Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/399



reproof, perhaps, of my too importunate questioning, an aged Gilbertese chronicler once said to me, "It is fitting that I should begin with the Beginning of Things. Then there shall be no going back and no confusion of heart." That was the prelude to a long series of talks, in which he revealed to me the traditions of his grandsires, from the creation story onwards. Much also he gave me beside the myth and legend of his line; he disclosed its arts of medicine and magic, of poesy and dance, of canoe-building and navigation. His grandson, who was in my employ, wrote these things down at the old man's dictation, while I also sat by, night after night, taking note of curious word and phrase, interpolating such questions as I deemed the old man's not quite angelic patience might brook, and occasionally goading him to his finest effort by some arch quotation of a contrary opinion.

Most of the priceless material thus collected must await publication in another place. Here follows a mere sample—a translation, as correct as it has been in my power to make, of the creation-myth as it was written down from the old man's lips:

In the beginning there was nothing in the Darkness and the Cleaving-together save one person. We know not how