Names ending in nesia (Greek nesos, an island) have been used, appropriately enough, to designate large groupings of islands in the Pacific. To the west, the Malay Archipelago received the alternative name of Indonesia, the prefix Indo indicating its comparative nearness to India. Eastward above the equator, the islands extending from Palau to the Gilberts and including the Marianas have been grouped together as Micronesia, because the islands are relatively small (micros). South of the equator, the chain of island groups extending from the east of New Guinea to Fiji in the southeast have been termed Melanesia because the skins of the inhabitants are black (melas). The remaining part of the Pacific east of Micronesia and Melanesia is studded with islands, which, because there are many (poli), have been included under the name of Polynesia.

With a few exceptions, the Polynesian islands lie south of the equator. The northern limit across the equator is formed by the Hawaiian Islands, and the easternmost limit by Easter Island. Though New Zealand, because of its size and situation in the south temperate zone, does not qualify for inclusion in the geographic area of tropical Polynesia, it is included in the ethnographic area of Polynesia because New Zealand was inhabited from central Polynesia by people of the same racial stock. If a base line is drawn from Hawaii to New Zealand and side lines from the ends to meet at Easter Island as the apex, a vast triangle is defined in which practically all the islands of Polynesia are situated. Within the Polynesian triangle, the greatest distance from north to south is roughly 5,000 miles, from west to east about 4,000 miles. The base line separates Samoa and Tonga in Polynesia from Fiji in Melanesia and the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia. The few Polynesian islands not included in the triangle are the Ellice Islands, Uvea, Futuna, and Alofi, which lie a little to the west of the base line. This division omits a number of islands situated in the Melanesian area but inhabited by Polynesian-speaking people.

The islands of Polynesia vary in type and size, and both these factors influenced the culture which developed upon them. They may be thought of as forming three main classes: volcanic, or high islands; coral, or low islands; and raised coral islands.

The volcanic islands, as the name implies, were formed by volcanic agency, which pushed basaltic masses high above the surface of the sea. Time and wear have produced high hills or mountains and intervening valleys with rivers, streams, and fertile, alluvial land. The natural assets, however, vary from the abundant rainfall and rich soil of the Society Islands to the meager water supply and poor soil of Easter Island. The coast line is fringed with a coral reef, in places close to the shore and in others running out some distance to enclose an outer lagoon, in which fish abound. Some lagoons have deep water with good passages through the outer reef, as do those of Tahiti, and others have but small, shallow passages such as those in the Cook Islands. At the outer side of the reef edge, the sea falls suddenly to such depth that ships cannot obtain anchorage. Hence, the character of the reef and the lagoon have exercised an important influence on the visits of foreign ships. Some volcanic islands have an outer fringing reef which surrounds the group of individual islands with their own fringing reefs, the Mangarevan Islands, for instance. Volcanic islands have many advantages, apart from their size. They provide a variety of raw material in the form of plants, timber, and stone, and the alluvial soil is suitable for the growth of cultivated plants. At the time of Polynesian discovery, however, the native flora provided little food beyond a few berries and roots and the pith of tree ferns. However, fish, crustaceans, and shellfish were abundant in the surrounding waters.

The coral islands were built by coral animals on a submerged reef which formed a large ring enclosing a central lagoon, sometimes several miles in extent. The islands, irregularly spaced on the reef, range in size from those of several acres in extent to mere rocky protuberances bare of vegetation. This combination of reef, islands, and central lagoon is termed an atoll. The individual islands are narrow, because they are limited by the width of the reef; and their length is determined by the breaks in the supporting reef. They are low and rarely rise more than 10 to 20 feet above sea level. The surface is flat and without streams. Water, which is brackish though potable, can be obtained by sinking wells. Some atolls, termed wet atolls, have sufficient rainfall to produce fairly abundant vegetation though limited as regards the variety of plants. Other, dry, atolls have poor, stunted, and sparse vegetation because of meager rainfall. The soil, formed of broken down coral, is capable of growing the coconut and pandanus in profusion, but the food plants such as the breadfruit, banana, taro (Colocasia esculenta), yam, and sweet potato, did not grow on Polynesian atolls. When the Polynesians settled on them, the only native plants that could be used for food were pigweed (Portulaca) and the fruit of the Morinda citrifolia. A large-leaved coarse taro, termed puraka (Cyrtosperma chamissonis), was cultivated in trenches dug down to subsoil water, but this plant was introduced. The paper mulberry, which provided the material for tapa cloth, and the Hibiscus tiliaceus, which provided a suitable fiber for lines and nets, did not grow. The lagoons, however, were rich in fish, crustaceans, and shellfish, and the shell of the Tridacna was a poor but useful substitute for basalt in the manufacture of tools.

Some atolls have deep passages through the reef capable of admitting schooners into the shelter of the central lagoon, but in most, the passages are so narrow and shallow that only canoes can be piloted through them. Immediately outside the reef, the sea sinks to unanchorable depths.

The original Polynesian discoverers usually gave a distinctive name to each island, but as each island in a group remained independent under the government of its own chiefs, the inhabitants of a group evidently saw no necessity for coining a special name for a unity that never existed in their day. An exception is the name of Samoa, which was apparently applied to the group before European contact and which was not shared by any individual island in the group. From the Polynesian point of view, an atoll was treated as a group of islands and each individual island, down to the smallest rocky islet, received an individual name. Here again, an exception occurs in the name of Tongareva, which was applied to the whole atoll and was not shared by any individual island. The group name of Tokelau was probably used as a general term by the Samoans in referring to islands to the north. It was later adopted as a convenient term to replace the earlier applied English name, the Union Group. The omission of group names was followed in principle in some atoll islands divided into districts which had never become united under one command, much in the same way as the individual islands of a volcanic group. The most important island in the Tongareva atoll was originally divided into two districts, because two different family groups settled at either end and then worked toward the middle, where they met and established a boundary. One district was named Omoka and the other Motukohiti. The two districts fought each other repeatedly, but neither conquered the other permanently to the point of absorption. Hence, visitors from other islands came to either Omoka or Motukohiti. A single name that would combine the two districts was never needed and would not have meant anything within the atoll. The government agent and traders now live in the village of Omoka in the district of Omoka, and the wharf to which the trading schooners come is Omoka. There is no village in the Motukohiti district, and nothing happens there to keep its name before the public. The whole island will eventually be called Omoka, when there are no native historians left alive to lodge a protest on behalf of Motukohiti. Some other islands in Tongareva and in the Tokelaus follow this naming pattern. Of the volcanic islands, Easter Island, according to its inhabitants, had no early island name and this may be quite correct.

European voyagers gave European names to the islands when they discovered them, and additional European names were given by later explorers who were not aware that they had been found and named. Fortunately, the governing powers who annexed the various islands have given official priority to the native names and thus offered some tardy recognition to the original discoverers. Even so, it is difficult when reading of the early European voyages to find the native synonym of the foreign name and harder still to accept some alleged synonyms, such as that of the La Sagittaria of Quiros for the Tahiti of the Society Islanders.

In group names, however, no priority could be given to what did not exist. It was the foreign powers which brought individual islands into a group under one rule. Even the native kingdoms—Hawaii under Kamehameha I, Tonga under George Tubou I, and the Society Islands under Pomare I—were established after European contact and would not have been perpetuated without foreign assistance. Names for the island groups were necessary for official purposes and for geographers. Some of the names given by early explorers, such as the Marquesas and Society Islands, were accepted and retained; whereas other names, such as the Sandwich Islands and Hervey Islands, were accepted in general usage for a time but officially changed later. Some confusion, however, was created in the giving of native names to groups which did not possess native names. In the system followed, the name of a principal island in the group was officially designated as the group name. Sandwich Islands was abandoned in favor of Hawaii as a name for the group. Hence, references to Hawaii may mean the group as a whole or the island of Hawaii in particular. Similarly, the Mangareva (Gambier) Islands are also referred to as Mangareva, which is the principal island in the group. In using these names, the distinction should be clearly indicated.

The distribution of the islands within the Polynesian triangle is shown on the map (p. iii). Some writers, probably influenced by the theory that the Polynesians came by the Melanesian route through Samoa, have referred to Samoa and Tonga as central Polynesia, and others have called the area nuclear Polynesia. However, a glance at the map shows clearly enough that the Society Islands form the center of the Polynesian area and that Samoa and Tonga form the main groups in western Polynesia. The Society Islands are not only the geographical center, but the traditions of the various islands clearly indicate that they were the center of distribution from which exploring expeditions, followed by colonizing expeditions, radiated north to Hawaii, northeast to the Marquesas, east to the Tuamotus, southeast to Rapa, south to the Australs, southwest to the Cook Islands, northwest to the atolls of Manihiki, Rakahanga, and Tongareva, and even west at an early period to Samoa. Mangareva in the east was peopled from both the Tuamotus and the Marquesas, and Easter Island was probably peopled from the Marquesas. Samoa formed a western center, which peopled Tonga and some nearby islands, and later, Tonga took part in colonizing expeditions to Niue and parts of Fiji. Some of the outliers in Melanesia appear to have been settled from both Tonga and Samoa.

