Pacific's
pp. 81-83 · Read in the full issue
Out Of The
Past
Manuscript dictionaries on Islands languages, a collection of newspaper clippings in Polish on Micronesia, a series of private diaries spanning nearly half a century, patrol reports from pre-war New Guinea, and a large collection of papers relating to the reign of King George Tupou II of Tonga are among the latest docu ments to have been recorded for posterity on microfilm.
They are now among more than 550 titles in the Pacific Manuscript Bureau’s manuscript series.
One of the Island dictionaries, the work of the Rev G. H. Eastman, an LMS missionary in the Cook and Gilbert Islands for many years, was sent to the Pacific Manuscript Bureau for filming just before its compiler died in England late last year at the age of 92.
It is a Rarotongan-English dic tionary, which Mr Eastman compiled between 1913 and 1918 ‘partly as a means of obtaining a fluent use of the language, and partly as a hobby’.
In 1918, the New Zealand Govern ment decided to publish it, as no published Rarotongan dictionary then existed. However, because of short ages of labour and materials, the project fell through. According to the compiler, a copy of the diction ary later formed the basis of Stephen Savage’s A Dictionary of the Maori Language of Rarotonga, which was published posthumously by the De
partment of Island Territories, Wel lington, in 1962. The Eastman dic tionary should therefore be of con siderable value to Cook Islands linguists in particular and Polynesian linguists in general.
Two other Islands dictionaries that have been filmed recently were ob tained under the bureau’s Papua New Guinea Records Project. A few copies of both were multigraphed from script in the eighties of last century. But copies are now ex tremely rare.
One dictionary is of the Duke of York Island language of New Britain. It was compiled by three of the first Methodist missionaries in that area—the Revs George Brown* Benjamin Danks and Isaac Rooney —and is accompanied by a grammar.
The copy filmed was once owned by Rooney and has manuscript additions and corrections by him.
The other dictionary is of the New Britain dialect. It is the work of the Rev R. H. Rickard, a Method ist missionary, who went to New Britain in 1882. Some letters and other papers written by his wife were filmed in 1968.
Other material on Papua New Guinea filmed recently includes: • Patrol reports and other papers, of a former senior Administration official, Mr I. K. McCarthy, now of Melbourne. They cover the years 1926-52 when he was a patrol officer and later district officer in New Guinea. • Press clippings on Papua New Guinea covering the years 1967- 73. The clippings fill 49 reels of film. They were copied in the now-defunct Department of Ex ternal Territories, Canberra, just before it ceased to exist in De cember last year. • The reminiscences of Henry Dex ter, a storekeeper in Papua from 1910 to 1936.
O Reminiscences of Mr J. D.
O’Neill, of Buderim, Queensland, a prospector in New Guinea in the ’thirties.
The diaries and other papers of John T. Arundel, a dominating figure in the Pacific phosphate and copra industry from 1870 until his death in 1919 were filmed in March this year.
The papers relating to the reign of King George Tupou II of Tonga were brought to Australia from Tonga by Mrs Eseta Fusitua, who has been working on a thesis on that topic. The papers include Tonga Cabinet and Privy Council minutes for 1898-1920 and a few files con
cerning the reign of Queen Salote Tupou 111.
The newspaper clippings in Polish referred to above are clippings of articles by the Polish ethnologist Jan Kubary, who was employed by J. C. Godeffroy and Son to carry out scientific work in Micronesia and Polynesia. The clippings cover the period 1873-80 and relate to the Caroline, Cook, Ellice and Marshall Islands, Samoa and Tokelaus. A film of the clippings was made available to the bureau by Dr Saul Riesenberg of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington.
Two diaries of labour-recruiting voyages to New Caledonia and the New Hebrides have been filmed.
They were kept by W. G. Farquhar, a farmer at Maryborough, Queens land, who made his first voyage in the schooner City of Melbourne in November 1870-January 1871 to re cruit labourers for himself and other Maryborough farmers. On his second
voyage, beginning in September
1871, Farquhar was a government agent under the Polynesian Labourers’ Act of 1868. He made his second voyage in the schooner Petrel. His diaries give some vivid glimpses of the labour trade.
Another useful diary is that of George H. Bardsley, a carpenter, of Brisbane, who built the first houses at the Methodist Mission at Dobu, D’Entrecasteaux Islands, Papua. The diary covers the period 21 June 1891 to 24 January 1892.
Other mission material added to the bureau’s growing list in recent months comprises: • The minute books of the Over seas Missions Department of the Methodist Church of New Zea land, 1903-55. The books cover the activities of New Zealand missionaries in the Solomon Islands from 1902, and, more re cently, in Papua New Guinea. • Minute books of the Tangoa Training Institution, Tangoa, New Hebrides, April 1947-October 1970. (This institution was estab lished by the Presbyterian Miss ion to the New Hebrides in 1895 as a training centre for New Heb ridean teachers. Other records of the institution were filmed in 1969). • The diaries of two Mormon missionaries to Hawaii, Simpson Montgomery Molen and his wife Mrs Jane Hyde Molen. The diary of the first-named covers the period 17 September 1857-3 Janu ary 1858—part of a term of three years and three months that Molen then spent in Hawaii. The
second diary, kept by Mrs Molen, is for a much later period, May 1876-February 1877, when Molen, having married, returned to Hawaii for a second term. He and his wife were stationed at Laie, Oahu. © An account by a French Marist missionary, Father Paul Mon tauban, of life on Buka, Solomon Islands, during the Japanese oc cupation of World War 11. It is entitled Trois Ans de Captivite a Buka and covers the period March 1942-September 1945.
Montauban was one of three Marist missionaries who re mained on Buka while the Japan ese were there. He spent more than forty years on the island, from 1914 to 1958, Two films of interest to the nau tically-minded contain (1) the jour nals of one Samuel Hill, who made two voyages to the Pacific in the ships Ophelia and The Packet in the period 1815-22, and (2) a pro visional index to source material on British naval vessels in the Pacific Islands, 1800-1900. The Navy index was sponsored by the Pacific Manu scripts Bureau and compiled by Mrs Catherine Dengate, of Canberra. It is in alphabetical order by ship, and gives the captain’s name, description of the vessel, period of voyage, the location of published and unpub lished accounts, and the vessel’s itinerary, particularly in the Pacific Islands. The index does not claim to be exhaustive, but it should prove to be a useful research tool.
Two manuscripts which emanated from the Cook Islands are an un published novel entitled White Natives, by Julian Hillas (ie the late Julian Dash wood of Mauke) and a diary edited by Mr W. H. Watson of Rarotonga, entitled William Oliver, Yeoman.
Watson says in an introduction to the latter work that Oliver left Devonshire, England, to seek his fortune in Australia in the early 1860 s. The narrative is ‘an account of his adventures taken almost word for word from a diary kept between 1862 and 1892’. The narrative gives an informative account of life in Rarotonga and the Society Islands at that time.