For many years it has been the policy of this annual journal to reflect on developments in influences impacting on Australian folk culture - from the more immediate 'Pacific' field, and so to indicate some of the ways in which our predominantly Australian research and linked interests in lore and custom are likely to acknowledge and, if appropriate embrace aspects of these different but impacting cultures. Necessarily the greater themes are then and subsequently to be indicated and duly explored by such studies as we are able to solicit, assess, and, if appropriate, publish. Thus we have a cluster of such research essays towards the beginning of the present annual volume.