d from the goura pigeon, and that an ancestor of theirs,
though himself a man, had all the powers and faculties of movement
of those birds, and that he used to dance with them, and so learnt
the dance and taught it to his people. Unfortunately no enquiry had
been made as to the question of any imitative character in their
present dancing, and the information only emanated from a particular
clan with a particular association with the bird. I therefore do not
attach undue general importance to this case. [93]

Secondly, I was told that the Pokau people, whose dance is practically
the same as that of the Mekeo people, themselves say that their dancing
is an imitation of that of the goura pigeon. This certainly tends
to support Father Clauser's suggestion as regards Mekeo. Thirdly,
some natives of Kuni, who are undoubtedly very similar and closely
related to the Mafulu, and whose dancing is very similar to that of
the latter, were questioned on the subject in my presence, and under
my direction. The question put was, "When Kuni people are dancing,
are they in their dance imitating anything, and if so what?" (no
mention or suggestion being made of a bird or of anything else). The
answer was that they were imitating the dance of the _goloala_, which
I was told was not the red bird of paradise, but was another small
species of that bird with a yellowish-white body, yellow head and
yellowish-white wings. The leading question was then put to them,
whether they were sure the bird was the yellow one described by
them, and not the red one; which question was answered definitely
in the affirmative. And subsequently, when, in order to test their
definiteness and certainty in what they had told me, I showed them a
few postcard pictures of birds of paradise, which included the red
one and others, but not one such as is above described, and almost
invited them to recognise one of these as being the bird they meant,
they were firm in their insistence that the bird to which they referred
was not shown in any of the pictures. This, I think, helps to support
Father Clauser's suggestion as regards the Mafulu, subject of course
to the question of the variety of bird of paradise which is imitated.

Dealing with this question of imitation as a whole, and taking into
consideration the apparently marked similarities between the dancing
of the two tribes of natives and the two genera of birds, and the
further element, perhaps not so strong, as to