Polynesia

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Baskets in Polynesia by Wendy Arbeit and Douglas Peebles. Recommended retail price $19.95, our price $18.

Baskets in Polynesia provides an overview of baskets made throughout central Polynesia from the time of early European contact to the present, observing and comparing regional similarities and differences over the course of 200 years.

Once baskets played an integral part in every day life in Polynesia, while still alive and well, plastic bags are more commonly in use. Sadly, the old folk are often the only people who know how to make some varieties of basket. Some of this knowledge is preserved in Baskets in Polynesia. The superb black and white photos by Douglas Peebles are a good a reason as any to buy this book. Soft cover, 116 pages.

Developments in Polynesian Ethnology edited by Alan Howard and Robert Borofsky. Published by University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 082481181X. Recommended retail price $X.

Developments in Polynesian Ethnology assesses the state of anthropological research in Polynesia by examining the debates and issues that shape the disciplne today. What have anthropologists achieved?

This book is both an introduction to Polynesia for interested students and a thought-provoking synthesis for scholars charting new directions and posing possibilities for future research. Scholars outside Polynesian studies will find the perspectives it offers important and its comprehensive bibliography an invaluable resource. Hard cover, 373 pages. Published in 1989.

From Darkness to Light In Polynesia by William Wyatt Gill. Published by the Institute of Pacific Studies. Recommended retail price $24.

It is a very interesting circumstance that songs still exist in the native language, describing the visit of Captain Cook to the Hervey Group in 1777.  The originals, with a translation, are given in this volume.  These Historical Sketches with Illustrative Songs will be of interest to students of ethnology and others.  

This volume was first printed in London in 1894 by the Rev. William Wyatt Gill, LL.Dl author of “Myths and Songs From the South Pacific,” “Jottings From the Pacific,” “Life in the Southern Isles,” etc and has been reprinted by the Institute of Pacific Studies in 1984, 1989 and 1994. Soft cover,       383 pages. Reprinted in 1994.

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Slavers in Paradise by H. E. Maude. Recommended retail price $15, our price $13.

This book is about the Peruvian labour trade in Polynesia, 1862-1864. Some of the stories are quite harrowing and provide further evidence of the horrific impact Europeans had on Polynesians and their culture. Author Harry Maude has examined manifests and other historical records to weave a fascinating tale of brutality, coercion, deceit and ultimately outrage.

Maude has been connected with the Pacific Islands ever since 1927, when he read for honors in anthropology at Cambridge University, specializing in the social organization of the islanders. Fascinated by the romance of the South Seas, as portrayed in its literature, Maude joined the British Colonial Service as District Officer in the Gilbert Islands in 1929, and later became Chief Lands Commissioner and eventually Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Colony (now the Republics of Kiribati and Tuvalu), the only anthropologist ever to administer a British territory.

Maude has now retired to complete his own writings on the island world, which continues to enthrall him as much as it did over half a century ago. Soft cover, 246 pages.

Click below for islands and countries of Polynesia

Click below for links to related books.

Art of Tonga, The by Keith St Cartmail

Australia and the Islands of the Pacific: Myths and Wonders of the Southern Seas by Marco Moretti

Cook Islands Legends retold by Jon Jonassen

Greenstone Trails: The Maori and Pounamu by Barry Brailsford

Kava: Nature’s Answer to Stress, Anxiety, and Insomnia by Hyla Cass, M.D. and Terrence McNally

Legends From the Atolls by Kauraka Kauraka

Lost Reality by Fepai F.S. Kolia

Pacific Tapa by Roger Neich; Mick Pendergrast with photos by Krzysztof Pfeiffer

Romancing the Islands: Journeys in the South Pacific by Kim Gravelle

Samoan Archipelago, Field Guide to the : Fish Wildlife and Protected Areas by Meryl Rose Goldin

Samoans, The: A Global Family by Frederic Koehler Sutter

Samoan Word Book and tape by Aumua Mataitusi Simanu and Luafata Simanu Klutz, illustrated by Regina Meredith Malala

Silent Migration, The; stories of urban migration as told to Patricia Grace, Irihapeti Ramsden and Jonathan Dennis

Song of the Stone by Barry Brailsford

Songmaker's Chair, The by Albert Wendt

South Pacific Islands by Joan Beard

South Pacific Islands, Nelles Guide by Michael Brillat

Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa

Tapa in Tonga by Wendy Arbeit

Tattooed Land, The by Barry Brailsford

Time and Tide: The Islands of Tuvalu by Peter Bennetts and Tony Wheeler

Tonga~Samoa Handbook by David Stanley

Typee by Herman Melville

Vaka: Saga of a Polynesian Canoe by Tom Davis

Works of Ta’unga: Records of a Polynesian Traveller in the South Seas 1833-1896, The by Ron & Marjorie Crocombe

Last modified on Thursday, January 04, 2007