Don Marshall undertook 12 expeditions to Polynesia during the period 1951 to 2004, a number of them on behalf of the Peabody Museum, Salem, carrying out research work in Honolulu, Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Samoa, the Australs and the Tuamotus. His field work in the Cook Islands focused on Mangaia.

Marshall was a professional photographer before World War II. He enlisted in the US Army in 1942 and was based in Panama where he developed an interest in the San Blas Cuna Indians and a lifelong passion for anthropology. After the War Marshall studied anthropology at Harvard and in 1951 was awarded a Fullbright scholarship to New Zealand, stopping at Honolulu for a few weeks with Sir Peter Buck who had studied and published a good deal on Mangaia. Marshall carried out fieldwork in Mangaia, including collecting artefacts for the Peabody Museum, in May 1952, February to May 1955, and November 1957 to June 1958. He was awarded a doctorate from Harvard University in 1956. Marshall returned to the Cook Islands in 1976 and 1989.

Marshall was editor of Frank Stimson’s, Songs and Tales of the Sea Kings: interpretations of the oral literature of Polynesia (1957); joint author with Frank Stimson of, Ra’ivavae: an expedition to the most fascinating and mysterious island in Polynesia (1961); joint author and editor of Human Sexual Behavior: variations in the ethnographic spectrum (1971), based on papers presented in 1965; and author of, “Too Much in Mangaia”, in Readings in Human Sexuality: contemporary perspectives, edited by Chad Morgan and Gayle Johnson (1980).

In 1962-1963 Marshall attended the US Army War College then joined the Army General Staff in Washington, serving two tours of duty in Vietnam, working on analyses of US involvement in the war and strategies for the future. He also served as deputy director of the Strategic Arms Limitation (SALT) task force at the Pentagon and as director of strategy and assessment for the Defense Nuclear Agency. He retired in 1976.

From 1980 to 1990 Marshall worked at the University of California, Berkeley on post-doctoral studies in anthropology and linguistics, and later on the Vietnam Project of the Military Conflict Institute. In 1990 he became director of publications and research for Oceania at the Peabody Essex Museum, and editor of Neptune. Ill health forced Marshall to retire a second time in August 2000.

The biographical notes above are from, Rod Dixon (ed.), Captive Images: images of Rarotongans and Mangaians in the 1950s. Photographs by Donald Stanley Marshall, donated by Mira Nan Marshall Virginia, Rarotonga, USP Cook Islands Campus, 2009; a catalogue for an exhibition of Marshall’s photographs on display at the Beachcomber in Avarua Aug-Sep 2009.

Manuscripts, unpublished and rare printed materials in boxes 1.1-1.8, 2.1-2.5, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1-5.5, 6.1-6.5, 9.1-9.5, 10.1-10.3, 12.1-12.4of the D.S. Marshall Papers at the USP Cook Islands Campus, including, for many items, photographic prints where they are held with textual records:
• drafts of Marshall’s Cook Islands publications, including his unpublished paper, Descent, Relationship and Territorial Groups of Mangaia - Kith, Kin and Kindred on Mangaia,
• correspondence relating to Marshall’s Cook Islands fieldwork;
• research papers compiled during Marshall’s Cook Islands field work, including his catalogue of fish and fauna on Mangaia, and materials on songs and music, bibliography and linguistics and kinship;
• publications of the LMS Press on Mangaia;
• E Au Tua Maori, Nos.1-3, c.1946-47, together with a compilation of stories and legends of the Cook Islands by Cook Islander authors;
• Cook Islands Maori dictionaries, word lists and grammars,
• papers by Ron Crocombe on land tenure in the Cook Islands.
• Files on emigration, demographics of the Cook Islands c.1958, ideas for books, Mokoroa Love, field trips to Rarotonga and Mangaia in 1989 and Hawaii 1995.

See also:
PMB 1335 MARSHALL, Donald Stanley (1919-1905), Polynesian Expedition Journals, 1951-1961. Reels 1-4. (Available for reference.)
PMB 1336 MARSHALL, Donald Stanley (1919-1905), Mangaian Census Materials, 1958. Reels 1-2. (Restricted access.)
PMB 1338 EASTMAN, Rev. George Herbert (1881-1974), A Rarotongan-English Dictionary, Compiled 1918. 1 reel. (Available for reference.)
PMB Doc 518 TE KARERE KOIA OKI TE PEPA SOCIETY. With which is incorporated, Fugitive Papers, Edited in Mangaia, The London Missionary Society Press, Mangaia, South Pacific, Nos.4-16 &16, Sep 1898-Jan 1901. 1 reel. (Available for reference.)

See Reel List for detals.