ably concerned with lost or unrequited love. The composers were always women. The remembered, or imagined, delights of love may be mentioned frankly or hidden in obscure sexual symbolism which is still incompletely understood. None of the song types I have mentioned are still composed, though a few laments appear to date from as late as the first world war. At about this time they were replaced by a new dance form, the action song, which is familiar to anyone who has attended a Maori gathering of any kind. The action song owes its actions to the traditional patere, its words to the old laments and lovesongs, and its music to Tinpan Alley. Great numbers of action songs are composed every year. They spread rapidly throughout New Zealand through the Maori residential schools, and through the many gatherings which feature cultural competitions. Whatever reservations one may have about the borrowing of hit tunes, the action song must, I think, be regarded as the only current New Zealand folk art, Maori or Pakeha. The traditional song-types are still sung at ceremonial gatherings, and several thousand have been recorded either textually or on tape. Mervyn McLean, a research student at Otago University, has recorded on tape more than 800 items during the last two years, and is working on a musical analysis of this material. Pei te Hurinui Jones is continuing his work of collecting, annotating and translating song texts, and the third volume of ‘Nga Moteatea’ will be published shortly with a preface by Mervyn McLean. So these two scholars, a Maori and a Pakeha, heed the words of their predecessor who many years ago had urged New Zealanders to preserve this material, saying in his characteristically blunt way, ‘These flowers bloom at your doorsteps, Why don't you pick them?’

A Reading List The Growth of Literature: Volume 2, Part 3, The Oral Literature of Polynesia. By H. M. and N. K. Chadwick. New York. 1940. Voices on the Wind (Translations of Polynesian myths and chants). By Katherine Luomala. Bishop Museum Press. 1955 (in print). Maui of a Thousand Tricks: his Oceanic and European Biographers. By Katherine Luomala. Bishop Museum Bulletin 198. 1949. Tuamotuan Legends (English and some Tuamotuan texts). Bishop Museum Bulletin 148. 1937. The Legends of Maui and Tahaki (English and Tuamotuan texts). Bishop Museum Bulletin 127. 1934. Kepelino's Traditions of Hawaii (English and Hawaiian texts). Selections from Fornander's Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore (Hawaiian and English texts). By S. H. Elbert (ed.). 1959 (in print). Ancient Tahiti (English and Tahitian texts). By Te Uira Henry. Bishop Museum Bulletin no. 48. 1948. Myths and Song from the South Pacific (English and Mangaian texts). By William Wyatt Gill. 1876. Nga Moteatea: he maramara rere no nga waka maha. (The songs: scattered pieces from many canoe areas). 2 volumes. Collected by A. T. Ngata and translated by A. T. Ngata and P. H. Jones (in print). Nga Mahi a Nga Tupuna (The deeds of the ancestors). By Sir George Grey. Polynesian Mythology by Sir George Grey (in print). Ancient History of the Maori by John White. A Treasury of Maori Folklore by A. W. Reed (in print). Selected Readings in Maori by Bruce Biggs, Pat Hohepa and S. M. Mead. (Obtainable from Secretary, Anthropology Department, University of Auckland.) 1962. He Kohikohinga Aronui by Bruce Biggs and S. M. Mead. (Obtainable from Secretary, Anthropology Department, University of Auckland.) 1964. The Lore of the Whare-Wananga by S. Percy Smith (2 Vols.). Te Wananga Volume 1, and Volume 2, no. 1. (This was a periodical published by the Board of Ethnological Research. The numbers mentioned above are obtainable from the Secretary, Polynesian Society, Box 5194, Wellington. They contain much of the material by Nepia Pohuhu on which ‘The Lore of the Whare Wananga’ was based.) Te Whare Kura. This Maori-language periodical is published tow or three times a year by the Education Department. It is available from all Government Printer shops. Professor Bruce Biggs, who is of Maori descent, teaches Maori studies in the Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland. This article is the revised text of a talk he gave some time ago as one of the ‘Winter Lectures’ at the University of Auckland. Professor Biggs is at present undertaking research at the East-West Centre, Hawaii.