As the culture that developed in different parts of Polynesia was affected to some extent by the type of islands, they are here listed according to type. Volcanic or high islands: Society, Hawaii, Marquesas, Mangareva (Gambier), Easter, Pitcairn, Samoa, Tonga, Uvea, Futuna, and Alofi. Coral or low islands: Tuamotu, Rakahanga, Manihiki, Tongareva, Pukapuka, Tokelau, and Ellice. Raised coral islands: Niue, Makatea.

The individual islands in the groups are given later in dealing with the literature of individual groups.

The people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians. The problem of naming the people as a whole was similar to that of naming island groups, for neither had native names. The need did not exist until a contrast appeared, in the person of the European. The New Zealanders then termed themselves Maori, meaning native to the soil, and coined the word pakeha for those who were foreign and exotic. The distinction applied equally to animals, plants, and introduced goods. The indigenous wood pigeon was a manu maori (local bird) as against the pheasant which was a manu pakeha (foreign bird); and the kahikatea pine was a rakau maori (indigenous tree), as against the weeping willow, which was a rakau pakeha (exotic tree). Other parts of Polynesia coined words to distinguish the foreigners from themselves. The Society and Cook Islands used the term papa'a, the Samoans papalagi, and the Hawaiians haole. They did not coin distinguishing terms for themselves, but the foreigners used the general term native or used the name of the islands on which they lived (for example, Hawaiians and Tahitians). Though the term maori as meaning native or indigenous was present in most parts of Polynesia, the native people did not apply it to themselves as a distinguishing term. It had become so established as the name for the New Zealanders that it would have created confusion to apply it as a general term. Some attempt to coin a general term was made by white scholars who combined Savaii (Samoa) and Maori in the form of Savaiori, which meant nothing except to the inventors. Thus the regional term of Polynesian came to stay.

The theory that the Polynesians came from South America was probably based originally on the exaggerated value placed on prevailing winds. Later, some weight was attached to studies which apparently showed some affinity between lists of selected words from the Polynesian and some American Indian languages. In studies made by people without an accurate knowledge of the languages being compared, the chances for error are serious. Misspellings in source material may create a false similarity, and such misspellings in early source material are notorious. A word composed of a root with a prefix may resemble another word with a totally different root and a suffix, and the importance of roots may be ignored in the desire to increase the list of similarities. The number of affinities may be increased by using some form of Grimm's Law, the origin of which is known only to the author. A number of similar words could probably be hand picked from any two languages in the world, but unless supported by other evidence, such lists may form a series of interesting coincidences with no scientific value. Modern linguistics has become a special scientific study, and the methods so popular in the past have produced results which may be not only valueless but actually misleading. However, the preceding remarks were not meant to criticize individuals but rather the methods used. The studies were made in all good faith according to the scientific methods then prevailing. They mark the process of experiment and error by which science has advanced to higher standards of accuracy. The later school of linguistics holds that the Polynesian language has affinity, not with South America, but with the languages extending west to southeast Asia.

Further evidence is provided by the animals and plants which the Polynesians introduced, carrying them on their voyaging canoes to the islands upon which they decided to settle. The introduced animals were the pig, dog, and fowl, which belong to the Indo-Malayan area. The pig and fowl were not introduced into America until post-Columbian times. The introduced food plants were the coconut, breadfruit, banana, taro, yam, sweet potato, and arrowroot, which, except the sweet potato, belong to the Indo-Malayan botanical area. Like the domestic animals, they did not find their way into America until after its discovery by Europeans. According to botanists, the original home of the sweet potato is South America. As it was present in Polynesia before European ships visited America, it must have been brought in by some voyaging vessel from South America in pre-Columbian times. Since the South American Indians had neither the vessels nor the navigating ability to cross the ocean space between their shores and the nearest Polynesian islands, they may be disregarded as the agents of supply. If the present theory of botanical authorities is correct, the only solution left is that some Polynesian navigator actually reached South America on a westerly gale, which took him farther than he anticipated. Not liking the country, he returned to Polynesia on the trade winds with the sweet potato as an adjunct to his food supplies. Another introduced plant from the Indo-Malayan region is the paper mulberry, which was carried to every volcanic island in Polynesia and cultivated to supply the material for the bark cloth (tapa) used as clothing.

The western origin of the Polynesians is further supported by the studies on their physical characters. They are a mixed people, but the predominant characters indicate a major Caucasoid origin. Some intermixture with Mela-nesiansMelanesians may have taken place in the Pacific, but the Mongoloid intermixture must have taken place in the Malay Archipelago or the adjoining mainland. Attempts have been made to trace the Caucasoid elements back to India, but as the evidence depends on oral tradition and selected genealogies, such theories may be regarded as interesting academic studies which await supporting evidence difficult, if not impossible, to procure. Hawaiki, as one of the names of the homeland, has been carried along and applied to various islands in memory of the past, but the original Hawaiki lies buried under the accretions of time.

Another problem which has caused conjecture is the route by which Polynesia was reached from the Malay Archipelago. It is safe to say that when the Polynesian ancestors were pushed out of the Malay Archipelago by Mongoloid hordes, the only way open to them was the sea to the east, which was dotted with islands. It was the existence of chains of islands which rendered the ultimate arrival of the voyagers in Polynesia possible. It may be assumed that the various islands were discovered and occupied and that, as local populations increased and created complications, some of the settlers moved on toward the east to discover new homes. Thus, the process was a gradual movement by short voyages from island to island over some centuries of time. Some authorities hold that the Polynesians left the Malay Archipelago at about the beginning of the Christian Era and arrived at western Polynesia somewhere between the fourth and fifth centuries. This chronology was based on Polynesian traditional history and on genealogies, which are too uncertain for exact dates.

Two routes by island chains were possible, a southern route through Melanesia and a northern route through Micronesia. Early writers appear to have taken the Melanesian route for granted, and this unchecked theory has led to the assumption of Melanesian elements in Polynesia without critical analysis. A number of outlying islands along the eastern fringe of Melanesia were found to be occupied by non-Melanesian people, speaking pure Polynesian dialects, who were regarded as remnants of the early Polynesians left behind along the Melanesian route. More recent studies, however, show that many of these islands were peopled from Samoa and Tonga at a later period. The dialects, instead of retaining traces of an early archaic form, show close affinity with modern Samoan and Tongan. If the Polynesian ancestors had infiltrated through Melanesia, their descendants should show more Melanesian intermixture, such as deeper skin color, more woolly hair, depressed nasal bridges, prognathism, and slimmer calves. The bow and arrow, the Melanesian projectile weapon, is absent as a weapon in Polynesia. Some Melanesian social customs such as power of the sister's son and brother-and-sister avoidance are present in Samoa and Tonga, but they are apparently late influences from Fiji which never penetrated to the rest of Polynesia. Similarly, the wooden neck rest and the kava bowl with a suspensory lug show Fijian influence, which never reached farther than Samoa and Tonga. Thus, elements of culture in Polynesia which were assumed to have a Melanesian origin are found, upon careful analysis, to be subject to a different interpretation.

The Micronesian route has much to recommend it. It accounts for the negative evidence against the Melanesian route. An analysis of Tongan mythology reveals that it has far more affinity with Micronesia than with Fiji, which is so close at hand. A significant item is the fact that the sling which was used in Micronesia was also the Polynesian projectile weapon. The many differences between the culture of western Polynesia and the rest of Polynesia is more readily accounted for if we assume that the main tide of the Polynesian movement flowed through Micronesia and directly from the Gilbert Islands to central Polynesia with minor streams diverging south to Samoa and Tonga. Had the main current been through Melanesia, the great efflorescence in Polynesian culture should more likely have taken place in Samoa than in the Society Islands.

One objection to the Micronesian route is the question as to whether or not the Polynesians could have carried their domestic animals and cultivable food plants with them through the eastern atoll end of the Micronesian chain. It is known that certain cultivable plants, such as the banana and breadfruit, have been reported as growing in the Micronesian atolls, but the subject requires tracing. However, the food plants and animals from the Indo-Malayan area reached Fiji through the Melanesian chain, and they could have been relayed later into central Polynesia through Samoa, even though the main human movement had not flowed that way.

