The untimely death of my friend and colleague Frank Stimson occurred shortly before the final draft of this Dictionary was completed. It places upon my shoulders the responsibility of making final decisions. This is peculiarly dismaying to me, for I consider this book to be his greatest contribution to science. Had he been able to make a final critical reading, undoubtedly there would be fewer mistakes, more clarification, and sounder exposition. Now, however, I must attempt to relate the requirements of my final interpretation of Mr. Stimson's wishes to my own standards of scientific exactness and utility.

At least I may take the post-mortem privilege of expressing my admiration for Frank Stimson's achievements. In the face of as yet untold problems, he has created a unique heritage in recording the unwritten literature and culture of the peoples of Central Polynesia. The tens of thousands of pages of his data fill many filing cases at the Peabody Museum of Salem. Yet as with Alfred Kinsey, Earnest Hooton, and other great scientists that I have known, Frank Stimson took with him to his Afterworld a greater store of information than he left behind. This book is but a dim reflection of his full knowledge, for many of the matters which we necessarily dismiss here with a few words, he could expound upon in detail for hours on end. When I first knew him I did not have the background to appreciate this; later, time had ravaged his powers. My failure to extract from his eager yet aging intellect the greatest fruits of his dedicated half century of research weighs heavily upon my conscience.