Papers of Henry Evans and Honor Courtney Maude
L. Grimble Papers
This series has been digitised and can be found on the H.E. Maude Digital Archive
Sir Arthur Grimble (1888-1956) was a member of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony Administrative Service from 1914-1932. Particularly during the period from 1922 to 1925, when he was Colony Lands Commissioner, Grimble spent his spare time in ethnographic research, and when Colony Resident Commissioner from 1926 to 1932 he wrote six unpublished papers on aspects of Gilbertese culture.
Grimble had intended to publish the material in a comprehensive work on Gilbertese anthropology, but on leaving the Gilberts his duties as Governor in the Seychelles and West Indies compelled him to postpone this work until his retirement. When he finally retired, however, he turned to broadcasting and literary work, his two books A Pattern of Islands (1952) and Return to the Islands (1957) becoming international best-sellers.
After Grimble's death I gradually collected every unpublished manuscript of his which I could locate, most of them being found in a box lying in the office of 3ohn Hurray, his publishers, and the remainder obtained from his daughter, Rosemary Seligman, Barrie Macdonald, the Western Pacific High Commission archives and other sources.
All these have now been collected and edited for publication under the title Tungaru Traditions, the American edition by the University of Hawaii Press (1989) for the Center for Pacific Island Studies and the Australasian edition by the University of Melbourne Press. The only material difference between the two editions is, however, the wording of the 'Editor's Note' and the pandanus mat jacket on the M.U.P. edition.
In accordance with an undertaking given to the Gilbertese people the source material of Tungaru Traditions is being deposited in the archives of the University of Adelaide. The fieldnotes, in particular, will be of considerable value to future researchers.
1. Reports by and papers relating to Sir Arthur Grimble. 1913-1922. 3cm.
[Copies of official correspondence files of the Colonial Office and Western Pacific High Commission, including Grimble's original application for Colonial Employment, 1913 and for promotion 1926 and 1930; his District Annual reports for 1915/16; reports by Grimble and others on Native Dancing in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, 1919; on the state and administration of the Southern Gilberts 1918-19; on land issues in the Gilberts, 1917-22; on Ocean Island and the London Missionary Society, 1920 [see also on native dancing].]
2. Field notes, original manuscripts, typescripts and copies. 4 cm.
[Adoption; Agricultural rituals; Ancestor cult; Ancestral lands; Animals; Archaeology; Birth; Body care and Adornment; Canoes and Navigation; Conveyances and Inheritance; Death; Gods; History; Magic; The Maneaba; Marriage; Medical practices; Names; Relationships; Social and Political Organisation; Sorcery; Tinaba and Eiriki. Also early notebook on 'Elementary social organisation' compiled c1918 on Abemama.]
3. Papers, typescript and manuscript drafts. 3 cm.
[The Function of the Maneaba; The Historical Content of Gilbertese Mythology; Precedence and Privileges of the Clans in the Maneaba; Traditional Origins of the Maneaba; The Genealogies of the Gilbert Group [A Genealogical Approach to Gilbertese History]; unclassified notes, principally re magic].
Note: These field notes and papers were edited by H.E. and H.C. Maude and published as Grimble, Arthur Francis Tungaru traditions: writings on the atoll culture of the Gilbert Islands, ed. H.E. Maude (Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press; Carlton, Vic., Melbourne University Press, 1989).
4. [Unpublished] Field notes: Games, String figures, Genealogies and Miscellaneous (including Creation myths, Stars, Fish) and manuscript of unpublished articles 'Oral traditions of the origin and migrations of the Gilbertese ancestors' and ‘The Nabanaba line’, undated.
5. Typescript or manuscript originals of papers on Oral traditions published in An anthology of Gilbertese tradition. With typescript list prepared in 1964 by H.E. Maude. 10cm.
6. Text of The Migrations of the Pandanus people parts 1 - 4, with notes and trial drafts and published versions of parts 1-2 from JPS no. 165, 168, 169, 1933/34). n.d. 5cm.
7. Manuscripts of articles by Grimble: 'Canoe crests of the Gilbert Islanders' and ‘The sun and six' (published in Man 21, 1921 and 22, 1922 respectively). 'From birth to death in the Gilbert Islands' (published in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol.51, January 1921) - donated by Ron Verrier May 2015.
See also photographs used in Tungaru traditions, in Part II, Photographs.
8. Notebooks: ‘D.O. Abemama, Travelling notes’, "Vocabulary of words not to be found in Bingham's dictionary’ (2 v.) and ‘Notes, references, etc. for various chapters of book’. 4v.
[These volumes were received later, with Maude’s own Gilbert Islands notes and notebooks. See also Part II, Sections 3-4, Gilbert and Ellice Islands notebooks for other notebooks partly in Grimble’s hand and/or possibly collected by him]