The ancestors of the Polynesians did not enter Polynesia empty handed or empty headed. They carried with them a good assortment of food plants and domestic animals from one tropical region to another. They brought with them a knowledge of certain techniques and handcrafts suited to dealing with the raw material provided by a tropical environment. They were led by able chiefs and guided in certain directions by priests skilled in observing and interpreting natural phenomena. The people were in family groups, which expanded into tribes claiming a common ancestry and ruled by chiefs who succeeded by primogeniture in the male line. They deified worthy ancestors and appointed gods to deal with the various needs and activities of life. The gods were placated and induced to render assistance in mundane affairs by material offerings made by the people and ritual conducted by the priests.

The fundamentals of this culture were established in the first group of volcanic islands encountered on the eastward movement from the Gilbert Islands, where the voyagers left the Micronesian chain. The group is now known as the Society Islands and, as I have stated, it formed the geographical center of the island world the newcomers were destined to occupy. The Society Islands are divided into a leeward and a windward group, and it was upon an island in the leeward, or easterly, group that the temporal and spiritual heads of the expedition settled. The island was named Havaii (Hawaiki) evidently after some previous home in the west. This island, afterwards named Raiatea, formed the center of the cultural development which spread throughout the group. In later years, Tahiti, because of its greater size and fertility, developed greater temporal power, but priority of prestige in chiefly rank and priestly sanctity remained with Raiatea.

Traditional narratives record early expeditions that reached and settled in Hawaii in the north and New Zealand in the south. Both expeditions were without domestic animals and cultivated food plants. Thus, if the theory is correct that the foods came from Melanesia through Samoa, it is possible that the two expeditions left central Polynesia before the animals and plants arrived from the west. These early settlers in the north and south had to search for vegetable foods in the local flora, and nature, though generous with fish and fowl, offered few edible plants.

With the continued development of culture in the Society Islands, there was also the natural increase in population. Rivalry in chieftainship and disputes over land, women, and food led to quarrels and battles. Expeditions to explore the seas and to "fish up" new lands had taken place and many of the outlying islands had been reported. Settlement expeditions took place wherein large voyaging canoes with adequate provisions and water carried family groups with their women and children to seek new homes along the sea paths radiating from the central hub of Havaii (Raiatea) and Tahiti. They carried with them the material goods, domestic animals, and food plants which were present in the center. They also took with them the form of social organization and religion that had developed at their time of leaving. Thus, in the course of time, between perhaps the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, habitable Polynesia became inhabited.

Though a more or less common culture was carried from the center and superimposed upon the simpler one in the groups already inhabited, the later culture adopted much from the earlier one in the direction of local knowledge, adjustment to changed environment, and adaptation to different raw material. These changes occurred particularly in the arts and crafts. Pandanus was the general material for making mats and superior satchels, but as pandanus did not grow in either Easter Island or New Zealand, substitute local material was sought for and experimented with. In Easter Island, the people used rushes (Scirpus riparius), which were indigenous, and the outer skin of the trunks of banana plants, which they had introduced. The mats made of rushes were not plaited, but the rushes were sewn together with bast fiber, an entirely new process used nowhere else in Polynesia. The baskets were made of rushes and banana bark by the process of plaiting in which the main technical details were similar to general Polynesian techniques with some slight differences in plaiting the rim. The banana plant is widespread throughout Polynesia, but the Easter Islanders were the only people to use the bark for plaiting material. In New Zealand, the local plant popularly termed flax (Phormium tenax) was used as a substitute for pandanus in both mats and baskets. As the material was harder and stiffer than pandanus, the plaiting technique employed had to be changed in certain details, such as the join in mats, to suit the difference in material. This is only one example of the many changes and developments which took place in the different island groups. Change and development also continued in the Society Islands after the period of dispersal.

Mistakes have been made in past studies and general works in assuming that Polynesian culture as a whole was homogeneous to the extent that information gathered in one island applied equally well to all the other islands. Thus, Lewis Morgan, on learning that brother-and-sister marriage occurred in Hawaii, took it for granted that it prevailed throughout Polynesia and, as a result of an unchecked assumption, held that Polynesian culture was in the low stage of promiscuity as regards the relationship between the sexes. Further investigation would have revealed that brother-and-sister marriage as an institution was present only in Hawaii and that it was a late development among the highest chiefly families to preserve the purity of their lineage. Similarly, Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, on finding that the power of the sister's son and brother-and-sister avoidance were present in Samoa and Tonga, assumed that they were present throughout Polynesia and advanced the hypothesis that the similar customs which were present in Melanesia had been derived from Polynesians who passed through Melanesia. The two customs do not exist in the rest of Polynesia, hence it is more feasible to conclude that the customs were Melanesian and diffused to Samoa and Tonga from Fiji.

At the time that the island cultures were functioning in their purity, when first contact was made with white foreigners, there was no one Polynesian culture. The only period when there could have been a common culture was when the people were living in one island group before dispersal took place. After that, each island or island group went on developing its own culture, and while some fundamental elements of an early common culture were retained or only slightly changed, the various groups specialized in different directions and reached peaks not shared with others. If we use the term Polynesian culture as applied to the culture which was functioning at the time of European contact, it should be realized that such a term is an abstraction referring to common features or general similarities that underlie the local differences in culture within Polynesia. Any one island may be taken as an introduction, but it cannot be regarded as establishing a general pattern. Neither can any cultural elements from any island be applied to another on the assumption of a common pattern, but confirmation or denial must be sought locally in each island. When the Polynesian area as a whole is compared, similarities and differences will be observed. It may then be argued that the similarities belong to an earlier common stage and that the differences indicate later local developments.

The first white navigator to cross the Pacific was the Portuguese, Ferdinand Magellan, who sailed under the banner of Spain to prove his theory that there was a western passage to the east. He discovered the western passage, which was named the Strait of Magellan after him, and his fleet entered the "Great South Sea" in November, 1520. Magellan reached the Ladrones (Marianas) on March 6, 1521, and he was killed a month later at the small island of Mactan in the Philippines. One of his officers, another Portuguese named Sebastian del Cano, managed to navigate the small Victoria back to Europe and thus became the first to circumnavigate the globe.

A second expedition, under the command of Loyasa, a Spaniard, with Del Cano as second-in-command, sailed from Spain in 1525. The ships passed through the Strait of Magellan and crossed the Pacific on much the same course as that followed by Magellan. Both Loyasa and Del Cano died on the voyage, and the ships reached the Ladrones on September 4, 1526 under the command of De Salazar. During the passage from the Strait of Magellan 40 men had died, and at the Ladrones De Salazar also died. The expedition continued to Mindanao under the command of Martin Yniguez and finally reached Tidore in the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. At Tidore, the Spaniards successfully repelled attacks by the Portuguese, who had established posts at Ternate and claimed exclusive rights over the Moluccas.

The two Spanish expeditions had made the eastern part of the Pacific crossing south of the equator, but they did not encounter any Polynesian islands. Magellan's discovery of the Philippines led Spain to claim rights over the group, and Loyasa's voyage induced Hernando Cortez to send three ships to the Moluccas. These ships, under the command of Saavedra, left the Pacific coast of Mexico on October 31, 1527. It was the first voyage initiated from America and, unlike the two other expeditions, it sailed from a port north of the equator. Two of the ships were lost in a storm, but Saavedra reached the Ladrones in his flagship, the Florida, and sailed on to the Philip-pines.Philippines Later, he reinforced his countrymen in Tidore. A Hawaiian legend of a wrecked ship has been linked by some writers with one of Saavedra's lost ships, but evidence in support of the theory is of such flimsy nature that it may be dismissed.

Other Spanish trans-Pacific voyages between New Spain and the Philippines followed. Juan Gaetano crossed from Navidad, Mexico, in 1542, and the Spaniards claim that he discovered the Hawaiian Islands, giving the date 1555, however. Careful examination of the evidence by various research workers has conclusively proved that the islands were unknown until they were first visited by Captain James Cook in 1778.

The first Spanish settlement in the Philippines was made by Legaspi at Cebu in 1565. From then on, the voyages between New Spain and the Philippines were regular. The usual North American port was Acapulco, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and the regular route of the Spanish galleons to the Philippines was to make for the parallel between 12° and 13° N. and sail west to Guam, whence it was an easy matter to complete the voyage. On the return trip, the ships sailed north to latitude 35° N., where they caught the northwesterly winds which carried them to the American coast. It was through observation of these sailing directions that the Spaniards failed to encounter the Hawaiian Islands, which lie between latitudes 19° and 22° 15' N. The westward course on the parallel of Guam became well known and the British navigators, Drake, Cavendish, Woodes Rogers, Anson, and others followed it after harrying the coast of South America. The Dutch commanders, also seeking Spanish prizes, followed a similar course. Thus, the earliest voyages were made in the northern hemisphere and Polynesia, south of the equator, remained immune from such visitations.

