Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/659

594 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [».. grandmother was increased at the sight of such a beautiful grandson, and wil of time she made a bow and a sufficient number of arrows, which she present when she took him from the vessel. The newly bom, who already spoke the perfectly, asked at once [or his mother. The grandmother informed him of 1 end, without concealing the knowledge of the cruel author of this barbaro The youth, being angry, went out to find him in Order to avenge such an ui injury ; he found him without much trouble, and struck him on the body point of the bow and threw him so far from him that up to the present time he again appeared. Having avenged the infamous death of his mother, he return place where his grandmother and aunt were. He told them how melancholy be for all to live in a land where there would be visible a thousand objects rh remind them of the sad end of his mother, and that this memory would destro' pleasures. They were convinced by his reasoning, and accompanied him j< heaven (or, as they say, to Cathao-ayo), where they all dwell, the youth posse universal government of the world.'

" In this manner those Indians relate the history of the origin first of their divinities, whom they adore and to whom they dedicate religi monies, attributing to him the distribution of rewards and punishments acta the works of each individual, although they never attribute to these so n intention that they may not be condoned by the performance of certain cere

F. F. HiL]

Dialects of New Caledonia— At a meeting of the Royal of New South Wales on September 7, 1898, a communication Jules Bernier was read in which it was stated :

"No less than twenty dialects are distinguished in New Caledonia, * grouped into the following main divisions: the Southern, inclusive of ihi Pines; the Central; the Northern; and those parts of the Loyalty islands by Melsnesians. The first two are sharply separated from the latter by the of the article. The northern is characterized by a tendency to terminate in n ant as shown by the place names, Belep, Hienghen, Wagap. A foreign a Polynesian element can be detected intrusive upon the indigenous Melane marked feature in the New Caledonian language is its extreme simplicity most primitive Papuan speech. Even the roots are in a state of fluctuation a various forms. Any labial, or it may be any dental consonant, nray be used tive with a root vowel to express a particular word. The same word can be 1 noun, verb, or adjective, and the broad difference which elsewhere prevails the parts of speech is here unknown. Moiiosyllabism prevails, and the ro preserved a synthetic signification which seems a property of primitive pei which is in more advanced languages obliterated by specialization. Thus th mind aggregates together such ideas as white, bright, eye. sun, day, light. presses them by forms of a root word ' fire.' A method occurs by which verbs but other parts of speech are conjugated. Enumeration is of the usual type, counting by one, one-one, one-two, one-three, five equal a hand (in ref< the digits), five-one, live-two. five-three, five-four, ten equal a head."

White Russian Folk-music— In an interesting article or Folk-songs of White Russia," translated from the Bohemian of ]