POLYNESIAN SOCIETY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 231, 9 March 1915, Page 7

POLYNESIAN SOCIETY.

ANXI'AL MEETING:' The twenty-second annual meeling ni the Polynesian Society was held in the Town Hall, Xmv Plymouth, oil day, tlic president, ilr. 8. Percy Smith in the chair. The report and balance-sheet for the year ended December 31 last were read and adopted. .On a ballot being taken, Messrs M. Eraser and l'\ P. Corkill were retired from tlie Council, but were duly re-elect-ed. The president was unanimously re-elected to the position. A vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. W. D. ■Webster for his services as honorary audi, tor. •ANNUAL REPORT. • ,The Council subyiittcd its annual report as follows for the year ending December 31, 1914: "We have now been in existence as a society for 23 years, and have published '23 volumes of Transactions and Proceedings, besides one volume of Memoirs. and three other volumes being re. prints in book form of papers originally appearing in our quarterly Journal. The volume of Memoirs referred to above is "The Lore of the Whare-wananga," which contains valuable matter, parts of. which have never been hinted at in previous publications, and which have met, with high approval from some of the most learned ethnologists of Eng- ; land. A second part of this same work, dealing with the history of the East Coast tribes, is now going through our Journal and will "appear in book form on its completion. The Society is to be congratulated on the acquisition of the original matter contained in these two volumes, for although- known for some years past to be in existence, objections have always been raised heretofore by the owners of it to Its publication. It is now on permanent re. cord for future" reference. I

"The papers now publishing in the Journal liv Mr. T. RV. Downes, whilst ■partially overlapping the work referred to above, are practically a continu. at : .on of it down to the present time. The East Coast Xgati-TCaliuflgunu tribe anil the West Coast Taranaki-Atiawa tribes will thus have a fairly complete history from wery ancient times clown to the present, day. Mr. Elsilon Best's History of the Urewera (or Tuhoe) tribes, which is also going through bur Journal, and the slighter sketch of the northern Xgati-Whatua "tribe, together with Mr. Downes' sketch of the Wha. nganui trills, form together a considerable mass of mattei that will be of inestimable value to the future historian of Xew Zealand prior to- the European occupation, and cover a large ■part of the North Island. Whether we =hnll ever get the histories of the other parts bevond the- scattered notices now 011 record is very douPtful. "Of other parts of Polynesia outside New Zealand; the last year's Journal contains nothing bijt some philological f'tes on the ]an" , iace of the T'liiwa, one of thp Solomon Islands, by the -Rev. W. O. Tvens. In this part oT t.lic area covered bv our fielU of operations, we Wlr translations of the papers in hand. Particularly is it the ease with the, ATnrouesan Island traditions, which Mr. faenrd. of Tahiti, ~ery kindlv underfoot; to attempt the translation of; but I>e finds gt;cnt difficulty in dointr s'o', "tvl ba-- been obliged to refer to peonle in the eronn itself to heln him. As has before been pointed out, our vo'iime of M.S, 5 !. i s believed to be the onlv one in existence and it is quite out of the nuestion that the same information could be ppain collected. We have also a series of Rarotongan M fWS. not. vet translated., but hope that AM Snvaec, of that island, who - has so often rendered help before, may .find +i>e time to assist in this matter again. Thc«e Tinners a nf considerable importance in connection with various Polynesian. migrations, "\\ r e mar fairlv claim that our Society lms bee the means of reselling from oblivion a large amount of matter that hut for our effort** would never have been made known to the world. The history of the Polynesian people has made great strides since \wo°t.ook up the work 23 years ago. and is fasf be. coming a consistent whole; and the beliefs. , manners and customs, migrations, illustrations of their various dialects and their philosophy ; aTe becoming clearer from year to vear. The student of the future will find in our records matter that carefully studied will in the end lead to the final solution of the origin of the Polynesian fpeople. besides illustrating the life history of a branch of the human race that "0 years ago was in th'e 'Stone Age.' Whilst we believe that everything we have published has a bearing on the questions the Society was founded to solve, no doubt many of the articles appearing in the Journal are not of much interest to the general reader. But to those who are really students of the Polynesian race, each subject finds in some or other of our members a responsive chord. 1 "As time goes on, it is only natural ! that accumulations of fresh matter tends to modify the views held by our members in the early stages of our existence, nor is this peculiar to our Society, This may be illustrated by the fact that for very many years it was supposed that the Maori was the only race that hail inhabited New Zealand. It gradually dawned upon us from the study of matter contributed to our Journal that these islands were inhabited before the advent of the six well-known eanoes in the fourteenth century, and now this has become a certainty, so far as anything of the kind can be certain: and we can now belie.ve that a people who not pure Polynesians, nor pure Melancsians, but having a strain of both races in them, were the earliest occupants of Now Zealand. Beyond the fact that this people came from the Western Pacific (unlike the Maoris, who cante from the Eastl, ivp do not as yet know their origin, nor the date of their ar. rival though we'do know that it was after tile discovery of the islands by Kline fuir.ewhere about the tenth century. "Outside the publications of the Socictv there have been a few liotalile contributions to the history of the race which gives ifs name to our Society within the last few years. Among thi in may be mentioned our lion, member Mr, Churchill's three works, deal, ing with philology, and in siiliHiduary way, with the wanderings of the people. Needless to- say, Mr. Churchill's j researche ; leau n* in the >nme dire—tion as other investigations into the origin of file race in the Far West, I though lie dues not commit binwelf to tracing tile people further we-d; than Indo-le (>!ir tllesi'lfr Dr. NeWll in Irs h'inl:. are d!,e Msmrw?* has gatliere,l together a vast amount, of information at lii'st hand dealing with tl.'e r.'iee frm.i Indian m „l oilier source--. co'Tobo'-al ive of Tolvne-ian traditions Whilst vo , I :,ow v;MI all I'.e "Of other work outride our own publications, we look forward to seeing at some time two contributions that

