SAMOAN TRADITION OF CREATION AND THE DELUGE. 167 



tradition, but many others which he has been enabled to secure, so that 

 they may not be lost. Now is our chance, for probably two or three gene- 

 rations hence, civilisation will have done away with the myths and legends of 

 Samoa, as civilisation is already sweeping away all the quaint and curious 

 bits of folk-lore which are vanishing under the influence of the School 

 Boards in our own country. We cannot in these days sufficiently estimate 

 the enormous tenacity of the human memory, of traditional memory iu a less 

 civilised state ; to us the strain is so great that our main idea is to get every- 

 thing written. Some one has said, " Never remember anything, but rather 

 where to find it." This is the habit of our minds at the present time. Here 

 Ave are told of a people who have no writings at all, but who simply trust to 

 their memory. I remember an old Parsee servant, who said, " You English 

 spoil your memories by the constant habit of writing," and it is so ; for 

 where people trust to memory, and there is no writing, they acquire a per- 

 fectly accurate historical memory which we have hardly a trace of among 

 ourselves. The " oldest inhabitant," when brought into a law court, con- 

 stantly exhibits a remarkable failure of memory ; but the oldest inhabitant 

 in the savage or uncivilised nations is by no means so liable to make 

 mistakes ; he will generally tell his story with perfect accuracy, and bear 

 cross-examination in a way which some of our English witnesses might envy. 

 The strong and perfect memory is a thing which vanishes under modern 

 civilisation. The inventive fsiculty is more weak, and the retentive faculty is 

 more strong, among primitive pecple, and therefore you do not find that 

 rapid change which comes over our own minds in this part of the world 

 under the influence of our nineteenth-century civilisation. 



The Chairman.- -I should like, in the first place, to ask Mr. Powell one 

 or two philological questions which I should be glad to have resolved. The 

 name "Tagaloa" is here stated to have been possibly derived from the Arabic. 

 If the word referred to is ta'alla, " to be raised " it should be spelt with 

 'fmi. Might I ask whether there is in Mr. Powell's mind any connexion 

 between the name Tagaloa and tangata, the Maori word for a man ? 



The Author.— None at all. 



The Chairman. — It is merely a coincidence that it begins with " tang " ? 



The Author. — The word "tanga" means "unrestrained," and "loa" 

 continuously, or illimitable. 



The Chairman. — That which cannot be limited or comprehended. — Then 

 I notice that one of the islands is named " Atua." Has that anything to do 

 with the Maori word which means the evil demon which gets into men's 

 insides 1 



The Author. — Not at all. The name of the district is " A-tua," (a 

 long) : that of a god is atu, aitu, and atua . The meaning is entirely difi'erent.* 



The Chairman. — Written in our exceedingly inconvenient alphabet, one 



* I should like to ask what is the origin of the common Polynesian word 

 Atna (God) ? Is it from the Hebrew or Chaldean nnx ? and equivalent to 

 the expression of being present — or existence ? Was it adopted for the same 

 reason that Jehovah is written t^\i^!'.. ?— T. P. 



