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Excerpt from The Islanders of the Pacific: Or the Children of the Sun By unwritten law a preface should consist of apologies, so I shall therefore at least be in the fashion. But, I think, it is seldom an author has to apologize for his Greek accents or his spelling mistakes. For the former, on a few words in Chapter XVI, I candidly confess - if they are wrong, and I should be astonished if they are correct - that my Greek has grown rusty since the days when I wrestled with Xenophon, and I am far from the land of dictionaries. For the latter I can but say that distance has likewise intervened to withhold from me the correction of "proofs," and the spelling of Polynesian words will defy any usual proof-reader, learned though he may be. There is another matter. While striving always to confine myself to my own experiences and my own observations and notes, I have yet found it unavoidable in a book of this sort to make reference at times to the works of other authors who have preceded me in the same field, especially when dealing with the early days in the Pacific. Wherever possible I have made due acknowledgment, and should any have by chance been omitted I would here crave forgiveness for the same. And this also applies to the use of photographs for illustrations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from The Islanders of the Pacific: Or the Children of the Sun I have tried to work out answers to the natives' problems from the natives' point of view to put myself for a moment in their place, to think with their mind, and I feel that my long years of residence among them, in some degree, enables me to do this. To have to attack a native problem, shackled by the convention of our own way of thinking, is a great handicap, of which I have tried whenever possible to divest myself. I may not always have succeeded - many of my answers are no doubt wrong - but we are none of us infallible, and least of all do I consider myself so, for ethnology to me is only a hobby. But if my scientific methods do not always follow in the beaten path, my interest in the natives is a very real one, perhaps because they appeal to the child that is present in all of us. They are the Peter Pans of humanity, and if in governing them we remember this great will be our ultimate reward. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Islands—as well as entire continents—are reputed to have disappeared in many parts of the world. Yet there is little information on this subject concerning its largest ocean, the Pacific. Over the years, geologists have amassed data that point to the undeniable fact of islands having disappeared in the Pacific, a phenomenon that the oral traditions of many groups of Pacific Islanders also highlight. There are even a few instances where fragments of Pacific continents have disappeared, becoming hidden from view rather than being submerged. In this scientifically rigorous yet readily comprehensible account of the fascinating subject of vanished islands and hidden continents in the Pacific, the author ranges far and wide, from explanations of the region’s ancient history to the meanings of island myths. Using both original and up-to-date information, he shows that there is real value in bringing together myths and the geological understanding of land movements. A description of the Pacific Basin and the "ups and downs" of the land within its vast ocean is followed by chapters explaining how—long before humans arrived in this part of the world—islands and continents that no longer exist were once present. A succinct account is given of human settlement of the region and the establishment of cultural contexts for the observation of occasional catastrophic earth-surface changes and their encryption in folklore. The author also addresses the persistent myths of a "sunken continent" in the Pacific, which became widespread after European arrival and were subsequently incorporated into new age and pseudoscience explanations of our planet and its inhabitants. Finally, he presents original data and research on island disappearances witnessed by humans, recorded in oral and written traditions, and judged by geoscience to be authentic. Examples are drawn from throughout the Pacific, showing that not only have islands collapsed, and even vanished, within the past few hundred years, but that they are also liable to do so in the future.