With the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, Spain extended her American possessions into Peru and Chile, and the southern ports of Callao and Payta became established on the Peruvian coast. Even so, the Spanish ships worked north along the coast to Acapulco and made their crossings to the Philippines on the parallel of Guam. However, crossings south of the equator came in due time.

The first expedition into the South Pacific was planned by Pedro Sarmiento, but the new viceroy of Peru, Lopez Garcia de Castro, gave the command to his nephew, Alvaro de Mendaña. Mendaña, with two ships, sailed from Callao on November 19, 1567 in a general westerly direction. He passed between the Marquesas and the Tuamotus without sighting either. He did sight what may have been one of the Ellice Islands, but his main discovery was the Solomon Islands in Melanesia. He thus performed the astonishing feat of sailing across the Polynesian triangle without encountering an island in that area. The two ships, on their return voyage, reached Callao on September 11, 1569 without having added anything to the knowledge about Polynesia. However, the first voyage had been made south of the equator and the discovery of the Solomon Islands was destined to lead to discovery in Polynesia.

It seems fitting that the first authentic discovery in Polynesia should have been made by Mendaña, but it was more than 30 years after his discovery of the Solomons before the Spanish authorities acceded to his request to fit out an expedition to visit them. Finally, he was given four ships for the expedition. He put out from Callao on April 9, 1595, worked up the coast, and sailed from Payta. On July 28, he sighted an island which he at first thought was part of the Solomons. He named it Magdalena (Fatuhiva) and three other islands were successively named San Pedro (Motane), Dominica (Hivaoa), and Santa Christina (Tahuata). Recognizing the islands as a new discovery, he named the group Islas de Marquesas de Mendoza after the Marquis Mendoza, the Viceroy of Peru. The islands, which became more widely known under the shorter name of the Marquesas, formed the southeastern part of a much larger group.

Continuing west, Mendaña failed to reach the Solomons but landed farther south at the Melanesian group of Santa Cruz, where he died. The remains of the expedition found its way to the Philippines under the guidance of Quiros. After some time, Quiros found his way back to Acapulco by following the northern Spanish route in the vicinity of latitude 35° N. Thus Mendaña made the first discovery in Polynesia and his recorded description of the inhabitants of the Marquesas provides the first source material on the ethnology of a Polynesian group.

The second voyage of discovery was made by Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, who had accompanied Mendaña as his chief pilot. Quiros sailed with three ships from Callao on December 21, 1605. He took a more southerly course than that of Mendaña and encountered a number of atolls in the southern Tuamotus. Since longitude was determined by the dead reckoning of the daily sailings in those days, the identity of the atolls he discovered remains somewhat obscure. One of the islands, which he named La Sagittaria, some writers have identified as Tahiti, but his description of the island is evidently that of an atoll formation and could not possibly apply to a high volcanic island such as Tahiti. Continuing west, Quiros passed some small islands and then discovered an inhabited island which he named Gente Hermosa. This has been identified as Olosega or Swains Island in the Tokelau group. He entered Melanesia to the south of Santa Cruz and reached an island in the New Hebrides group which he named Australia del Espiritu Santo, believing that it formed part of the long-sought southern continent. Contrary winds prevented him from reaching Santa Cruz and he returned to Navidad, Mexico, without making any other discoveries.

Organized Spanish expeditions into the South Pacific ended with Quiros. Apart from the coast of South America, Spanish interest was confined to the north Pacific and the routes between New Spain and the Philippines. However, an expedition was sent to Tahiti in 1772 under Boenechea, who, on his way, discovered two new atolls in the Tuamotus. On his second voyage, in 1774, he discovered two more. Boenechea died in Tahiti, and Gayanagos, who took command, discovered Raivavae in the Australs as he was returning to Valparaiso.

The most surprising Spanish discovery was made by Maurelle, who, on a voyage from Manila to St. Blaise on the North American coast, was driven so far south by contrary winds that he discovered the Vavau group of the Tongan Islands in February 1781.

To return to the sequence of discovery after Quiros, the Pacific adventure was taken up by the Dutch. Between 1598 and 1616, a number of Dutch ships had sailed through the Strait of Magellan, but they worked north along the South American coast and then sailed west to the East Indies. The Dutch East India Company had established a trade monopoly, and no ships were allowed to pass through the Strait of Magellan without their permission. However, a new Dutch Company, calling itself the Southern Company and headed by Isaac Le Maire, obtained a charter to trade with countries they should discover by new passages. They fitted out an expedition consisting of two ships, the Eendracht and the Hoorn. William Schouten, an experienced navigator, commanded the Eendracht with the title of patron, and Jacob Le Maire, the son of Isaac Le Maire, sailed with Schouten as president of the expedition. The company, in consultation with Schouten, was convinced that there was a western passage into the Pacific other than the Strait of Magellan and that the expedition could thus avoid the restriction placed on the Strait of Magellan by the Dutch East India Company. The expedition sailed from Holland on June 14, 1615 for the eastern coast of Patagonia. While refitting at Port Desire, the Hoorn was destroyed accidentally by fire. The expedition went on with one ship, and Schouten sailed south of the latitude to the entrance of Magellan Strait. A passage was found between Tierra del Fuego and land which they named Staten Land in honor of the States of Holland. The passage was named the Strait of Le Maire, and the most southerly point seen after passing through it was named Cape Hoorn (Horn) in honor of the town of Hoorn in Holland.

The Eendracht sailed west along the northern fringe of the Tuamotu Archipelago. The islands they discovered were named Honden (Dog), Sondergrondt (Bottomless), Waterlandt (Waterland), and Vliegen (Flies). These have been identified as Pukapuka, Takaroa and Takapoto, Manihi, and Ahe. Later, two islands north of the Tongan group were encountered and named Cocos and Verraders. They are better known by the names Boscawen and Keppel given to them by Wallis in 1767, but the Tongan names are Tafahi and Niuatobutabu. The island of Niuafoou was also discovered and named Good Hope Island. Five days later, the islands of Alofi and Futuna were discovered and named the Hoorn (Horn) Islands. This ended the Polynesian discoveries, which were made in the months of April and May 1616. The Eendracht reached Batavia, where the Dutch officials, disbelieving the report of a new passage, confiscated the ship and sent Schouten and Le Maire back to Holland under arrest. Jacob Le Maire died on the voyage.

Twenty-six years elapsed before the next Dutch voyage was made. It was organized by Anthony van Dieman, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, for the further exploration of the south land now known as Australia. Two ships, the Zehaan and the Heemskirck, were equipped and placed under the command of Abel Tasman, with Franz Jacobszoon Vissher as chief pilot and adviser. Tasman sailed from Batavia on August 14, 1642, rounded the southwest extremity of Australia, and encountered the land which he named Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania). He sailed east without knowing that his discovery was an island, and on December 13, 1642, he discovered a large, high land which he named Staten Land (New Zealand). He left the coast of New Zealand without landing, owing to an attack by Maoris on one of his boats which resulted in three of his men being killed and one wounded. Sailing north, Tasman discovered the most southerly island of the Tongan group, which he named Pylstaart. Two days later, he discovered the Tongan islands of Eua and Tongatabu and named them Middle-burgh and Amsterdam, respectively. He sailed on to Nomuka in the Haapai group, which he named Rotterdam. He passed on through the Fiji Islands and reached Batavia on June 15, 1643. Tasman was the first navigator to enter the Pacific from the west. His discoveries in Polynesia were New Zealand and the southern and middle groups of the Tongan Islands.

The early voyagers visited the islands, obtained food supplies and water, made observations on the inhabitants, and sailed away. Seamen, who deserted from ships or were shipwrecked or captured, were the first white settlers of Polynesia. They were followed by escaped convicts and fugitives from justice. Some were lazy and eked out an existence by living on the natives. As a class they were unproductive from a literary sense, but there was one notable exception in the person of William Mariner.

Mariner, who had sailed on the privateer Port au Prince from England in 1805, was taken prisoner when the ship was captured by the Tongans off Lifuka Island in the Haapai group. His life was spared, and he lived in the islands for some years under the protection of the powerful chief Finau. He finally escaped from his hosts on the brig Favourite under the command of Captain Fisk. He was observant, and his stories of his experiences aroused the interest of John Martin, M.D., who contacted him and compiled and arranged his communications into a classical work, which was published in London in 1817. Mariner could not have written the book himself, and the credit of the recording and the publication is entirely due to the interest of an educated man who never saw Polynesia. Some readers express doubt as to whether some statements were those of Mariner or of Martin. However, such confusion is not unique, for in some modern works, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish whether certain information was communicated by the native informant or inferred by the author. It is probable that some of these early settlers did impart information orally to visiting authors, but the "beach-comber" class had more to conceal than to reveal.

