424 pp. May 1989
cloth, ISBN 978-0-8248-1217-1, $25.00
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Keywords: |
Pacific
Micronesia
history
anthropology |
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Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands
by Arthur Francis Grimble
ed. by H. E. Maude
Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 7
Center for Pacific Islands Studies, UH
“A significant contribution to scholarship and a welcome resource for all students interested in understanding Tungaru civilization.” —American Anthropologist
H.E. Maude has been connected with the Pacific ever since 1927, when he read for honours in anthropology at Cambridge, University. Fascinated by the romance of the south seas portrayed in literature, he joined the British Colonial Service in 1929 and, trained by Arthur Grimble, became a district officer in charge of the southern Gilberts. He eventually succeeded Grimble as administrator of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (now the Republic of Kiribati and Dominion of Tuvalu), the only anthropologist ever to administer a British territory.
Anticipating the collapse of colonialism Maude then joined the newly founded international South Pacific Commission. Upon retirement he realized his ultimate ambition by being appointed a Senior (later Professorial) Fellow in the Research School of Pacific Studies of the Australian National University, where he assisted in the development of the Department of Pacific Islands History.
Maude’s work has taken him to all the main groups in Polynesia and most of those in Mircronesia and Melanesia. This has resulted in over a hundred publications on Pacific history, ethnography, literature, and bibliography, including Of Islands and Men and Slavers in Paradise.
“This volume...is the first anthropological monograph in the series, and it bring together two names that are well known to students of the Pacific, Sir Arthur F. Grimble and Harry E. Maude.... this monograph completes a work that Grimble did not complete, and it is Maude’s hope that it “will serve to establish Grimble’s reputation as the pioneer ethnographer who discovered and recorded” many of the main features of Gilbertese society. It is clear that Maude has succeeded in the task he set for himself. The resulting monograph is a meticulous piece of scholarship and an obvious labor of love.” —from the Editor’s Note
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