79° 
London to receive this princely endowment is not 
merely a high and well-deserved compliment and the 
creation of yet another tie of sympathy and friend- 
ship linking us to the United States; but it is also 
the evidence and declaration of their conviction that 
the progress of science and the welfare of mankind 
are not delimited by national or racial boundaries, 
and that work done in London for the relief of human 
suffering, the improvement of medical education and 
the advance of science, is a service to the whole 
world. The advance of knowledge and the ever- 
rising standard of medical education necessitate 
reorganisation which would give an impetus to the 
more effective training and equipment of the British 
practitioner. The underlying principle is as old 
as Ecclesiasticus: ‘‘ The wisdom of a learned man 
cometh by opportunity of leisure, and he that hath 
little business shall become wise.’’ Its specific 
application to medical teaching and research is new. 
Continuing, the King referred to her Majesty’s 
particular satisfaction on learning that the care of 
maternity and infant life, in which the Queen has 
always been actively interested, is part of the 
scheme, and that the claims of the nursing service have 
not been overlooked. The privilege of accepting the 
munificent gift of the Rockefeller Trustees imposes 
obligations upon the staff to fulfil the ideals which 
it represented, and upon the public to furnish neces- 
sary support. It is inconceivable that Englishmen 
should decline to welcome this generous challenge 
from our kinsmen across the Atlantic to a friendly 
rivalry in medical skill, devotion, and beneficence. 
His Majesty cordially wished Godspeed to this great 
enterprise. 
The address was followed with responsive attention, 
and when the stones were laid their Majesties pro- 
ceeded to the library of the Medical School and thence 
to the new building of the Institute of Anatomy. 
A tour of the building was made, their Majesties 
being particularly interested in the brilliantly- 
lighted dissecting-room and the equipment of the 
X-ray rooms, where the director of the Institute, 
Prof. G. Elliot Smith, demonstrated various radio- 
graphic and anatomical exhibits, among them plates 
taken twenty years ago of the mummy Thothmes 
IV., and whole specimens made transparent by the 
Spalteholz method to facilitate comparison with 
X-ray plates by students of anatomy. Both their 
Majesties were also keenly interested in radiographic 
plates and photographs shown by Mr. H. A. Harris 
revealing the effect of successive illnesses upon the 
growth of the long bones of a child. 


The Mind of the Maori. 
HE authorities of the Dominion Museum at 
Wellington, New Zealand, have published a 
series of monographs on the ancient institutions, 
mental and spiritual concepts, and ceremonies of 
the pre-European Maori, with an examination of the 
esoteric meaning underlying innumerable personifica- 
tions and mytho-poetic allegories. They are written 
by Mr. Elsdon Best, who is regarded as the greatest 
living authority on Maori history and folklore. 
’ In the first paper mentioned below,’ stress is laid 
upon the two different phases of Maori religion. 
The ritual and teaching of the priests and men of 
superior rank were of a distinctly higher type than 
that of the common people. They formed the most 
1 Dominion Museum Monographs. -.0. 1. Some Aspects of Maori Myth 
and Religion. No. 2. Spiritual and Mental Concepts of the Maori. No. 3. 
The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, Genuine and Empirical: in- 
cluding Data concerning their Systems of Astrogeny, Astrolatry, and 
Natural Astrology, with Notes on certain other Natural Phenomena. No. 4. 
The Maori Division of Time. By Elsdon Best. Wellington (New Zealand), 
1922. 
NO.) 2707, VOL, 160) 
NATURE 


[JUNE 9, 1923 | 
intensely tapu portion of Maori esoteric lore and were 
so jealously guarded that for many years they were 
entirely unknown to Europeans. 
Mr. Best’s account of Maori myths is derived from 
the East Coast tribes. There is an elaborate 
cosmogony. Things celestial and terrestrial are 
spoken of as persons, and the ‘processes of evolution 
are described in genealogical form. In the beginning 
was the vast unknown time of Po, before Rangi 
and Papa (sky and earth) appeared. From the 
union of these arose certain supernatural beings 
whose names are known throughout Polynesia— 
Tane, Tu, Rongo, Tangaroa, Tawhirimatea, and 
Whiro. These beings formed and arranged the 
present world. Mr. Best gives a highly poetical 
account of their varied exploits, and in some of the 
concepts finds a likeness to ancient beliefs in Chaldea, 
Egypt, India, China, and Japan. The cosmogonic 
genealogy of Rangi and Papa, which in one account 
consists of such names as Pu (root), More (extremity), 
Take (stump), Weu (fibre), is compared to the 
World-Tree of Scandinavian myth, and the three 
baskets of knowledge obtained from the heavens by 
Tane are likened to the three baskets or books of 
knowledge of the Indian Buddhists. 
Mr. Best describes four classes of Maori gods. 
The first, alone, is Io, the supreme deity, then come 
the departmental and tribal gods, and lastly, the 
spirits of dead ancestors. The startling suggestion 
is made that the name Io may be a form of Jehovah. 
Several other gods are compared with those of Egypt 
and Assyria. 
The Maori conception of the spiritual nature of 
man is concisely stated by Mr. Best in the following 
account from a native: ‘‘ The conclusions he arrived 
at from what he considered clear evidence were— 
that man possesses a spiritual quality that leaves 
the body during dreams and quits it for ever at the 
death of the physical basis (this is the wairua) ; that 
death is marked by the passing, the extinction, of 
an invisible activity called the manawa ova (breath 
of life); that man also possesses a physical life- 
principle termed the maurvi—one that cannot desert 
the living body but does so at death ; that he possesses 
yet another life-principle called the hau, that can be 
affected by the arts of black magic; that man 
possesses several sources of mental and intellectual 
activity, and that the semblance of man, or of any 
entity, may be taken and employed as a medium in 
ceremonies believed to affect the originals.” 
The papers on astronomical knowledge and the 
division of time are remarkable examples of Mr. 
Best’s intimate acquaintance with the lore of the 
Maori people. The Maori named the heavenly bodies 
and accounted for them in myths; they used them 
as time measurers and guides in navigation; and 
they personified them and worshipped them as bene- 
factors and deities. 
In these papers Mr. Best has given us a highly 
interesting and in many places an intensely poetical 
account of the speculations and fancies of the Maori 
mind. The only weak points are the comparisons 
of Polynesian names with those of the ancient world. 
These entirely fail when the words are traced by 
strict phonetic law to their cognates in Indonesia 
and Melanesia. SipnEy H. Ray. 

The Promotion of Research in the 
University of Bristol. 
[? is common knowledge that the universities of 
Great Britain are woefully lacking in funds 
specifically allocated to the furtherance of their main 
function, namely, research. Too much prominence ~ 
ee ~ 
a 
