POLYNESIAN SOCIETY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8342, 31 January 1913, Page 10

POLYNESIAN SOCIETY

annual meeting. Th© annual meeting of the Polynesian Society was held at New Plymouth, on Tuesday evening. Mr S. Percy Smith was re-elected president, Messrs J- B. Hoy and W. L. Newman also re-elected members of th© council, and Mr \V. D. Webster hon. auditor. Mr W. Churchill, BJL, New York, was elected an honorary member, and the Bishop of Melanesia a corresponding member. The names of four gentlemen were mentioned who had expressed their intention of leaving their collection of Polynesian books to th© society. The membership now stands at 202. In presenting the twentieth annual report, the council stated, inter alia: “The work on the lines for which the society was established in 1892 has gone on uninterruptedly, and much has been placed on permanent record in the pages of our Journal that will he of great use to students of the Polynesian race in the future. The Journal has been issued with s regularity. except in the case of that for December, which was delayed owing to the desire to complete the prints lug and issue of volume 3 of our ‘Memoirs/ This volumo of memoirs, the full title oi which is ‘The Lore of the Wharewananga,' contains over 200 pages of original matter which has not heretofore seen the light, 'the transcription and translation of which has occupied the editor for two years. It throws quite a new light on Maori beliefs, which are on a higher plana than those of any other branch of th© Polynesians that have been /published- The society is very fortunate to have had access to the original documents in which this matter is contained, and also in the response made by some of our members and others in providing a special fund for its publication. The second part of these documents —which treats more especially of the history of the tribes from whom the information was derived —will appear from time to time in the pages of our Journal, for the special fund will be about exhausted in the publication of volume 3. But sufficient copies will be struck oh of part 2 to make a separate volume, and form volume 4 of our memoirs. Members will find this matter of great interest, dealing as it does with the migrations of the East Coast tribes from the original fatherland bo the Hawaiian group, thence to Tahiti, and finally to New Zealand. It will also contain a detailed account of the original discovery of Now Zealand in about the tenth century; the settlement of the tangata-wheuua people, who were apparently a cross between the Polynesians apd Melanesians; and th© first oecupar tion of New Zealand hy the Eastern Polynesians in the twelfth century. The whole of this matter, containing about 120,000 words, is now ready for the printer. Dr W. Wyatt GilTs MBS. of Harotongan traditions have been oontinTied during the year under review, but we have now reached a point where we have to trust to the good offices of a gentleman residing in Earotonga for further translations, and as he is a very busy man. the further continuation of these papers may be delayed somewhat/*