The Spaniards carried priests with them on the voyages of Mendaña and Quiros, but they left with the ships. In 1774, Boenechea took two priests to Tahiti to establish a mission, but as they went in fear of their lives, they returned to Valparaiso in the following year. However, the priests kept a diary which recorded valuable information concerning the Tahitians of this early period.

Later the published accounts of the voyages of discovery in the Pacific aroused the interest of people in Europe and America. Religious bodies felt it incumbent upon them to send out missionaries to convert the heathen to their particular forms of Christianity. The Nonconformist Churches in England formed the London Missionary Society (L.M.S.) which sent out a body of 28 missionaries, who were landed by the ship Duff in Tahiti on March 4, 1797. Of these, 16 remained in Tahiti, 10 were taken to Tonga, and two went to the Marquesas. Subsequent reinforcements were sent out and new missions were established in the Cook Islands and Samoa. The Church of England formed the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) which directed its efforts to New Zealand. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M.) was established in New England and sent missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands. (It will be noticed that the use of long combinations of the alphabet to designate various institutions is not a new growth in America.)

The Catholic Church entered the field, and the Order of the Sacred Heart (Picpus) started missions in the Mangareva (Gambier) Islands, Easter Island, and the Tuamotus. The Société de Marie (Marists) directed their attention to western Polynesia and established missions at Uvea, Futuna, Samoa and Tonga. In the course of time, the London Missionary Society relinquished its missions in French Oceania which, with French occupation, came under the full influence of the Catholic Church. The Wesleyan Church established a rival mission in Tonga. With more frequent transport services, the whole of Polynesia became open to the competition of all sects.

The first problem which faced the missionaries was that of learning the language of the island which they proposed to convert. The second was that of identifying the sounds in the native languages with the symbols employed in their own languages to establish alphabets for recording the spelling of native words. Fortunately, the missionaries who invaded Polynesia, though of different nationalities, used a similar script. There was confusion enough, but one shudders to think of what might have happened if missionaries from Turkey and China had entered the field with their own forms of writing. Having established more or less satisfactory alphabets and spelling, it was next necessary to teach the natives how to write and read their own language. A printing press was part of the mission equipment, and it was possible not only to translate and write out portions of the scriptures and hymns in the native language, but to print them for use as texts in teaching. Thus, the missionaries introduced writing for the first time within Polynesia, they were the first printers, and they established the first schools. To help their own teachers, they translated the native words into English and French and they were, therefore, the compilers of the first dictionaries. With infinite pains and labor, the old and new testaments were translated into the dialects of the various groups of Polynesian islands, and the Bible became as great a literary classic in the native language as it was in English. When various nations took possession and assumed the responsibility for native education, they adopted the missionary alphabets and spellings and made no attempt to correct inaccuracies or supply deficiencies due to an earlier stage in the knowledge of linguistics.

However, the missionaries gave with one hand and took away with the other. To build up a knowledge and acceptance of their own culture, they were forced by the very nature of their assignment to condemn and destroy integral elements in the native culture. A frontal attack was made on native religion to clear the way for Christian teaching. Customs and observances which were not really understood were condemned as heathen practices which stood in the way of salvation. The progress of the missions was reported to the organizations at home and the so-called heathen customs were often painted as black as possible in order that the difficulty of the task might be understood and the changes appreciated. Many of the reports were published in the missionary journals at home, and they have provided source material for later students in a less biased age. Some of the missionaries were scholars in a literary sense and expanded the material of their reports into books which were published in their homelands. When the religious details are omitted, a goodly amount of source ma-terialmaterial in ethnology remains. The most prominent missionary writers were William Ellis (Society Islands, Hawaii), John Williams (Society and Cook Islands), W. Wyatt Gill (Cook Islands), A. R. Montiton (Tuamotu), Honoré Laval (Mangareva), George Turner (Samoa), Shirley Baker (Tonga), Hiram Bingham and Sheldon Dibble (Hawaii), and Richard Taylor and William Colenso (New Zealand).

Traders obtained an early footing in Polynesia. Early voyagers carried goods, such as glass beads, looking glasses, cloth, nails, hoop iron, and hatchets, to exchange for food. The later trading vessels were practically floating shops which were stocked with the cheap goods of Europe and America, wherewith to buy sandalwood and bêche-de-mer and pay natives to dive for pearls and pearl shells. When the dried flesh of coconuts, termed copra, became a commercial source for coconut oil and so established a local industry, trading firms set up local branches and the white trader became a settler, for a time at least. The trader usually followed the missionary, so far as time of settlement was concerned, but he did not follow the way of life which the missionaries were trying to inculcate into the native mind as the pattern of white civilization. However, we are not concerned with the morals of the time, but rather with the possibility of the early traders supplying information concerning the manners and customs of the people to whom they sold their goods. There was one such trader, Lamont by name, who wrote a good book. He was wrecked on the atoll of Tongareva (Penrhyn) in 1853, and he lived on terms of friendship with the natives, two of whom he married. As he had no goods to sell, he had time to observe the things around him. When he finally got away to San Francisco, he wrote up his experiences, and his book is the best firsthand account of an atoll community. Others had the opportunity, but if they evinced any interest beyond their own narrow field of commercialism, they lacked the ability to record their experiences in writing. Perhaps it was just as well, though it would be interesting to have a view of native culture from another angle than that of religion.

After the missionaries had quieted the people and the traders had discovered commercial possibilities, various nations took possession of the islands and appointed government officials to maintain law and order. The change was disconcerting to white settlers but, on the whole, it gave protection to the native inhabitants. Officials in the early days, however, were not particularly well prepared for their duties. They were probably well educated in everything except native culture. It was held that a white man, entrenched in office, was quite capable of dealing with any native population. The superiority of the white races was so established that they could do no wrong. However, the theory of the superiority of the white man is not an infallible law, but an assumption which, like religion, has given comfort to thousands who believe in it. It was the native who had to study the white man, not the white man the native. Not until recent times have governments recognized that their officials should receive some training to enable them to better understand the people they must govern. This change of attitude has been due to the growth of the science termed anthropology. It was the schools of anthropology which urged upon governments the necessity of giving officials in colonial service a course of education which would enable them to appreciate native culture and teach them how to smooth over the difficulties in making the inevitable changes. Courses in anthropology for cadets entering the Colonial Civil Service were inaugurated at Cambridge, Oxford, and London Universities in England. In Australia, a similar course was given at the University of Sydney.

Of the United States' colonial possessions in Polynesia, the Hawaiians assimilated American culture as a matter of course, much like the Maoris of New Zealand did in their relations with the British, and the Samoans of American Samoa came under the jurisdiction of the United States Navy. In recent times, a course on race relations was established at American universities and, as a result of the present war, courses were organized by the Navy to train men for positions in civil administration in the Pacific Islands captured by the United States. In these courses, given mainly by University professors, special attention was paid to paving the way to an understanding of the native inhabitants. The subject of applied anthropology has assumed a deserved importance because it is capable of being applied to all cultures.

Though, as a class, early government officials did little to add to our knowledge of native culture, there were a few exceptions. Of British officials, Sir George Grey, when Governor of New Zealand, collected versions of Maori myths and traditions, which he published. Others were Lieutenant Colonel W. E. Gudgeon, Resident Commissioner of the Cook Islands; S. Percy Smith, Government Agent in Niue; and Basil Thompson, representative of the Fijian Government in Tonga. Of German officials, Augustin Krämer, while Government Medical Officer in Samoa, wrote his authoritative work on the Samoan Islands; and Chief Justice E. Schultz contributed interesting articles on Samoan law and on proverbial sayings. French officials produced little individually, but the Government at Tahiti printed the Bulletins of the Société des Études Oceaniennes; and M. de Bovis, Government Medical Officer, wrote a general work on Tahiti which provided the French with a reference book in their own language.

As settlement increased, more people of better education came into contact with the native populations. Native servants, nurses, wives, and workmen, all supplied information about themselves and their people. Trade and land trans-actionstransactions with neighboring tribes and chiefs opened up wider fields of interest to the intelligent. Much native lore was acquired. Though it may have been passed on to others orally, there were few who had the material, time, patience, and ability to write manuscripts for publication as books. Many old residents were quite capable of writing articles on specific subjects, but the medium for printing them was lacking. However, books were written and published, some by transient visitors whose confidence in their own views was not inhibited by the doubts which assail those of longer residence. Comparatively late, such a journalistic medium was provided in New Zealand by the formation of the Polynesian Society. Its journal offered an outlet for short articles, and members of the society were able to induce people to contribute articles. In this way, much material which would never have otherwise come to light was placed on permanent record.