I will, we understand, deal exclusively with Polynesian matters, and which have,. we suggest, been too long delayed. /V\'e refer to Mr. Churchill's Samoa (i ie Vavau' (Ancient Samoa), introductory to which are the three

. orks referred to in the last paragraph, and to Miss Temra Henry's wurk...oir L'aliiti and its traditions. Until these rorks appear Polynesian history can:ot Tie dealt with comprehensively from Jie traditional point of view. We shall never, we fear, possess a good work on the Tongan traditions; the man who could have executed it has, alas! passed 011 to the majority. We refer to the Rev. J. K. Moulton, for so many years resident in Tonga, and one of, if not the greatest, its most distinguish ed linguists. Oustide our. own publications. past and to come, and the works alluiTed to above we sliall not, it is to be feared, see any very extensive works on the Polynesians written by those wlio know the people and the language thoroughly. '•Previous reports have alluded to the new Maori dictionary, a work which was undertaken b ythe Ven. ■irchdcacon H. W. Williams. W r e now learn from him that he has made arrangements to devote a greater portion of bis busy lire to the completion of this great undertaking, so tliat (possibly next year may see file work in print. It is well it siiomd be out, for some people R !® Sa> f '"f; " r ' li3 "PPears to be another use of the Colenso dictionary,' quite misunderstanding the enormous' amoJn U was in December, 1.M3, that the hon. the Premier authored Litli expenditure connecth« hil 11 tl,ctlo " ar y- T1 'e Archdeacon has had the use of all-or most-of the collections of Maori words made by scholars m New Wand, so the work w en issued should be comprehensive. that 9 ". n loarnt from Hoj «>l«lu Uat a mv and more comprehensive edition o. Andrew's 'Hawaiian Dietion™t xr • ) . e takon 111 hail( l b y ft firstrate Hawaiian scholar, "Our library eontinues to increas» l,v tile addition ot-books, etc., obtained by sLnaiTffT f' ° ther 30cictics ' a "d ocea- ? I g fts > f or we are not in a, Position financially to purchase works, though shoutl ir L ra i anr a Pl >L ' arin ff eaell year tlmt should find a place 011 our shelves me ,., of our exchange societies are most liberal, and we gladly acknowledge that we receive from t'iem more than memb Ve ' ? Ut ° ur iibl ' ar .y is not used by members to the extent it 'might be Jfot only members of the society, but others, under proper introduction u „d conditions, are welcomed as borrowers, and our hon. secretary), Mr. \Y. \y Smith, attends each Monday evening to issue boobs, etc., to anyone wishin- to borrow. Thanks to the civility of the governing body of the Technical College we have free quarters for our library in a fireproof building, but th.; time is fast approaching when t'le wall space will be exhausted, and new quartors wiU have to be -found, . Our membership does not increase as it should; do; as a matter of fact, through diiaths and resignations; we numbered less on 31st December last than for' the past few years. At that date our membership was as follows: Patrons 2, honorary members 9, corresponding members 14, contributing members 1.T5, a total of ISO. We lost seven members through death, amongst whom was one of our priorinal members and founders, Mr. J. R. Blair; of Wellington, also Messrs G. H. Da-vies, 0. AY. Govett l'\ Y. l.ethbridge, Taylor -White, anil Dr; W. JI. Woodwortlh. Some members Jiave been struck off tile- roll for nonpayment of their subscriptions. The •thanks of the society are due to those gentlemen (very few in number) who' have induced others to join. •'ln the matter of finances, the balance sheet of our treasurer allows a credit of £S 3s Jld, against which there is a liability o£ some £3O (since paid off). T'je war has certainly affected our finances in the matter of resijrna'teon-i. for that has been, the reason assigned for some of them; and a German- order for over £SO of our publications was returned on our hands, as they could not be' delivered.

"In concluding this report the council tender, its thanks to those members who flave contributed papers to tlie 'Journal,' many of which are of great value.''