AMONG POLYNESIANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 275, 10 February 1928, Page 9

AMONG POLYNESIANS

DR. R. FIRTH’S MISSION IMPORTANCE TO MAORIS Dr. Raymond Firth, the young Auckland ethnologist, who is to spend a lonely year’s vigil on the island of Tikopea, near the Solomons, in the interest of science, addressed the anthropology section of the Auckland Institute last evening. A DOCTOR of philosophy of Dun don University, Dr. Firth has made a special study of Maori economics, and his address was largely on the lines of his researen also into the language, customs and art of the New Zealand people. Explaining the object of his proposed stay at Tikopea, Dr. Firth said the field was to all intents and purposes a virgin one. Up to the present these Polynesians, who have survived through the years, though almost entirely surrounded by people of a darker-skinned race, have been untouched by scientific research. After learning their language, and becoming thoroughly acquainted with their history and lore, Dr. Firth hopes that his studies at Tikopea will make well worth an isolated existence of a year on the island.

Commenting upon Dr. Firch’s trip to-day, Mr. George Graham, one of the best known authorities on the Maori people, said that some years ago he had carefully perused a glossary of the Tikopean language in the presence of a number of Maoris. There was not a single word with which they were not acquainted, though many of them were, as is the case with so many of our Saxon words, now entirely in disuse. That Dr. Firth would perform a valuable service in the interests of science, Mr. Graham had not the slightest doubt. He could not overemphasise the value of study of the different sections of the Polynesian peoples, as the results would be of the greatest importance to those interested in the origin of the Maoris.