Polynesian

Survey

Eminent Scientists Investigate Ethnology and History

From Our Own Correspondent.

Papeete, Dec. 27.

MR. KENNETH P. EMORY, archaelo gist, on the regular staff of the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, left Papeete recently for San Francisco, en route to his headquarters in Hawaii, after spend ing several months on research work in various Islands of the Tuamotu Archi pelago. Mr. Emory has already published —as Bulletins of the Bishop Museum— the results of his previous explorations in the Eastern Pacific, and the results of his latest investigations will appear in print some time during 1935. It is stated that some stone relics of more than usual interest were located on certain unin habited atolls of the Tuamotus.

The main body of the Bishop Museum Mangareva, Expedition, to which Mr.

Emory was attached, returned to Honolulu in the sampan "Islander” some weeks ago. According to the leader, Dr. Montague Cooke, who comes from a well-known Honolulu family, this latest expedition is part of a long planned survey of the ethnology and natural history of Polynesia, which will be carried on to completion as financial and other considerations permit. Already a large amount of scientific knowledge regarding this great expanse of islands has been accumulated by various mem bers of the Museum’s staff, all of which is to be found in the various bulletins published by that Institution; this applies particularly to archaeological and philolo gical research.

Dr. Cooke, who is himself a malacolo gist, has given many years to the study and collection of land snails in the Paci fic area, and probably knows more about these small but significant animals than any other living man. He considers that the all important consideration at the present time, from the point of view of the scientific investigator, is to concen trate every available resource upon what he called the "disappearing problems.”

Thus the land snails in which Dr. Cooke specialises, and which provide valuable clues to former land connections, die out as the indigenous vegetation is cleared off to make room for modern coconut plantations. Botanical species are also lost owing to the destruction of their natural environments.

Similarly the introduction of the white man’s religions and customs is respon sible for the gradual obliteration of knowledge concerning ancient cults and traditions among the natives; a know ledge which was only transmitted by memory from generation to generation, and now-a-days retained by only a very few old people who are fast dying out.

From such ancient folk-lore as this, from esoteric chants and invocations, from genealogical records preserved on strings and so forth, gathered and translated by scientific investigators in many Island Groups, has been pieced together all the knowledge we now possess regarding the ancient history of the Polynesians and their various migrations in pre-European

times. Our knowledge is still far from being complete enough to tell a connected story.

From the point of view given here the Mangareva Expedition has been pro nounced by Dr. Gregory, the Director of the Bishop Museum, as a very great suc cess. The final results, which will no doubt be published after the scientists have had time to examine and classify the vast amount of data and material collected, will be awaited with consider able interest.

The Mangareva Expedition, which was in Polynesia for about six months, visited several of the lesser known Tuamotu atolls, Mangareva and other islands of the Gambier Group, Pitcairn Island and its dependencies (which are uninhabited), and also the isolated island of Rapa, where, owing to the large amount of in digenous forest still in existence, the col lecting was said to be particularly good.

A call was also made at several islands of the Austral Group, and at the British islands of Flint, Vostock, Christmas, and Fanning on the return trip to Honolulu.

The only members of the Expedition now in the field are Mr. F. Stimson, philo logist, who is permanently stationed in Papeete and is expected back from the Tuamotus shortly, and Dr. Peter Buck, ethnologist, who is in Papeete awaiting a chance to get to the Austral Group, where he will complete his researches before proceeding to the Cook Islands.