ON THE BARRIER EANGES SILVER FIELD. 195 



During the last three and a-half years the value of ore and 

 ^bullion dispatched from the field was £4,510,966. The value of 

 imports for the same period, £3,344,511. 



SOME FOLK-SONGS and MYTHS from SAMOA, 



Translated by Revs. T. Powell and G. Pratt, 

 With an Introduction and Notes by Dr. John Frasbr. 



\_Read before the Royal Society of N.8.W., November 5, 1890. ~] 



Introduction. — The Samoans are poets. Their language consists mostly 

 of vowel and liquid sounds, and, for this reason, is called the Italian of the 

 South Seas ; its words readily adapt themselves to figurative applications 

 of their meaning; the imagery of the language is oriental ; these and 

 other qualities render it a fit vehicle for poetical composition. There 

 is among the Samoans a privileged class of bards who alone know, and 

 can recite, the genealogies of the native chiefs and the legends about 

 the gods ; yet the common people, when assembled together, turn ordinary 

 passing events into song, and sing in concert to lighten their toil, while 

 they are engaged in heavy work out of doors, or are using their paddles 

 on board their vessels. 



Samoan poetry sometimes has rhyme, but it has no metre ; from the 

 nature of the language, the poetry can scarcely have metre ; and the lines 

 of a poem may be of very unequal length. A few voices commence the 

 song, and sing a portion of it ; then all the rest join in full chorus ; 

 along with this, there is dancing and the accompaniment of a native drum 

 or the rhythmical tapping of sticks on a roll of native mats. Of this 

 sort of song — the most common of all — are the Vii and the Muli'au, in 

 praise of chiefs. The Fatu, the Langisolo, and the Vila have no dancing; 

 they are the funeral dirges of chiefs. The Fangono, of which the follow- 

 ing love-tale is an example, is a kind of recitative, with bits of song in it 

 here and there. The Solo is a song in praise of the islands or lands over 

 which the chiefs rule, and is sung by one person ; the Tala is any narra- 

 tive tale. 



Mr. Powell went to the Samoan group in 1844 and left about five years 

 ~ago ; he died recently in England. He was settled as a missionary on 



