Printed report

4 volumes

This early edition of Sylvia Masterman’s, An Outline of Samoan History (67pp., Ts., roneo, maps, appendices), was published by the Western Samoan Education Department in 1958. It consists of 17 chapters, as follows:

1. The Polynesian People
2. Polynesian Voyages
3. Samoa before 1830
4. European Exploration of the Pacific
5. The Coming of Missionaries
6. The Growth of Trade. The Germans in Samoa
7. The United States and Samoa
8. Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand Interests in Samoa
9. Strife in Samoa 1835-1880
10. The Troubled Years 1880-1889
11. An Attempt at International Control 1890-1900
12. German Samoa 1900-1914
13. New Zealand Occupies Western Samoa 1914
14. Western Samoa becomes a mandated territory
15. The Years of the ‘Mau’ 1926-1936
16. Towards Self Government
17. American Samoa

Appendices: 1. Pili the Father of the Samoan Race; 2. The ‘Callipoe’;

3. Robert Louis Stevenson; 4. Volcanic Eruption in Savaii – 1905;
4. Comparative Word List; 6. Chronology; 7. Word List

A later edition was published in Samoan and English in 1980.

Dr and Mrs Miller were missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand on the Island of Tongoa in the Shepherd Group, (New Hebrides), Vanuatu, from 1941 to 1947 when Miller became principal of the Tangoa Teachers Training Institute, on Tangoa Island (not Tongoa) off the coast of Santo Island. In 1952 the Millers took a parish in Auckland, New Zealand, returning to Tangoa in 1971 to set up the Presbyterian Bible College. The left New Hebrides/Vanuatu in 1973.

This typescript manuscript (370pp) is based on the diaries, articles and cultural and topical jottings by the Rev. J. Graham Miller and his wife Flora during their missionary service in Tongoa, Shepherd Islands(Vanuatu), 1941-47. It includes maps, press clippings and reproduces relevant reports, statistics and comments. See also PMB 1012, 1025 and 1028.

This book is not only rare, but also has been printed on very weak paper. The copy held in the Baker Papers (PMB 1203/227) is disintegrating. The copy held by the National Library of Australia, microfilmed here, is in better condition but the paper is very fragile and has cracked in several places. Other surviving copies are also likely to be deteriorating due to the poor quality of the paper. The PMB also has available a digital version of Baker’s Tongan Vocabulary, scanned from this microfilm, converted to text, and searchable.

Baker’s English and Tongan Vocabulary consists of the following parts:
Preface
List of abbreviations
English-Tongan Vocabulary, pp.1-133.
Tongan – English Vocabulary, pp.1-206.
List of Idiomatic Phrases, pp.207-209.
Errata, p.210.
Addenda, p.211.
List of Pronouns Omitted, p.211.
Grammar of the Tongan Language, pp.1-42.