remark, we find 
in Melanesia and New Guinea a population divided into 
innumerable small communities, differing not only in their 
arts, customs, and institutions, but speaking such a babel of 
tongues that the residents at one end of a small island were 
frequently unable to understand the occupants of the 
opposite end.* On analysing this heterogeneous society, we 
immediately discover that the use of metal was everywhere 
unknown. Though the weapons and implements differed 
considerably, when the various groups were compared,. 
* After the late Bishop Patterson had mastered several Melanesian 
languages sufliciently for conversation, he told me he was only beginning 
to perceive they had something in common. Wishing to ascertain 
whether any of my Maori neighbours could comprehend the language 
of Eastern Polynesia, I recently showed four of them a tradition told 
in the dialect of the Cook Islands. One of the party, who had been 
educated in a small country school, after looking over the story for 
a few minutes read it to his companions. Occasionally the reading was. 
interrupted to discuss a word or make remarks. When finished, all 
assured me they had the same tradition amongst themselves. These facts. 
and Ellis’s remarks on the language of Madagascar quoted at pages 
7 and 8 illustrate an important difference between the Papuan and 
Maori-speaking peoples of Oceania.—J. R. 
