Polynesian Society Journal

rpHE Journal of the Polynesian Society A for the last quarter of 1949 (Sep tember issue) contains a number of articles of value to those interested in Pacific culture.

Professor E. W. Gifford, of the Uni versity of Cafifornio, who spent about six months excavating in Fiji a year or so ago, writes of what he found and the significance of it. Most of the speci mens recovered from the two excava tions which he made consisted of pottery fragments ornamented in various ways.

This rules out the possibility that Poly nesians were the first settlers in these areas.

There is a description of Rarotongan string figures by C. W. Devonshire who learned them from his late wife who was of Rarotongan and Mangaian descent.

The figures are illustrated by drawings or photographs.

Tom Harrisson Again

OUR old friend Mr. Tom Harrisson makes a new appearance with an article on the Kelabits of North Central Borneo.

Mr. Harrisson, it would appear, is now Curator of Sarawak Museum and Gov ernment Ethnologist. He was regarded as somewhat of a stormy petrel in the New Hebiides in the ’3o’s when he was a member of an Oxford expedition to those parts. Australia’s A. J. Marshall was a member of the same expedition.

Both young men wrote books about their experiences. Marshall’s book (Black Musketeers) was very good. Harrisson’s odd. but interesting. Harrisson disap peared from the South Pacific scene but was heard of in the UK during the war when he was taking a mass survey of behaviour patterns among the local popu lace —or some similar task dear to the hearts of anthropologists and sociologists.

The September issue of the Journal also contains three articles on Maori culture and artifacts.