540

them, traditions have always been preserved with care, and it is wonderful to find how the history of a people can be followed in this way for hundreds of years. The Samoans claim a complete chronicle dating through twenty-two generations of the reigning family of Malietoa, and extending over a period of eight hundred years, while the Tongans can chronicle a fairly accurate history of their priesthood through twelve centuries.*
   The priests have usually been the custodians of the national traditions, and there is sufficient evidence to show that every precaution was taken to have them handed down from one generation to another, pure and unchanged, for oral record was their only means of committing to posterity the deeds of their ancestors.
   To be intrusted with the traditions, constituted of itself an office of high dignity, and the holder was afforded the protection of a taboo of the most rigorous character.
   Family records were perpetuated with the national history, but as might be expected, there was a tendency to embellish them when extended back beyond a reasonable limit, with mythological personages and improbable occurrences. Still the extraordinary power of these keepers to preserve unimpaired for centuries, events and facts or even the genealogy of important families, would astonish those who are familiar only with written history, and whose memories depend upon artificial aids. Except in a few cases, the traditions of the natives do not extend back far enough to throw much light upon the ancient monuments found upon the islands. This is due in a measure to the fact that in only isolated localities have the people lived unmolested for any great length of time. The tribes were continually at war with one other. From love of conquest, and jealousy, no tribe was safe from the depredations of its neighbor, although living upon terms of supposed friendship. The love of war induced frequent expeditions planned for the destruction of the tribes of adjacent islands, while occasionally a combination was made for more extensive operations against the unsuspecting natives of a different group. The visitors usually put to death the fighting men of the conquered tribes and absorbed the others. The traditions of both parties were preserved separately for a time, but they naturally tended to merge together, and in this state, a combination of the glories of both tribes were handed down never to be unraveled to their succeeding generations. The monuments of antiquity scattered throughout Polynesia, with the exception of Easter Island, increase as we advance to the westward, commencing with the circles of uncut stones. and advancing by regular steps until we arrive at the more elaborate sculptures. This fact indicates the decline that

540