STUDIES IN THEIR ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLK-LORE BY R. H. CODRINGTON, D.D. LATE OF THE MELANESIAN MISSION SOMETIME FELLOW OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD With Illustrations Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1891 [All rights reserved] Transferred from Herald College Filin Aug 27,1958 Oxford PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE. IT has been my endeavour in the following pages to bring together the results of such observations as many years' acquaintance with Melanesian people has enabled me to make. I had once hoped to have been able to give something more like a full account of the beliefs and practices of the natives of those islands concerning which I have had the opportunity of collecting information; but my stay upon my last return to the Melanesian Mission was too short for this, and I have now to put forth what I know to be very incomplete. My observations and enquiries were carried on, and my notes were made, in the years from 1863, when I first visited the islands, to 1887, when I left the Mission; partly in the Melanesian Islands, but mostly in Norfolk Island, where natives of many of these islands have for many years been brought together for instruction. Twice during this period I made with natives of the various islands a systematic enquiry into the religious beliefs and practices of the Melanesians, and the social regulations and conditions prevailing among them. On the first occasion I had, as regards the Banks' Islands, the very valuable assistance of a native who was a grown youth before his people had been at all affected by intercourse with Europeans or had heard any Christian teaching-the Rev. George Sarawia, the first, |