When we remember that the Maoris volunteered no traditional information about the extinct moa (Dinornis) until Europeans had unearthed its bones, said nothing about the Chatham Islands until after their discovery by Europeans, only recalled dim memories of inhabitants before the Fleet of A.D. 1350 in response to persistent questioning by Europeans, and could not tell us whether Hawaiki was Tahiti or Samoa, we realize the always supine rôle of Maori tradition in aiding the researches of the culture historian.

However the sheer mass and variety of these orally transmitted traditions prevented the student from realizing how irrelevant they were to his theme, and caused him to believe that the Maori purpose in transmitting traditions was like his—to satisfy an essentially academic curiosity about the past. The gradual cessation of the output of published traditions has given students the leisure to realize the limitations of those already recorded, and sobered us against the expectation that a Maori tradition current in the 19th century might include a description of a bird which lived perhaps in the 13th, or go into detail over the appearance and habits of the tribes whom his Fleet ancestors dispossessed in the 14th.

Fortunately the need for the family to maintain its status within the clan, the clan within the tribe, and the tribe as against other tribes, did involve the careful transmission of family trees (Whakapapa). By comparing the number of generations in many lines back to a Fleet ancestor, the arrival of the Fleet was placed in the mid-14th century. By a brilliant application of the method beyond New Zealand, Percy Smith found a three generation name sequence immediately prior to the Fleet arrival common to Hawaii, the Society Islands, the Cook Islands and New Zealand. This established with reasonable certainty that the movement which brought the canoes of the Fleet to New Zealand originated in the Society Islands and simultaneously sent migrants to the Hawaiian and Cook groups. Traditions in New Zealand recorded with a significant unanimity the names of the canoes of the Fleet migration, their landing places, and the tribes which sprang from each. They noted the introduction by the immigrants of the sweet potato (kumara), the taro (Colocasia antiquorum), the gourd (Lagenaria), and the yam (uwhi), both by means of references to incidents of the voyage or by accounts of subsequent return trips to Hawaiki to fetch these plants.

It has been generally agreed that Devonshire lies outside the area formerly cultivated under the open-field system. The map which serves as frontispiece to Gray’s monograph on the subject shows the western boundary of the open-field area beginning in west Dorsetshire and passing up northward across Somerset so as to exclude Devon, Cornwall, and west Somerset. Dr and Mrs Orwin, while revising and correcting Gray’s data at several points, are emphatic where the south-western counties are concerned. ‘In Lancashire, Devon, and Cornwall, there is nothing to indicate that the system [of open fields] was ever followed’. Recent text-books naturally follow in the wake of these authorities. Professor Darby, for example, writes that in Cornwall, and by implication in Devon also, the prevailing type of rural economy ‘had no relation to the three-field system’ ; and he illustrates his remarks with a reproduction of Gray’s map.

One well-known fact, which at first sight appears irreconcilable with these pronouncements, was not overlooked by the authors. I refer to the existence at Braunton, in northwest Devon, of an open field of some 350 acres, divided into nearly five hundred arable strips of intermixed ownership. ‘Some persons own very many of the strips scattered all over the field ; that is to say, several strips in almost every division of it. Others have a few only, one here and there. But in all cases the strips of one owner are everywhere separated from each other by interposed strips of other owners . . . The line of demarcation between any two strips is commonly indicated by a narrow unploughed balk . . . The lesser plots appear as a rule to approximate in area to half an acre, more or less, and the others to multiples of this quantity . . . Very few exceed the limit of two acres’.

I Was enthusiastically received by the monks of Debra Damo who gave me every help and encouragement in the project of restoring their church, the most ancient surviving in Ethiopia. The scheme was first mooted by Mr D. R. Buxton, who visited the church and found it in a state of collapse. The efforts of Mr O. G. S. Crawford, the Society of Antiquaries, and the British Council, resulted in the Emperor’s agreeing to spend up to £5,000 on the works, and in my being appointed architect in charge of the restoration. I had the unique opportunity of entering parts of the building not hitherto seen and recorded by Europeans, and during the process of partial demolition I was able to discover the exact method of construction, this knowledge throwing light on ancient Axumite building methods.

It is not known exactly how old the church is. It is certainly the most ancient and perfect of the early Ethiopian churches, and an important example of an early manner of building in that country.

The method of construction is unusual (FIG. 1) ; the walls consist of tile-like stones set in earth mortar, strengthened with longitudinal beams which are themselves fixed to the walls with cross-pieces, projecting, and called ‘monkey-heads’ by the Ethiopians. Such a method of construction has been used in countries as far apart as Crete, Asia Minor, and Tibet. It also seems to have been the normal constructional method of the Axumite builders, who translated the pattern of horizontal timber, monkey-head and window framing into the decoration of the storied obelisks of Axum, nearby. This is yet another example of timber forms being translated into stone, a common architectural trend. Even today, the tradition is still alive, and modern church builders in this part of Ethiopia still use timber in a similar way to stabilize their walls.

Fixed points in the chronology of the Harappa Culture are not abundant and such as exist tend rather to emphasize the earlier phases of that remarkable civilization. Evidence for close contact with Akkad about 2300 B.C., based primarily on stamp-seals, has been the subject of review by Piggott, and much clearer light has been forthcoming as a result of excavations at Harappa by the Archaeological Survey of India during 1946 under the direction of Professor R. E. M. Wheeler. These excavations included cuttings through the rampart of the citadel, and investigations of the later cemeteries superimposed on the culture. Whilst accepting the evidence for the earlier fixed point Wheeler faces up to the problems raised by these cemeteries and is strongly inclined after reviewing the facts available, and certain passages in the Rigveda, to agree with Childe that the ‘Cemetery H intruders “may belong to Aryan invaders”, the conventional date for whose first incursion into India is the 15th century B.C.’. As a result he concludes that ‘the combined weight, such as it is, of these various indications suggests the millennium 2500-1500 B.C. as a possible inclusive date for the mature Harappa civilization, without prejudice to the still-unplumbed depths of Mohenjo-daro’.

Attention has recently been focussed by Piggott on these later phases of the civilization as a result of a study of the type and distribution of certain spiral headed and animal headed pins, and of a bronze mace-head found at Mohenjo-daro and Chanhu-daro. He here sees clear evidence pointing to trade contacts or folk movements from the West and affecting India at the end of the Harappa phase, if not indeed when it was actually defunct, probably ‘after 2000 B.C. rather than before and possibly some centuries later’. And with Wheeler he does not appear to be disinclined to accept the traditional date of about 1400 B.C. for the incursions into India ; though both are fully aware, and in fact state categorically, that the Akkadian contacts are the only well fixed chronological points.