Some men, such as Percy Smith, Elsdon Best, and Edward Tregear, wrote not only from interest, but from a deep sense of duty to preserve a record of native culture. There were no fellowships to defray field expenses in their day, and they gave freely of their own time and money. The amateur anthropologists were amateurs in the sense that they were not paid professionals. What they might have gained from a university school of anthropology was more than made up for by an intense study of the available literature and by years of contact with the people they interpreted.

After all is said and written, the information came primarily from the natives. Much was missed and much was miswritten through an inadequate knowledge of the native language on the part of the recorder. The settler and the trader can make themselves understood by carrying on a conversation with a limited vocabulary interspersed with English words. It is probably the apparent success of such a restricted vocabulary which has brought forth statements that if one knows one Polynesian language, one can understand them all. However, when it comes to inquiry into the details of religion and social organization, no man can understand all the local words and idioms used in a dialect other than the one he knows. I know this from personal experience. There are sources of error. A native may misunderstand a question and thus give the wrong answer, or he may deliberately give the wrong answer, an individual form of humor. The stranger who is arrogant or patronizing is very apt to be told strange stories which form excellent material for magazine articles but have no foundation of truth.

It is a fundamental rule in ethnological inquiry to ask no leading questions, yet much of the recorded material has been obtained as the result of such questions. The Polynesian is naturally friendly, and when he realizes that a certain answer is desired he may supply it as a matter of courtesy, even when he knows it is wrong. He may even chuckle inwardly, as at an obscure joke. When Captain Cook visited the Island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, he saw a native with a shark-tooth implement, which reminded him of a similar tool in New Zealand. He knew that the New Zealand implement was used to cut up human bodies in preparation for cooking. On inquiry as to the use of the Hawaiian instrument, the Kauai owner confirmed Cook's inference that it was so used In Hawaii. However, asked if they ate the human flesh so carved, the native denied it vigorously and expressed horror at such an idea. An older man, probably amused at his companion's expressions of horror and seeing the humor of the situation, gave Cook the required answer by stating that they did eat human flesh. Cook made other inquiries and concluded that, beyond doubt, the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands were cannibals. Cook was a careful observer, but this is one instance in which he was supplied with erroneous information. It is true that the Hawaiian shark-tooth implements were used to cut up human flesh, but it was in connection with the funeral custom of stripping the flesh from the bones before they were deposited in burial caves. Cannibalism was never customary among the Hawaiians. There were, at most, only a few cannibals in the course of their history.

When Polynesians are convinced that the inquirer is in sympathy with their traditions and customs, they are ready and even eager to tell what they know. There is, however, an inhibiting factor that may be present with some prospective informants. It is the idea that the white man is going to write a book for which he will obtain a vast sum of money in which the informant does not share. Why should he give up his time to be pestered with questions, if he receives nothing for it? This brings up the question of paying informants. While I understand it has been the practice in the United States to pay Indian informants at some established rate, it is a somewhat doubtful procedure in Polynesia: When it becomes a business arrangement, there is danger that the informant may be tempted to increase his output by localizing his knowledge of other islands, even drawing upon his imagination to correspondingly increase his income. Sometimes this situation cannot be avoided, and the collector must exercise his judgment in rejecting the extraneous, a difficult decision if the author wishes quantity in his description of a vanishing culture.

The plan I have tried to follow during field expeditions is to call, or sit in at, a meeting of the people and explain to them that the object of the inquiry is to put their history, traditions, crafts, and customs on record for the outside world to appreciate. The collecting of information becomes a community project, which the people strive to make as complete as possible. They will indicate the best informants, or the best informants will indicate themselves. The policy is to elevate the inquiry above the plane of western commercialism and conduct it on the Polynesian system of giving gifts of food or goods to those who deserve them. Materially the two systems may appear identical, but psychologically they are vastly different.

After the missionary schools had taught the natives to read and write their own language, many of the older people wrote down their history, legends, genealogies, and other items of their culture in ledgers and exercise books. These were handed down in families, and often copies were made. Many of the latter-day authorities have gained their reputation through the possession of family manuscripts. The older the manuscript, the more valuable it is. Later copies have added later material, the authenticity of which cannot be proved. Some of the old manuscripts are difficult to decipher, because the old-time writers had not acquired a knowledge of punctuation and the use of capital letters. Sometimes the words are run together, and I have seen a manuscript in which each line was continuous without a break between words. Hence, copies of old manuscripts, even when made by the natives themselves, are apt to contain additional errors through their interpretation of the original. Capitals may have been put in where they do not belong and dropped where they do belong. Sometimes in copying, words and even lines have been missed, resulting in confusion in the original text.

In spite of errors, a number of native manuscripts have been preserved and published. An important example is the history and traditions of Rarotonga compiled by Te Ariki Taraare, the descendant of a Rarotongan priestly line. The manuscript was acquired by S. Percy Smith and published in the journal of the Polynesian Society, over a period of some years. A dictated manuscript of the lectures of a Maori priest, Te Matorohanga, has appeared in the Polynesian Journal with the native text and translations, and it has also been published separately in the memoirs of the Polynesian Society. A native manu-scriptmanuscript was written by the people of Mangareva on their history and culture through the encouragement of the Catholic priest, Honoré Laval. It was translated into French by Laval in his work on Mangareva, and it proved of inestimable value to me in my work on the "Ethnology of Mangareva." In Hawaii, a number of native manuscripts have been translated and published in Fornander's "Hawaiian antiquities and folklore", "Kepelino's traditions of Hawaii", and David Malo's "Hawaiian antiquities." Kamakau's unpublished manuscript on Hawaiian traditional beliefs and customs is in the keeping of Bishop Museum. Teuira Henry's authoritative work on "Ancient Tahiti" was largely derived from native manuscripts. Many short articles by native writers have been translated and published in various journals and newspapers. On the whole, natives have contributed much valuable information in manuscripts of their own composition.

The translations of native texts have yielded considerable valuable information, but matters of doubt should be checked with the original native text, where possible. Local idioms are sometimes difficult to translate, particularly when the native author is not available to explain the passage. The translator feels that he has to complete his task, and as he cannot translate a word, phrase, or idiom, he interprets it as best he can. If he is wrong, the error is perpetuated by subsequent writers who make use of the published translation. Even in one area, such as New Zealand, the various tribes have local words, terms, or idioms which members of another tribe cannot translate correctly unless they know the local meanings. It is this fact that makes some proverbs and cryptic sayings difficult to translate. Place names and personal names may also have originated from some local historical event, and unless the local history is known, an attempt at a literal translation of the various syllables of the name often results in disaster. When capitals are omitted from proper names, as often happens, the result is sometimes ridiculous. A classical example of such an error is the following interpretation of a proverb or saying by the Maori scholar, the Reverend William Colenso.

Colenso interpreted it thus, "By diving deeply (you will get) a great spread of crabs." An analysis of the English words made it difficult to accept this interpretation. Firstly, the New Zealand crabs are obtained in shallow pools and under rocks, so the process of obtaining them does not necessitate diving of any kind, let alone deep diving. Secondly, "spread" is an English colloquialism which has no meaning in Maori. Later, the saying was found to belong to the Hauraki district where both huna and papaka-nui were place names. Huna was a locality where a variety of flax (Phormium tenax) containing a fine fiber was obtained for making dress cloaks, and Papaka-nui was a swamp where the leaves of the kiekie (Freycinetia banksii) were gathered for weaving rough rain capes. By a figure of speech, the place names were used to denote the garments made from the material obtained in those localities. The term ruku or rukuruku means to fold up, as well as to dive, and horahia is its antithesis in the sense of unfolding or spreading out preparatory to wearing. Hence the meaning of the saying, as explained by the people who originated it, was as follows:

The saying was addressed to people about to depart on a journey in fine weather, which the weather prophets felt would not last. The correct meaning is about as remote from "a great spread of crabs" as one can possibly imagine.

Tribal chants and laments composed before European contact contain archaic words which have gone out of current use, and frequent references are made to mythology, religious ritual, and traditional events which have not been transmitted in the oral prose accounts. Elsdon Best, who recognized the difficulty of accurate translation, recorded in many of his published papers the chants but made no attempt to translate them. The same procedure was adopted by Sir Apirana Ngata in his two published memoirs on Maori songs. He found out the tribes to which the laments belonged, gave genealogies of the composers and the chief characters commemorated by the dirges, and annotated the texts as fully as possible. The primary object was to prevent the wealth of material from being lost, and the time spent in endeavoring to translate obscure passages would have delayed publication unduly. Furthermore, hasty translations might have resulted in errors which the compiler was not willing to risk. A waiting period has elapsed, and Sir Apirana is now contributing a series of translations to the journal of the Polynesian Society.

