Early Collectors of Folklore

Te Ao Hou, November 1964, Page 24

Early Collectors of Folklore Lacking knowledge of the languages, the first Europeans into Polynesia learned little of its extensive mythology and tradition, and they were unable to judge the content of the songs and dance chants presented for their entertainment. They were unimpressed by the alien and rather uncomplicated music, and saw lewdness rather than beauty in much of the dancing. Missionaries were the first Europeans in a position to obtain traditional knowledge, and in a few cases we do owe a great deal to the interest of a churchman in the songs and stories of the people among whom he worked. The Rev. Wyatt Gill, for example, having, he tells us, ‘deliberately chosen to study rather than ignore the traditional knowledge of the people,’ collected and published a great number of poetic texts, including a number of the dramatic recitals known as ‘death-talks’, a literary form apparently restricted to the small island of Mangaia in the Southern Cooks. In Tahiti, William Ellis saw in the legends material ‘rivalling in splendour of machinery and magnificence of achievement the dazzling achievements of the eastern nations.’ In New Zealand, Richard Taylor in the Wanganui-Taranaki area, Colenso in Hawkes Bay, and Wohlers in the South Island made important contributions to our knowledge of Maori lore. But missionaries such as these were rather few. Most were known by their converts to be unsympathetic towards tradition, and to have little interest in what they considered at best ‘puerile beliefs’, at worst ‘works of the devil’. All missionaries however were concerned with what is quaintly called, ‘reducing the language to writing’. The simple phonology of Polynesian languages presented them with