Records of the Societe de Etudes Oceaniennes:

1. Orders of the day of the Commanding Officer, Iles Sous le Vent, Society Islands, January-February, 1897.
2. Miscellaneous documents on Huahine and Raiatea, 1879-1891.
3. Notes on the ethnology of the Marquesas Islands by C. Noury, Capitaine de Fregate, Commandant of the Nukuhiva station, November 2, 1849. (Human sacrifice and The Origin of Fire in Marquesan and French).
4. Documents on the ethnology of the Society Islands gathered by C.F. Lavaud, Capitaine de Vaisseau, Commissaire de la Republique, Society Islands - dated July 16, 1849, and September 20, 1849 (Tahitian and French).
5. Genealogy of Ma'i, by Rene Calinaud, magistrate, Papeete, July 23, 1966.
6. Report on a mission to the Gambier Islands by Cdt. de la Motte Rouge, February, 1871.
7. Letters on the smallpox epidemic at Nukuhiva and Uapou, Marquesas, 1863. (Originals in Bishop Museum, Honolulu).
8. The Old Orsmond Manuscript.
9. Legend of the Lizard Mo'orea by the Chief of Mai'ao (French and local language).
10. Letter of Commandant Maxime Destremau, December 2, 1914. (Destremau was the commander of the French warship 'Zelee' when the German raiders 'Scharnhorst' and 'Gneisenau' bombarded Papeete on September 22, 1914).
11. An official document thanking the men who rescued the victims of the German raider 'Seeadler' from Mopelia Atoll in 1917.
12. Notes on the inland route from Papenoo to Mataiea, Tahiti, by M. Jay.
13. Report on lands owned by the Pomare Family, compiled by a secretary of Queen Pomare IV (in Tahitian).
14. Legends of the Society Islands and other papers.
15. Useful plants of Tahiti, by Edouard Butteaud.

Sir Arthur Grimble went to the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) as a cadet administrative officer in 1914 and became Resident Commissioner in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in 1925 - 1933. He was posted to the West Indies in 1936, retiring 1948. Grimble died in London on December 13, 1956. Grimble devoted much of his spare time in the Gilberts to collecting the myths, legends and oral traditions of the local people. Those recorded on this microfilm were collected between about 1916 and 1930.

Gilbertese myths, legends and oral traditions (643 pages). A detailed list appears at the beginning of the microfilm. It includes creation myths, voyaging tales, songs, especially of ancient voyages and war, spells and witchcraft practices.
See Finding aids for details.

The Rev. John R. Metcalfe (1889-1970) was born in Yorkshire and served as a Methodist missionary in the Solomon Islands for 37 years. He served as a home missionary in Great Britain before moving to Victoria in 1914. He became a candidate for the Methodist ministry in 1916, and after being ordained was appointed to the Solomon Islands in 1920. After a brief period at Roviana, he was appointed to Choiseul (also, Lauru) as assistant to the Rev. V. LeC. Binet. Apart from four years at Teop, he remained on Choiseul until 1951. During the war, he served as a Coastwatcher. He became chairman of the Methodist Mission in the Solomons in 1951, a post he held until he retired to Australia in 1957. He continued to take an active interest in the mission until his death.

From time to time during his career in the Solomon Islands, Metcalfe wrote long, descriptive newsletters to friends overseas which he called general letters. They were invariably typewritten. Apparently several carbon copies of each letter were sent out. Those on this microfilm were written in the following years: 1920 (2), 1921 (2), 1922 (1), 1924 (1), 1925 (1), 1926 (1), 1927 (1), 1929 (1), 1936 (2), 1937 (2), 1938 (2), 1939 (1), 1941 (1), 1946 (2), 1947 (2), 1948 (1), 1950 (1).

The Rev. John R. Metcalfe (1889-1970) was born in Yorkshire and served as a Methodist missionary in the Solomon Islands for 37 years. He served as a home missionary in Great Britain before moving to Victoria in 1914. He became a candidate for the Methodist ministry in 1916, and after being ordained was appointed to the Solomon Islands in 1920. After a brief period at Roviana, he was appointed to Choiseul as assistant to the Rev. V. LeC. Binet. Apart from four years at Teop, he remained on Choiseul until 1951. During the war, he served as a Coastwatcher. He became chairman of the Methodist Mission in the Solomons in 1951, a post he held until he retired to Australia in 1957. He continued to take an active interest in the mission until his death in 1970.