In most native texts, frequent use is made of terms which apply to definite details in technical processes. Such technical terms may be used figuratively. They cannot be translated or interpreted correctly unless the translator has some knowledge of the craft from which the terms are derived. Some translators have evaded parts which they did not understand or used general terms which lose the precise meaning contained in the text. Others have skipped passages, paragraphs, and even pages which refer to subjects considered by the translator to be indelicate. A glaring example of such omissions was perpetrated by the translator of the Maori text in Grey's classic work on Polynesian mythology. The construction of the first latrine on the edge of a cliff was described in detail in 166 words in the native text, and this pattern was followed in all the Maori fortified villages on hill-top sites. It marked a distinct advance in sanitation, and Captain Cook remarked that the sanitation of the Maori villages was better than that of most of the cities in Europe. Grey's translator dismissed the 166 words of detailed description in the following eight words: "He then added a building to Rehua's dwelling." The Maori text, however, was later to be of value. After European settlement, the Maoris abandoned their hill forts and moved down to the flatlands. Here the hillside type of latrine was impractical and the people abandoned it without attempting any adjustment or sanitary substitute. Later, when the department of health urged sanitary measures, the people objected to the latrine as a European innovation. When the details of the Maori text were quoted, they had to admit that the so-called innovation was merely a modification of an ancient Maori institution. If the Maori text had not been published, information which turned out to be of great practical importance would have been lost through the prudery of an incompetent translator.

From an ethnological point of view, translations should be literal, even if the English appears crude. In trying to polish up the English, meanings are often introduced which are not in the text. Another fault is the inclusion of extra information or explanations in what purports to be a translation. The result is not a translation but an interpolation, which is a totally different thing. Very often the interpolation is wrong and readers are led astray through acceptance of the material as a translation of an authoritative native text. In Grey's "Polynesian Mythology", the story is told of the voyage of the Aotea canoe to New Zealand. An incident occurs in which Turi, the captain of the vessel, called to his brother-in-law Tuau. The English translation is as follows, "Tuau, you come and sit for a little at the house amidship on the floor of the double canoe." This quotation has been used as evidence that the Aotea was a double canoe with a deck on the cross beams between the two hulls and with a house built amidship on that deck. With others, I accepted the statement as coming from an old native historian. However, on examining the native text, I found that the Maori words were as follows,

There is absolutely no mention of a double canoe, a deck, or a house. They were all added by the interpreter, who had probably heard of some of the Polynesian canoes being so built and who inferred that the Aotea was of similar construction. He may have been right, but his inference should have been confined to an explanatory note and not offered as a translation of the native text. Thus, the translator's sins of commission and omission render the English version of Grey's work an unsafe medium of source material.

Many writers and readers hold that literal translations of Maori texts, particularly songs, do not do justice to the literary genius of the Polynesian people. It all depends upon whether we want facts or literature. The trouble is that in free translations we seek for nice sounding words and idioms. Free interpretations, once they are published, enter the list of source material and may be accepted literally by students of native culture. The problem almost merits the printing of two translations, a literal one and a free one, or interpretation. The first would be of more value to students and the second more pleasing to general readers.

In printed native texts, apart from misprints which are liable to occur in any language, there are two items which require attention. One is the alphabetical symbol for the ng sound and the other is the glottal closure.

In the printing equipment with which the early missionaries were provided, the fonts contained all the letters of their own alphabets. As the Polynesian alphabets consisted of fourteen letters at the most, a number of the English letters were not needed. Among these was the letter g. In choosing the form of representation for the ng sound, some missionaries thought that it would render the work of printing easier if a single letter were used instead of the combination of n and g. As the letter n was included in the native alphabet, it was decided that the spare letter g should be used to represent ng. This was adopted in western Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga, etc.) and in French Oceania. In New Zealand, the compilers of the alphabet preferred to include the two letters ng in the alphabet as a double consonant. The New Zealand double letter was adopted in the Cook Islands. There is no trouble with the letter g if the reader knows that it represents the Polynesian ng sound, but if he does not know, he makes the mistake of giving it the g sound of his own alphabet. Thus the unknowing pronounce the important Naval Station of Pago in American Samoa literally as Pagopago or Paygopaygo instead of Pangopango.

The glottal closure, as the name implies, is a closing of the space between the vocal cords which, with a restrained emission of breath, replaces certain consonant sounds in speech. It is present in Polynesian speech and creates one of the dialectical differences in the language. In the islands in which it occurs, the glottal closure always replaces particular consonants, as follows:

A curious usage occurs in Uvea and Futuna where the long vowel a is pronounced as two short vowels with the glottal closure between them.

At the early stage in the study of speech, the missionaries did not consider the glottal closure worthy of a symbol, and consequently the consonants represented by the closure were omitted from the local alphabets. More recent linguists decided that the glottal closure should be represented by a symbol and selected the inverted comma, termed the hamza, which should be placed superior to the position which the original consonant would have occupied in the written word. In actual speech, there is no difficulty in recognizing the glottal closure; but in the written word, a good deal of confusion is caused by the absence of a symbol representing it. Thus, totally different words may be written in the same way. A good example is furnished by the Cook Island word ua, which represents four different words identical with the Maori words, ua (rain), hua (fruit), uha (female), and huha (thigh). If the hamza is used to represent the glottal h, the words are readily distinguished as ua, 'ua, u'a, and 'u'a.

The necessity for the hamza was not recognized until comparatively recent times, hence it does not occur in early texts. Even the Hawaiian dictionary compiled by Andrews and revised by Parker does not use the hamza, though it was published as late as 1922. On the other hand, the hamza was correctly used in Pratt's Samoan dictionary published in 1911. In many of the Bishop Museum publications, insufficient attention was paid to the inclusion of the hamza in native texts. It was included in some words and omitted in others, and even the same words had the hamza in some lines and lacked it in others. Thus, the presence of the hamza in the native text does not mean that it has been inserted correctly throughout. The native texts have consequently suffered in their value as source material for students in Polynesian linguistics. The blame lies partly with the authors, for no editor could be expected to be an authority on the Polynesian language though some inconsistencies are obvious. As a result of experience, the Museum refuses to accept any native text from an area where glottals occur unless the hamza has been correctly included in the manuscripts submitted for publication. The errors of omission in the past were perhaps unavoidable at the time, but we now have no excuse for continuing them into the future.

Another process which should be understood is the shift which has taken place from one consonant to another in different dialects. The most widely spread are those between v and w and between r and l. The w occurs in New Zealand and Hawaii and the v in the rest of the Polynesian area. However, there is a possibility that the missionary committee responsible for the Hawaiian alphabet may have made a mistake in choosing w; in preference to v. The Hawaiians of today are using v in their speech instead of w; but its use, after a lapse of about a century, cannot be taken as proof that they are restoring the original consonant. The limited distribution of w may be taken as evidence that v more nearly represents the original sound in the language. In the r and l shift, r occurs in central, east, and south Polynesia and l in north and west Polynesia. However, the missionary committee in Hawaii had a close vote in deciding upon l instead of r and, again, they may have made a mistake. If so, r, from distributional evidence, might be regarded as being nearer to the original sound. It is, perhaps, possible that the shifts in the above two pairs were made originally from intermediate sounds. Where foreigners found no difficulty in deciding upon an alphabetical symbol, we may assume that the shift had been complete, but where doubt existed to the extent of voting between two symbols, as in Hawaii, the shift was probably not completed. Thus, some of the committee heard v and r and others heard w and l in the same set of words. The acceptance of the alphabet by the Hawaiians also led, in time, to their acceptance of the sounds given to the symbols by their missionary teachers. In other words, the teachers completed the shifts.

Several more localized shifts have taken place. The most interesting is that from t to k which occurred in Hawaii. The shift was taking place in some of the islands when the missionary committee was considering the alphabet, but it had not affected Kauai. It is evident that some Hawaiians were using t (Tamehameha) and others were using k (Kamehameha). The committee put it to the vote and speeded up evolution by completing the shift to k. The Hawaiians had already replaced the original k with the glottal closure, and the committee helped them restore it to their speech, but in place of t. Thus, the Hawaiian dialect retains a glottal closure replacement for k and a k consonant as well ('umeke for kumete, bowl).

It is interesting to note that a similar shift from t to k has been taking place in Samoa in recent years, though it has not yet been universally accepted. Here again, k had been replaced by the glottal closure. There was no evidence of the shift when Pratt's Samoan dictionary was published in 1911. In 1927, the use of k instead of t was universal in American Samoa, both in speech and in writing. The London Missionary Society College for Samoan pastors in Upolu opposed the shift in their teaching, but in Tutuila the retention of t was regarded as pedantic, even by the orators.

