filled with allusions to them, and with quotations from
ancient poems relating the deeds of their forefathers. The difficulty of
following such allusions, and consequently of understanding the meaning
of the chiefs when addressing him on behalf of their fellow-countrymen,
first induced, or compelled, Sir George Grey, when Governor of New
Zealand, to make the inquiries whose results are embodied in his work on
Polynesian Mythology. The Eskimo of Greenland, at the other end of the
world, divide their tales into two classes: the ancient and the modern.
The former may be considered, Dr. Rink says, as more or less the
property of the whole nation, while the latter are limited to certain
parts of the country, or even to certain people who claim to be akin to
one another. The art of telling these tales is "practised by certain
persons specially gifted in this respect; and among a hundred people
there may generally be found one or two particularly favoured with the
art of the _raconteur_, besides several tolerable narrators." It is the
narrators of the ancient tales "who compose the more recent stories by
picking up the occurrences and adventures of their latest ancestors,
handed down occasionally by some old members of the family, and
connecting and embellishing them by a large addition of the
supernatural, for which purpose resort is always had to the same
traditional and mystic elements of the ancient folklore."[7]

But the art of story-telling has not everywhere given rise to a
professional class. When the Malagasy receive friends at their houses,
they themselves recount the deeds of their ancestors, which are handed
down from father to son, and form the principal topic of conversation.
So, too, the savage Ahts of Vancouver Island sit round their fires
singing and chatting; "and the older men, we are told, lying and
bragging after the manner of story-tellers, recount their feats in war,
or the chase, to a listening group." Mr. Im Thurn has drawn an
interesting picture of the habits at night of the Indian tribes of
Guiana. The men, if at home, spend the greater part of the day in their
hammocks, smoking, "and leisurely fashioning arrowheads, or some such
articles of use or of ornament.... When the day has at last come to an
end, and the women have gathered together enough wood for the fires
during the night, they, too, throw themselves into their hammocks; and
all talk together. Till far into the night the men tell endless s