36 
Mr. Buller. — New Zealand is generally considered conventionally to come 
within the term Australasia. 
Mr. Gorman. — May I ask, is there any likelihood of the myths and songs 
of the Sawaiorians being published ? 
Mr. Whitmee. — I hope there is some possibility, or even probability, that 
some of them will be published. Some of our missionaries have given great 
attention to the collection of those myths, and I know that one or two of 
them have obtained large collections. I have recently been urging them to 
contribute their gleanings to the lately-established Folk Lore Society, who 
would be glad to have them. A book on the comparative mythology of 
Polynesia is one of the wants of modern times. 
Mr. Gorilan. — A re there any traditions of the Flood and the Fall of Man? 
Mr. Whitmee. — Yes ; numerous traditions of the Flood. 
Mr. Gorman. — xYnd of the Fall of Man ? 
Mr. Moulton. — T here are traditions of the primeval innocence of man. 
Mr. Buller. — Some years ago Sir George Grey published a very large 
volume of poems and legendary tales, which he had received direct from the 
Maories. The book was published at a guinea.* 
Mr. Gorman. — Photographs might be given showing the manner in which 
the hair of the people is worn, and the resemblance to what is found on the 
Assyrian sculptures. These would be important matters in regard to the 
connection of these people with Egyptology. With regard to the letters / 
and r, this is another matter of interest. In the Egyptian these letters are 
interchangeable, there being one character for each. In Abyssinia some 
missionary writer noticed that the people do not pronounce the letter /, but 
always make it r. 
Mr. Whitmee. — I should doubt the value of the fact with regard to the 
letters l and r, because I think it a very likely thing for different races to 
confound these letters. It is not only in Polynesia and Egypt that the / and r 
are interchanged. 
Mr. Moulton. — On this point the evidence is very misleading. In Tonga 
the letter l is plain and distinct, and never approaches to r, and my difficulty 
in teaching the students the English language is in regard to the letter r. In 
New Zealand it is not settled, I believe, whether it ought to be represented 
by l or r. 
At this point Mr. D. Finau, a native of Tonga, was called upon by Mr. 
Moulton to give the meeting an illustration by articulating the letter r 
in the word “ rode this lie did distinctly, but subsequently failed to give the 
sound of the same letter in the word “ drew.” [He then recited a familiar 
passage from Holy Scripture in the native language.] 
* My copy of this work is dated 1853, and was printed by Robert Stokes, 
Wellington, New Zealand, but does not bear a publisher’s name. The Trans- 
actions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institvte contain several useful 
papers on the Maories. — S. J. W. 
