nitely did give a damn about kinship terms, and his ability to handle concepts of kinship was commensurate with his interest. In Hawaii he was a professional. His duties included deliberate but subtle falsification of pedigrees to enhance the position of his own ruler. In this capacity he was known as ‘the wash-bowl of the high chief’. In New Zealand, where a chief's authority was not absolute, but was delegated to him by the adult males of rangatira status, professional genealogists were unknown, and falsification of genealogies was not tolerated. Every adult was expected to know his own lines of descent and to be able to recite them. The recognised expert, moreover, was expected to be something of a walking de Brett, knowing not only the descent lines of his own group but those of neighbouring tribes, and in particular those lines which, through intergroup marriages, facilitated the social and political intercourse of different tribes. Such an expert delighted in testing his knowledge against that of others in reciting the lines of men, which were said to be ‘as many, and as far-reaching, as the runners of a gourd-plant’. The setting up of the land-court, where claims were decided largely on genealogical evidence, must have caused such an expert to lick his lips. The case is quoted of a court-sitting at which an old man took four full days to recite the genealogies of a single sub-tribe, and one can't help wondering how much the protracted nature of land-court proceedings owed to the love of genealogical wrangling.

Polynesian Poetry Now let us turn from genealogical recital to poetry. In Polynesia as a whole, spoken verse was unknown. Poetry was always chanted or sung. In Eastern Polynesia moreover, purely linguistic devices such as rhyme or assonance were not consciously used to distinguish verse from prose. The metre and the line divisions were determined by musical features, not by linguistic ones, and the prosodics of Polynesian poetry can hardly be studied apart from the musical medium. Stylistically however, the language of poetry differs from that of prose. Extensive use of synonyms, contrastive opposites, and repeated key-words are usual. Archaic words are used, some of which have lost any specific reference, and acquired a religious mystique in poetic diction. Abbreviated, sometimes cryptic utterances, and the use of certain grammatical constructions not found in prose, are also common. The frequent metaphorical extension of word-meanings, and the widespread use of non-obvious symbolism, adds to the difficulty and also to the charm of Polynesian poetic texts. In Marquesan lovesongs for example, lovers are variously symbolised by night-moths, garlands of flowers, pearl-shells, ripe breadfruit, the masts of ships, the trade winds, coconuts, and so on. Perhaps these symbols are not too strange. We may even be able to hazard guesses as to which are male and which female. But who would guess that the happiness of mutual love would be symbolised by rain, and the heat of passion, by cold night winds? Yet such is the case in the hot dry areas of Hawaii, where rain and rain-bearing winds were more valued than sunshine and blue skies, and where ‘the glories of Hanalei are its driving storms’.

Maori Poetry As with prose texts, the greatest amount of Polynesian poetic material has been collected in New Zealand. The most important work, both in quantity and quality, has been done by two Maori scholars, Sir Apirana Ngata and Pei te Hurinui Jones. We are particularly indebted to Sir Apirana for the first attempt at a classification of Maori songs and dance-chants. This is the only useful classification of a body of Polynesian poetry known to me. Its success is due to the complete break-away from traditional literary categories, which are replaced with a classification based entirely on the form and content of the Maori material itself. Some of Ngata's song and chant types are considered in the following sections.

Haka Haka, or war-chants, are well known to New Zealanders. They are rhythmically shouted chants of defiance. The texts are often archaic and obscure, and sometimes obscene. The total number of haka is not large, and while modification of existing texts still takes place, the latest original compositions probably date from the time of the inter-racial wars.

Karakia Karakia are rapidly intoned ritual chants. The texts are usually archaic and difficult. In some cases it can be demonstrated that the form of words has been transmitted unchanged from Polynesia. This appears to be the case with parts of the karakia for the house dedication ceremony, one of the few traditional