Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/30

18 too apt to discredit tradition. It is an axiom that all tradition is based on fact—whilst the details may be wrong, the main stem is generally right. In this, local colouring is one of the chief things to guard against, and here the European Ethnologist is generally at fault for want of local knowledge—at any rate when he deals with Polynesian traditions. No one who has for many years been in the habit of collecting traditions from the natives themselves, in their own language, and as given by word of mouth, or written by themselves, can doubt the general authenticity of the matters communicated. But it is necessary to go to the right source to obtain reliable information, and even then, the collector must understand what he is about or he will fail.

The men who really know the traditions of their race, look upon them as treasures which are not to be communicated to everybody. They will not impart their knowledge except to those whom they know and respect, and then very frequently only under the condition that no use is to be made of them until the reciter has passed away. Much of the old history of the Polyiiesians was looked on as tapu (sacred) and its communication to those who could not share this feeling, or who would make improper use of it, would inevitably—in the belief of the old tohungas (priests)—bring down disaster on the heads of the reciters. It is never safe to question any statement made by the narrator, though of course any point not clear can be elucidated by questions. But never show any doubt of what is being told; worse than all never ridicule the most extravagant statements—(these can always be sifted afterward, and the residue of truth retained)—to do so, at once causes the narrator to draw in, and the opportunity is lost for ever.