114 THE SUBANU. 
Here again, as in item 15, with a very simple mutation picture the 
variety seems to lie most in the sense. The Polynesian shows a mag- 
nificent crescendo series, from the mold at one’s feet (Samoa, Aniwa, 
Maori, Tonga, Niué, Hawaii) to the land in which one lives (Samoa, 
Aniwa, Fotuna, Futuna, Uvea, Tahiti, Sikaiana, Moiki, Fakaofo, Efaté, 
Marquesas, Paumotu, Rapanui, Manahiki, Maori, Bukabuka, Raro- 
tonga, Tonga, Viti, Rotuma, Niué, Hawaii), upward to the whole world 
of many lands (Aniwa, Maori, Mangareva, Tonga). In Indonesia, 
equally in the intervening area of Melanesia, the series is diminuendo, 
specific, minutely particular; in Polynesia the ultimate sense of a world 
is built up inferentially as a series of habitable lands; in the Subanu, a 
Malayan archetypal speech, we have no difficulty in seeing that the 
world (alibutan) is only that which may be seen by the utmost straining 
of the eyes; it is limited by the last stretch of vision, by the horizon 
(abot to go around) ; it is of two flat dimensions, a circle in which the ego 
sits proudly at the intersection of all radii, as important as a spider at 
the center of his web. To the Subanu the world is a thing of the eye, to 
the Polynesian it is a thing of the mind, an intellectual conception rest- 
ing upon a grander thought of the greatness of the cosmos. From the 
general sense of land the word passes to the smaller conception of place 
(Sesake, Mota, Fagani, Nggela, Laur, Lambell), to village (Sesake, Mota, 
Kabadi, Pokau, Galoma, Mekeo, Lambell, Motu, Tubetube, Suau, 
Lamassa, Rubi, Saa, Santo, Sinaugoro, Hula, Keapara, Bicol, Visayan), 
down to such a minute particular as house (Malo, Santo, Togean). 
Divesting our minds of the connotations grouped about these 
words in our own speech, it is not difficult to comprehend this down- 
ward series. His land, his country, to the bare savage is narrowly 
restricted. This little stretch of beach from which he may launch his 
canoe, this stream upon which he may build his flimsy shelter, this 
small clear spot in the jungle upon which he may plant his food and 
yet remain within reach of the support of his fellows by the exercise 
of nimble legs or the frantic shout—this is all the land of which he 
can say that it is his own. All else is forest; there dwell the spirits 
which work him evil, there roam the inland tribes more brutal and 
more savage than himself, for absurdly there are social degrees even at 
this unsocial basement of society. Therefore his connotation of the 
word land embraces no more than the tiny acreage upon which he 
lives in his peace and his comfort in the protection of his neighbors; 
land so exiguous is dignified when we callit village. In certain of these 
communities the village becomes the house. I can not find that the 
community house develops from any sense of greater convenience in 
building or of greater security when built; for the savage, iron-ruled 
by his traditions, is little actuated by considerations which partake of 
the nature of free will. More probably it is a case of the dominance 
of the religious tyranny which is ever strongest with the ignorant; the 
