Preface

Vol. II Macmillan and Co., Limited London · Bombay · Calcutta · Madras Melbourne the Macmillan Company New York · Boston · Chicago Dallas · San Francisco the Macmillan Co. Of Canada, Ltd. Toronto

Vol. II the Belief Among the Polynesians

Macmillan and Co., Limited St. Martin's Street, London 1922

Copyright

Printed in Great Britain

The first volume of this work, which comprised the Gifford Lectures given by me at St. Andrews in the years 1911 and 1912, dealt with the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, as these are found among the aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea, and Melanesia. In the present volume I take up the subject at the point at which I broke off, and describe the corresponding belief and worship among the Polynesians, a people related to their neighbours the Melanesians by language, if not by blood. The first chapter formed the theme of two lectures delivered at the Royal Institution in 1916; the other chapters have been written for lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1921 and 1922. But in the book the lecture form has been discarded, and the treatment of the subject is somewhat fuller than comports with the limits imposed by oral delivery.

Should circumstances allow me to continue the work, I propose in the next volume to treat of the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead among the Micronesians and Indonesians.

J. G. FRAZER.

No. 1 Brick Court, Temple,
London, 19th July 1922.