and dance, is, in this booklet, giving a kind of tourist-eye view of Samoa under such chapter headings as ‘The Two Samoas’, ‘Historical Notes’, ‘Meet the People, ‘Sining, Dancing and Sports’, ‘Let's go to Feast’, ‘The Kava Ceremony’, etc. The text itself is in light-hearted vein, yet packs quite a bit of information into four large pages. In comparison with ‘Meet the Maori’, the illustrations are in colour throughout and although the captions are brief, they do seem to capture the mood of Samoa and its people. The description of the items on the record is also somewhat sketchy. They are mostly modern songs and feature a number of groups. Played directly after ‘Meet the Maori’, this record does highlight the contrast in the musical styles of the Maoris and Samoans. The Samoan tends towards the Melanesian style of singing with its tight harmonies and numerous short verses of different words but the same tune. The items are primarily in a light-hearted and foot-tapping vein (Sample titles in English; ‘How happy I am’, ‘Wiggle Wiggle’, ‘Vision of a Lovely Girl’). Indeed the record well illustrates a paragraph of the text which says: ‘Nowadays it is difficult for the visitor to tell whether he is watching a performance of genuine Samoan singing and dancing or a local adaptation of something from Waikiki, Tin Pan Alley or Papeete. Samoans, with the typical Polynesian genius for adaptation, quickly shape to their own uses any aspect of another culture which appeals to them. This has happened in religion, games, dancing and music — particularly the latter. However, whatever the importation, it always undergoes some modification which appropriately adapts it to fa'a Samoan — The Samoan Way’. In this characteristic genius for adaptation, the Samoans are indeed very much akin to their Maori cousins!

BOOKS

THE MAORI PEOPLE IN THE NINE- TEEN-SIXTIES: a symposium edited by Erik Schwimmer Blackwood and Janet Paul Ltd, $7.00. reviewed by Margaret Orbell The Maori People in the Nineteen-Sixties is a collection of essays by 15 contributors. The main emphasis is on the changes that have taken place in the period from 1940 to the present. The editor, Erik Schwimmer, writes that it was decided ‘not to study the Maori as though they formed a self-contained group, but to concentrate on the relationship between the Maori minority and the Pakeha majority’. He points out that since Maori and Pakeha to a significant extent form two distinct social groups, and since these groups are in frequent intensive contact with one another, what looks like a “Maori problem” is likely to be ‘essentially a strain or stress between the two groups, or resulting tension within groups and within individuals’. This is to say that a study of the Maori must also take into account the Pakeha, and the relationships existing between Maori and Pakeha. This is an important point that has not always been fully understood or explored in the past. It was an excellent idea to take it as the basis for a book of this kind. Scholars and writers were invited to choose an area of intercultural stress, and to analyse it. There is an impressive line-