In Ontong Java, the glottal replacement of k and the shift from t to k have taken place, whereas the Polynesian dialects in the nearest islands retain both the original k and t. Thus the shift from t to k has appeared in widely separated areas as independent developments. A number of other localized shifts occur which would form an interesting study for an expert in linguistics.

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a memorial to the Princess Pauahi (1831-1884), last of the Kamehameha family of the chiefs of Hawaii. It was founded by her husband, Charles Reed Bishop (1822-1915), who for nearly fifty years took a prominent part in the business and public affairs of Hawaii. The Museum is devoted to the subjects of "Polynesian and kindred antiquities, ethnology, and natural history." The collections of the Museum include material chiefly from Polynesia (including New Zealand) and from Melanesia, Micronesia, New Guinea, and Australia. The Museum staff is engaged in caring for the collections, and in investigating scientific problems which come within the scope of its activities.

The enthnological collection is rich in Hawaiian material, rich in both quality and quantity. Heirlooms from Queen Emma, Mrs. Bishop, and from other chiefly families are deposited in the Museum. The collection acquired by the Territory and old specimens from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions have also come to the Museum. Particular mention may be made of featherwork, tapa, Niihau mats, ornaments, gourds, twined basketry, wooden bowls, fishing material, stone artifacts, and wooden images. The feather garments, 10 cloaks and 17 capes, form the largest single collection, but the British Museum collection contains a greater variety. The Kamehameha cloak, composed entirely of rare mamo feathers of a deeper golden color than the commoner 'o'o feathers, is unique and so also is the long yellow feather skirt (pa'u) made for the Princess Nahienaena after the abolition of the tabu against women wearing feather garments. The feather baldric ornamented with human teeth and two helmets covered with tufts of human hair instead of feathers have not been reported elsewhere.

The ethnological material from other parts of Polynesia is fair. The expeditions which commenced in 1920 were too late to acquire old material, for the various islands had been cleaned out by previous collectors. However, the Museum acquired the leavings in the form of pestles and adzes and its collection of stone artifacts is extensive enough to form a basis for comparative study. In modern plaited material in pandanus and coconut leaf, the collection is probably more extensive and varied than that of any other museum. The collections from other Pacific areas, though limited in quantity, are rich in quality for much of the material was obtained through early missionaries.

Apart from ethnological specimens, the Museum expeditions have collected quantities of plants, landshells, and insects, many from islands hitherto unvisited by scientists. The Museum's collections in natural history have been identified and described by specialists in various parts of the world, and the Museum's publications on natural history have added materially to scientific knowledge of the Pacific area.

Expeditions are sent out to various parts of the Pacific, when funds are available. It is necessary to stress the matter of funds, because an erroneous impression prevails, not only in foreign parts but among old residents of the Territory, that the Bishop Museum is rich. Science would benefit even more greatly, if this were only true. The error among local residents is due to their linking the name Bishop with the Bishop Estate and thinking that the great revenue derived from the Bishop Estate is used to support the Museum. Nothing can be wider of the mark. The Bishop Estate is the inherited land of Mrs. Bishop, and according to the provision in her will, the income derived from it is entirely for the establishment and maintenance of a school for boys and a school for girls, preferably of Hawaiian blood. Hence the origin of the Kamehameha School for Boys and the Kamehameha School for Girls. The Bishop Museum, as already stated, was founded by Charles Reed Bishop as a memorial to Mrs. Bishop, and its income is derived entirely from a foundation created by him out of money he made himself. Not one cent of the Museum income is derived from the Bishop Estate, the Territory of Hawaii, or any native Hawaiian grant.

The National Research Council, acting through its Committee of Pacific Investigations, of which H. E. Gregory was chairman, had been in consultation with the officials of the United States Navy at Washington and Pearl Harbor with a view to exploring little known parts of the Pacific. In 1922, tentative plans were made for a scientific survey of the 13 islands of the Hawaiian group, extending northwest from Kauai to Ocean Island, and also Johnston and Wake Islands. Early in 1923, plans had reached a stage where official action was possible. At the request of the Department of Agriculture, the Navy Department agreed to supply a mine sweeper from Honolulu to carry a party of about 12 representatives from the Department of Agriculture and Bishop Museum to visit the islands mentioned for a period of about four months, beginning April 1, 1923.

An agreement was made that officers of the Navy should assume responsibility for collecting and charting hydrographic data; that the United States Biological Survey should provide the services of an ornithologist, a specialist in the destruction of rabbits, and a moving picture operator; that Bishop Museum should provide such other personnel as might be considered desirable; that Commander S. W. King should direct the activities of the Navy in the joint undertaking; and that Alexander Wetmore should be placed in charge of the scientific parties.

The minesweeper Tanager made four trips in 1923. The third trip took in Necker and Nihoa Islands, where proof of former human occupation was found. On Necker were artifacts, platforms, and skeletal remains, and on Nihoa were house platforms and terraces. The details of the various trips and the scientific investigations made are given in the report of the Director of Bishop Museum for 1924, and the scientific results in natural history were subsequently published by the Museum.

The discovery of ethnological remains on Necker and Nihoa led to a fifth trip by the Tanager, in 1924. The party included Kenneth P. Emory, ethnologist of the Museum staff. On Nihoa, the 60 ancient building sites were cleared of brush, measured, and photographed; and much material—bowls, fragments of stone vessels, and other artifacts, with some skeletal material—was unearthed. At Necker, a similar procedure was adopted and a number of stone artifacts were collected. The artifacts collected from the two islands were deposited in Bishop Museum, and Emory's report on the archaeology of the islands was published by the Museum.

The Navy Department assigned the minesweeper Whippoorwill, under Captain W. J. Poland, to survey the Line Islands. The first group left Honolulu on July 24, 1924 and visited Christmas, Jarvis, and Washington Islands. The scientific personnel were under the leadership of Charles H. Edmondson, and the members of the group concentrated on zoology, botany, conchology, entomology, and geology. The second group, with C. Montague Cooke, Jr., in charge of the scientific personnel, left Honolulu on September 15, 1924 and visited Baker and Howland Islands. A good deal of material in the natural sciences and geology was collected, and the ensuing reports were published by Bishop Museum. Notes on and a location map of some archaeological remains on Howland were made for future study.

Bishop Museum was invited by Mr. and Mrs. Medford R. Kellum to select a group of scientists to accompany them on their private four-masted schooner Kaimiloa (Explorer) on a visit to some islands in the south Pacific. Stanley C. Ball, zoologist, was chief of the party of six which included Kenneth P. Emory, ethnologist, and Armstrong Sperry, associate ethnologist. The Kaimiloa sailed from Honolulu on November 9, 1924 and made short stops at Fanning, Christmas, Malden, and Tongareva, where some archaeological research was possible. The schooner arrived at Tahiti on January 1, 1925, where the scientific personnel disembarked. Emory and Sperry remained for some months to continue the study of archaeology in Tahiti and the Tuamotus.

A number of marginal islands on the southern and eastern borders of the Solomon Islands and east of New Ireland are inhabited by people who show certain affinities with the Polynesians. Though these islands are outside the area of Polynesia, the history and culture of the people is of great interest to students of the Polynesians. Bishop Museum has been so occupied with Polynesia proper that it has not had the time to send expeditions to follow up the work already done in these islands. However, some of the main literature is cited, though the list does not profess to be exhaustive.

Haddon in his work on Oceanic canoes enumerated the following islands, from southeast to northwest:

Ray, in his study on Polynesian linguistics, also lists the Reef, or Swallow, Islands (Matema), and there are probably others.

The local traditions of the various islands state that early settlers came in canoes from the Tonga, Samoa, Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall, and Caroline Islands. On the evidence, it seems that the southern islands received settlers from Polynesia and that the northerly islands received them from Micronesia. The present population of Kilinailau and Nissan were derived from the Melanesian population of Buka, but they have adopted the type of canoe, with Polynesian names for the parts, which was evidently used by the earlier population, which they overcame and absorbed.

The non-Melanesians of most of the islands have a lighter complexion than the Melanesians, and their hair is predominantly wavy or curly but may range from straight to woolly. However, a study by Shapiro on the physical measurements and observations made by Hogbin in Ontong Java reveal that the physical characters of the inhabitants of that particular atoll have affinity with western Micronesia and not with Polynesia. Nukumanu, Taku, and Nugeria show similar affinities. The presence of the loom in these northern outliers shows diffusion from the Carolines. Measurements from the southern outliers are needed.

The speech of most of the groups are dialects of the Polynesian lang