501 



distorted. It is infinitely better adapted to the natives' forms- 

 of thinking, and infinitely more expressive for him and for the 

 investigator, than that dreadful mixture called ''Pidgin- 

 English." Moreover, in Mailu absolutely no one spoke the 

 latter, whereas practically all men under forty, and some of 

 the elderly men, spoke Motu, some of them even excellently. 

 Towards the end of my time in Mailu I was quite able to talk 

 freely with my informants, discuss matters, raise objections, 

 and, in short, use Motu as a completely satisfactory instrument 

 of investigation. When I returned to Port Moresby, and then 

 went with Alruia to the Sinaug hoi o country for a fortnight, I 

 was able not only to talk with the natives in Motu, but to 

 follow their discussions in that language, though they speak 

 it in the pure, unsimplified form. I am afraid I must 

 explicitly boast of my facility for acquiring a conversa- 

 tional command of foreign languages, since I r.nderstand that 

 the time in which I learned to speak the Motu would have been 

 normally too short a period for acquiring a foreign, and 

 especially a native, tongue. I wish also to state that the 

 ability to speak Motu and to follow a conversation was of no 

 small advantage in my work. Over and over again I was led 

 on to the track of some extremely important item in native 

 sociology or folklore by listening to the conversation of my boy 

 Igua with his Mailu friends, who used to come from the 

 village to see him. 



Remarks on the Conditions of Work and on the Methods 

 of presenting the Material. — I may also mention that during 

 the best part of December, January, and February I was living 

 quite alone with the natives, except for short periods of about 

 two or three days, when I travelled on board a steam launch, 

 or stayed at Port Moresby. I found that work done under 

 such circumstances is incomparably more intensive than work 

 done from white men's settlements, or even in any white man's 

 company ; the nearer one lives to a village and the more one 

 sees actually of the natives the better. In fact, as I work out 

 my notes, I see that only such inform^ation is quite satisfactory 

 as has been obtained by witnessing an occurrence or seeing a 

 thing, and subsequently (or previously) discussing it with the 

 natives. In the course of this m.emcir I am ahvays careful to 

 state explicitly what I have not seen, and what therefore is 

 described merely from information gathered by questioning 

 natives. I also try to convey to the reader, as clearly as 

 possible, under what circumstances and with what degree of 

 accuracy every item of information has been collected. The 

 somewhat personal data just given have the object of allowing 

 the reader to visualize and to judge the methods of field work 

 used in collecting this material. 



