Note 432 — Chapter VI

Mr. Ellis, a missionary in the South-Sea Islands, says of the inhabitants, ‘Their traditionary ballads were a kind of standard, or classical authority, to which they referred for the purpose of determining any disputed fact in their history.’ And when doubts arose, ‘as they had no records to which they could at such times refer, they could only oppose one oral tradition to another; which unavoidably involved the parties in protracted, and often obstinate debates.’ Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 202, 203. Compare Elphinstone's Hist. of India, p. 66; Laing's Heimskringla, 8vo. 1844, vol. i. pp. 50, 51; Twell's Life of Pocock, edit. 1816, p. 143.