The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead

Abstract

IN Polynesian mythology the god Maui, fishing in the waste waters of primeval chaos, hauls up the island world at the end of his line. It requires no less skilful a fisherman to bring up again the Polynesian world of savage life and custom from the chaos of insufficient and scattered data embedded in travellers' and missionaries' records. Sir James Frazer, by the present volume, deserves to take his rank beside the primeval fishers—though his work of rescuing a world in dissolution must have been much less joyous and probably more difficult than that of the earlier sportsmen. Those who know the immense difficulty of extracting truth from amateur ethnographic material, and of giving it scientific and literary form, will be able to appreciate the industry and genius contained in this latest contribution of Sir James Frazer. The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead. By Sir James G. Frazer. Vol. 2: The Belief among the Polynesians. Pp. ix + 447. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 18s. net.

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