Please see PMB 1039 for full entry
This collection (MS 7080, Box 3) consists of the following:
FOLDER 1 - Letters to Lorimer Fison: Items 9-11; George Taplin, 1873: Meru tribe kinship, Murray River; Items 12-19; R.H. Codrington, 1892-3: New guinea and Melanesian languages; Items 20-22; H.M. Jackson, Government House, Suva, 1903; Items 23-24; Wm MacGregor, 1888: New Guinea ethnology and languages; Items 25-37; Basil Thomson, 1893: Fijian culture; recall to London; Items 38-39; A.W. Howitt, 1905; Items 40-41; J.G. Frazer, 1907: Frazer compliments Spencer and Gillen on their work and discusses his plans for an anthropological fund at Liverpool, UK.; Items 42-48; W. Skeat, 1903-4: Fiji/Tonga linguistics; publication of Fison article; Items 49-59; J.B. Thurston, 1872 (incomplete) and 1893; Items 60-61; W.E. Bennett, 1903; Items 62-63; S.E. Peal (incomplete); Items 64-65; Letter from J. Hall, Fison's secretary, to J.G. Frazer, 1905; Item 65a; List of distinguished acquaintances
FOLDER 2 - Correspondence with J.G. Frazer; Item 66-104; 1896-1907: mostly anthropology of Australian Aborigines
FOLDER 3 - Notes and Tables: Item 105-167; Mostly in Fison's hand, includes 7 returned questionnaires. Principal subjects are kinship and language among the Australian Aborigines, but there is also material on Dobu (New Guinea) and Fijian languages. Includes kinship tables for tribes in the Murray River, SA; Murray/Darling; Yorke Peninsula, SA; Omeo & Gippsland, VIC; Jervis Bay, NSW areas.
FOLDER 4 - Articles: Item 168-208; A signed mss copy of 'Land tenure in Fiji': Item 209-224; Fellows, Rev. S.B. 'Grammar of the Pannieti dialect, British New Guinea, together with comprehensive vocabulary'. Proof copy.; Item 225-233; Sketch maps (2) and comparative lists of the vocabulary of New Guinea dialects: Saibai, Uroi, Baribara, Kaura, Moi, Wapi, Ari, Moipalo, Kubilo, A'loto, Bau, Gaiga, Kaipu, Kaurarega, Gudang; Item 234; Note (incomplete) on numerals of New Guinea dialects; Item 235; A comparative vocabulary of New Guinea languages.
FOLDER 5 - Transactions and proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol.X, February 1874; Item 236; On pp.154-179 is Fison's article 'The classificatory system of kinship'. The volume bears the signature of E.M. Curr and his handwritten critique of Fison's article. Also marked in the table of contents is an article, on pp. 100-105, 'Abstract of a paper on Aboriginal art in Australasia, Polynesia, and Oceania, and its decay' by H.E. Pain.

Fison (1832-1907) a university-educated man, with a keen interest in anthropology, was born in Suffolk, England. He migrated to Australia in 1856, joined the Methodist Church, and went to Fiji as a Wesleyan missionary in 1864. He remained in Fiji until 1884, when he returned to Australia and became editor of the Spectator, a Melbourne church paper.

Copies of letters, notes on Fiji customs and personalities, sketches of life in Fiji, and an early draft of Fison's book 'Tales of Old Fiji' (London, 1907). The wording of some of the tales, as recorded in these papers, has been much worked over and occasionally differs in its final form from that in the published versions.