CHAPTER IV SUMMARY
IN the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to present some of the more important and characteristic myths from Polynesia. Forced to give undue emphasis to three or four of the many groups because of the paucity of material from all but these, we may, nevertheless, gain a pretty clear impression of the type of tales once current throughout the entire area.
In the presentation of the material and in its discussion resemblances have been pointed out between the various island-groups, both within and without Polynesia; but this has been done only for individual tales or striking incidents, and no attempt has been made to summarize the results. The fact of wide-spread relationship has probably become evident, but the conclusions which may legitimately be drawn are not perhaps apparent. Unless we are to depend entirely upon impressions, some sort of statistical method must obviously be employed. While these are particularly liable to lead to erroneous conclusions because of the fragmentary and unequal quality of the available material, we must use some such method to extract meaning from the mass of individual similarities. All myths, as we have them, may be analyzed into a series of separate incidents. This group of incidents may, and indeed often does, remain intact for long periods, and may be transmitted as a unit from one people or area to another. Very often, however, in the course of time or in transmission one or other of these drops out or is modified, and new ones are added; so that the result may be a tale quite unlike the original, but in which certain of the original