The Memoirs Of

Ariitaimai

Letter to the Editor FOR the information of your many readers, may I be allowed to add the following facts to the interesting article, by Mr. Eric Ramsden, on the above volume, which appeared in your April number. The book is indeed rare, but I can account for two. 1. —Upon the death of Tati (II), the eldest brother of Queen Marau, his effects were put up at auction, amongst them a copy of the Memoirs, which was purchased by Doctor Sasportas, a resident on the island, who most generously presented it to the Papeete Museum, where it is to day housed. 2.—lrene Salmon (her native name is Teeeva), one of his daughters, also owned a copy, which I was loaned, upon my arrival on Tahiti. Realising its value (which she did not), I impressed upon her the necessity of taking care when she loaned it. Some five years back, she told me woefully that a passing tourist from the Americas, who had lodged in her boarding-house, had assured her, not only of its high value, but that if handed to him he would secure a handsome sum for the volume. She passed it over, and since then neither man nor book nor cash has been heard of. She died, deeply regretting her folly.

This edition is not the first or only edition. 1893. —The first edition was entitled “Memoirs of Marau Ta’aroa, last Queen of Tahiti. Privately printed, 1893." No copy is known to exist to-day. How many were printed, by whom, and where, is also un known. Tati II is said to have possessed a MS of it in the Tahitian language, as their mother gave it to them by word of mouth. My fellow octogenarian, Mr.

Arthur Brander, their nephew, who was educated in Scotland, has informed me that he took part in its translation; but no copy of the printed book came to him, as he was by then abroad. Marau distri buted them amongst the numerous mem bers of her family—the Salmons —and all are lost. 1901. —The Bishop Museum m Honolulu has two “typed” copies of the edition, printed in Paris, under the supervision of the American tourist, Henry Adams. In a note attached to the copies, Marau states that she requested Adams to change the title and use her mother’s name as the one from whom she had received the in formation. Whether or not he used these “typed” copies and duly returned them to Marau is unknown. 1923. —Marau, finding fault with portions of the printed edition, compiled a fresh manuscript, assisted by a Mrs. Handy, but for an unknown cause refused to have it published, and this MS has disappeared, like its predecessor of 1893. . Ariitaimai was not the native name given her by her parents. This was Ariioehau (Chieftainess of Peace). The name by which she is known was assumed by her on her marriage to Alexander Salmon, when Queen Pomare IV gave Salmon the name for him (and his Wife) of Arii-tai-mai (the chief who came from over the sea). She was born in 1822, married in 1840, and died in 1895. Marau, the transcriber of her mother’s Memoirs, was born in 1860, married in 1875, and died in 1935.

I am, etc.,

W. W. Bolton.

Tahiti, 1/8/45.