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66 variety so called was known to Morgan through the terminology of the Hawaiian Islands, and as the system of these islands was not only the first to be recorded, but is also that of which even now we have the most complete record, I propose to use it as the pattern and to speak of the Hawaiian system where Morgan spoke of the Malayan. If now we compare the Hawaiian system with the forms of the classificatory system found in other parts of Oceania, in Australia, India, Africa or America, we find that it is characterised by its extreme simplicity and by the fewness of its terms. Distinctions such as those between the father's brother and the mother's brother, between the father's sister and the mother's sister, and between the children of brothers or of sisters and the children of brother and sister, distinctions which are so generally present in the more usual forms of the classificatory system, are here completely absent. The problem before us is to discover whether the absence of these distinctions can be referred to any social factors. If not, we may be driven to suppose that there is something in the structure of the Polynesian mind which leads the Hawaiian and the Maori to see similarities where most other peoples of rude culture see differences.

The first point to be noted is that in Oceania the distinction between the Hawaiian and the more usual forms of the classificatory system does not correspond with the distinction between the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples. Systems are