Short Notices.
In this fragment Mr. Thummel describes in detail the remains of supposed temples in Iceland and elsewhere. There is very little outside Iceland; for South Germany he has nothing but Tacitus's description of the consecrated groves. For our purpose, nothing of importance emerges except that the Icelandic temples were set on hills. The author discusses their shape, the building materials, and other archaeological details.
Folktales of the Maori. By A. A. Grace. Wellington, N.Z.: Gordon & Gotch. 8vo, pp. 257.
Mr. Grace's book consists of short stories founded on materials supplied by a native; some of them with an element of demons, fairies, and magic in them; but others only rather trivial anecdotes, seasoned for pakeha use, entertaining enough for those who wish to make acquaintance with Maori life, but, as usual with Anglo-Maori stories, rather sugary and sentimental, and in any case of little use to the folklore student. In a note on p. 53, where pigs are spoken of in an apparently old story, the author supposes the mention of them to be a recent interpolation, since Captain Cook introduced pigs into New Zealand. It is certainly the accepted belief that New Zealand was pig-less until the coming of the British. But the story may have survived from a prehistoric period, evidenced by language, when there were native pigs. The Maori-Polynesian race carried its own breed of pigs with it in its migrations about the Pacific, and, if the animal had in fact died out in New Zealand by the time of Cook's arrival, at any rate the name still survived, for "poaka" is native Maori, and its resemblance to "porker" is purely accidental.
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