A collection of 39 articles with the following titles: Lauru; The Three Brothers; Harry Raeno; Stephen Gandepeta; The Two Friends; Timothy Loe; Solomon Damusoe; Methodism in the Marovo; A Footnote to Rickenbacker; The Vurulata Senga Feud; Pioneering on Choiseul; The Gumi Family; Methodism on Guadalcanal; The Helena Goldie Hospital; The Melanesian Cargo Cult; Our Time at Teop; Osea Tambipunda; How the Lauruans met the Japanese; Thoughts on Etoism; Aola Methodism; San Marcos or Choiseul Island; The Fisherman who Got Lost; Sub-Hospital No.3; The Coming of the Uniform; The Coming of the Aeroplane; Christmas in the Battle Area; Broadcast at Honiara (8/4/51); How I Left Munda; The Methodist Church and the Development of North-East Bougainville; How the Japanese Descended on Lauru; The Beginning of the Kamanga Tribe; The Problem of the Tropical South Pacific; Co-operation in the Solomon Islands District; My Years as Chairman; Vangunu: The Tragedy at Egolo... Rendova; and three broadcasts made in August and September, 1943, entitled Readings from a Missionary's Diary.

Heinrich Neffgen was Government Interpreter in Samoa in 1916. At that time, Samoa was under New Zealand military occupation.

The papers comprise two documents:

1. An English translation of a report on Samoa by Dr W.H. Solf, the first Governor of German Samoa. The report contains general notes, notes on the Protestant and Roman Catholic missions, and notes on the advisability of not attempting to colonise Samoa with small people from Germany. The report was written for the Imperial Colonial Office in Berlin, but, according to a note by Neffgen, it was not forwarded, as a result of an order dated November 21, 1907
2. Six Samoan sketches by Neffgen entitled: 1. The Samoan race; 2. Fa'asamoa; 3. The Prescriptive Law of the Samoans; 4. On invectives - Upu Palauvale; 5. Samoan High Titles and the Distribution of Fine Mats; 6. On Aitus.

This work is a dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Education, University of Southampton, in December, 1968. The author was Chief Inspector of Schools and Deputy Director of Education for the Government of the Cook Islands from November 1962 to June 1967.

The thesis is concerned with the function of education in relation to the contemporary development of the Cook Islands. These islands were granted internal self-government in 1965 after being administered by New Zealand since 1901. The purpose of the thesis is to illustrate educational principles involved in the emergent territories of the Pacific. Social, political and economic aspects of the Cook Islands community are examined historically and in their present operation.

Henderson and Macfarlane Ltd., one of Aotearoa/New Zealand's best-known firms, was founded in Wellington (then called Port Nicholson) in 1840 by two Scottish immigrants, Thomas Henderson and John Macfarlane. The company exported timber, mainly kauri, and established its own shipping line. In the 1870's, the company became interested in the Pacific Islands trade and established a number of trading stations and coconut plantations. These were sold to Burns Philp, Lever Bros., and the Pacific Islands Company in the first years of the 20th century.

The unpublished history consists of 33 typewritten foolscap pages. It describes the establishment of the company, its Circular Saw Shipping Line and Pacific Island trade interests and mentions some well-known Pacific personalities such as Handley Bathurst Sterndale and 'Bully' Hayes; the 'siege' of the Suwarrow fort built by Sterndale and which he refused to leave after a difference of opinion with the company; Henry Mair's attempts to persuade Sterndale to leave and their subsequent 'smoking out' by Captain Fernandez of the schooner Kreimhilda who was sent to bring Sterndale back. Also mentioned is the 1890 Pacific cruise of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife on the company iron-screw cargo boat Janet Nichol described in Mrs Stevenson's book published in 1915. The history takes the story of Henderson and Macfarlane down to the year 1902, by which time J.L. Young had entered the firm as a partner and the day of free and unrestricted trading in the Islands was ending.
See also the Bureau's newsletter Pambu Oct. 1969:15 pp. 6-10.