Oral tradition in the pacific

under any conditions whatsoever.'1 With this extreme statement in 1915 the North American ethnologist, Lowie, sparked off a reaction against the utilization of oral tradition for historical evidence which peaked about 1930 with the strictures of the pioneering Pacific anthropologist Malinow ski,2 and then gradually lessened (although never completely disappeared) over the next 40 years. Clearly this protracted and frequently acrimonious debate was integrally related to the development and professionalization of the disciplines of history and anthropology.3 Setting aside the extreme anti tradition stances of Lowie, Malinowski and others, this paper considers the