Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands. 143 



The most thorough knowledge of any one Pacific language and people does 

 not qualify a man for this investigation. In fact, the man of one language is 

 apt to be rather in the way, because in nine cases out of ten he is sure to 

 consider it something very special, and to want to make it the rale for all the 

 rest. Of the field occupied by the Church of England Mission, Mr. Codring- 

 ton writes — " What is wanted, and very much wanted, for the understanding 

 of au archipelago such as ours is a general acquaintance with all the dialects 

 and customs." And this is only one portion of the vast area which has yet to 

 be investigated. The wonderful knowledge of dialects possessed by Bishop 

 Patteson died with him, for he had "next to nothing written down." His 

 episcopal work in the young and growing mission kept him ever on the move ; 

 but, if his life had been spared, he would doubtless sooner or later have placed 

 on record that extensive knowledge of the island languages which he seemed to 

 acquire by a sort of intuition. Comparative philology owes a bitter grudge 

 against the man-stealing wretches whose villanies were the cause of that 

 lamentable murder. 



Not the language only, but the customs also, of the islanders require 

 investigation; and fr this something far more trustworthy than travellers' 

 observations is required. A thorough~acquaintance with the people and their 

 language is indispensable to secure anything like accuracy. The facts which 

 travellers observe among savages are always valuable, but the inferences they 

 draw from the fjcts are extremely untrustworthy, unless we can be sure that 

 they have been able to get inside the native mind,' and to look at the facts from 

 its standpoint. Few observant men who have lived Ions: among savages will 

 disagree with Mr. Codrington when he remarks — "I have the most complete 

 disbelief, as a prejudice, in any traveller's statement of what he does not see 

 with his own eyes, and in his explanation of the meaning of what he sees. 

 Many of our anthropologists' books are full of such statement ; and the more 

 I read of those books the more I am persuaded either that the Melanesians at 

 all events are not savages, or that travellers' stories about savages are very 

 untrustworthy. They put into the natives' minds and mouths either what 

 they expect vail be there, or what is in their own thoughts. Then, 

 the natives take English words from the traders and others and use them, 

 thinking it enlightened to speak like a white man; but they use them 

 in their own sense, which is not always ours. Consequently, people 

 who visit these islands nowadays are told that "plenty devil up there." the 

 native informant meaning no more than that the place is tapu, or rongo 

 (sacred) ; or they hear a common grave called a "devil stone," or one of the 

 "tamate" masks, shaped like a man, spoken of as "all the same devil." 

 And in the next edition of some anthropological work these sayings are made 

 to prove something of which the natives had never the slightest notion. 



Nor is a residence of a few years among these tribes of any great service 

 towards securing accurate information. To judge from my own personal ex- 

 perience, when a European has been living two or three years among savages 

 he is sure to be fully convinced that he knows all about them, and he is pre- 

 pared to instruct the universe concerning them. When he has been ten years 

 or so among them, if he be an observant man, he finds that he knows' very 

 little about them, and so begins to learn. When I speak of my own personal 

 experience in this matter, I mean my experience, not of others, but of myself. 

 This experience, however, has certainly not been contradicted by what I have 

 observed in others, especially since the annexation of Fiji to the British 

 Crown. 



I have nothing farther to add, excepting that Mr. Codrington's reminder as 

 to his observations on Mota customs — "Remember they are only notes" — 

 should be borne in mind. Not, indeed, that there is anything as to either their 

 matter or their manner ot which he has any cause to be ashamed. Only the 

 fact should be noted that they were written not for publication but in the 

 way of ordinary correspondence. They are, however, none the less interesting 

 or valuable on that account. Mr. Codrington's letters are always pleasant 

 reading, and they are as instructive as they are pleasant. — Lorimer Fison. ] 



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