d Heart, and these lines mark roughly
what the Fathers of the Mission believe to be the boundaries of the
several linguistic areas within the district covered by their map. It
will be observed that some of these lines are not continued so as to
surround and complete the definition of the areas which they indicate;
but this defect is unavoidable, as the Fathers' map only covered a
relatively small area, and even in that map the lines were not all
carried to its margin. It will also be noticed that, though the Fathers
introduce the two names Oru Lopiku and Boboi as being linguistically
distinct, they have not indicated the boundary line between the two
areas. Father Egedi, however, informed me that this boundary passes
along the ridge of hills south of the Ufafa river as far as Mt. Eleia,
and thence along the Ukalama river to the Kuni boundary. The Ukalama
river is not shown in the Geographical Society's map; but I may
say that it is shown in the Fathers' map as rising in Mt. Eleia,
and flowing thence in a south-easterly direction, and so joining the
St. Joseph river close to Dilava. The broken red line upon my map does
not appear in the Fathers' map, but has been added by me to indicate
what, I understand, the Fathers believe to be a continued boundary,
so far as ascertained, of the Fuyuge linguistic area, called by them
the Mafulu area, to which I am about to draw attention.

The term Mafulu is the Kuni pronunciation of Mambule, which is the
name, as used by themselves, of the people who live in a group of
villages within and near the north-westerly corner of the area of the
Fuyuge-speaking people, whose Papuan language, so far as ascertained,
appears, subject to local dialectal differences, to be the same, and
may, I was informed, be regarded as one common language throughout
the Fuyuge area.

The Fathers of the Mission have adopted the name Mafulu in a wider
sense, as including all the people with whom they have come in
contact of the Fuyuge-speaking area; and, though my investigations,
which form the subject-matter of this book, have been conducted only
in the neighbourhood of Mafulu itself, I was assured that, so far as
the Fathers have been able to ascertain, all these Fuyuge people not
only have similar languages, but also are substantially similar in
physique and in culture. My observations concerning the Mafulu people
may therefore, if this statement is correct, be regarded as applying,
not only to the inhabit