Pacific Islands

Original research on the still surviving traditional polynesian skills of ocean going canoe construction and handling, seafaring and navigation employed in inter island voyaging. The field research was done on Anuta in 1972-3.

Kent State University Press, Ohio, USA, 1988. Hardback with dust jacket. 210 pages. SECONDHAND

Body Trade, Captivity, Cannibalism and Colonialism in the Pacific, Otago University Press, 2001. Essays on the ‘traffic’ in human bodies in the Pacific from the 18th century until today. International scholars examine the ‘captive body’ as it is represented in a range of media from Captain Cook’s journals and Melville’s novels to popular culture and film. This book , exposes the myths surrounding the trade in heads, cannibalism, captive white women, the display of indigenouse people in fairs and circuses, Australia’s stolen generations, the ‘comfort’ women and the making of the exotic/erotic body.

Softback, Illustated, 320 pages.  NEW

Islanders The Pacific in the Age of Empire. Author Nicholas Thomas presents an alternative to the long held view that Pacific Islanders were utterly exploited by colonial powers during the age of empire. Using previously unused archives he documents the period to 1900 from the point of view of Pacific Islanders themselves to reveal a world of Islander explorers, traders, sailors, whalers, warriors, priests and migrants.  

Yale University Press, 2010. Hardback with dust-jacket, illustrated, 336 pages. NEW

Showcasing over 250 examples from throughout the Pacific from the collection of the Auckland Museum these beautiful pieces of jewellry convey important aspects of status and power in traditional Pacific societies. Beautiful illustrations.

Bateman Publishers. Softback. 190 pages. NEW.

Essays by various authors on Pacific material culture, past and present, with broad themes of origins, the movement of peoples and development of their technologies. A thoroughly up to date and wide ranging survey.

Otago University Press, Dunedin, 2007. Hardback with dust jacket. 319 pages. NEW

An extensive and scholarly illustrated account of investigations and excavations in the islands by the Canterbury Museum and the Royal Society of New Zealand between 1962-69.

Canterbury Museum Trust Board, Christchurch, 1974. Softback. 155 pages. SECONDHAND

A classic account of the ethnology and material culture of the Cook Islands by the great NZ scholar Sir Peter Buck. Illustrated, folding map. A beautiful copy.

Board of Maori Ethnological Research (Volume I), New Plymouth, 1927. Hardback, no dust jacket as issued. 384 pages. SECONDHAND

The stoy of New Zealand colonial rule in Samoa from 1914 and the confrontation with the Samoa independence movement known as the Mau, including the tragic episode of 1929 when NZ police shot dead 9 unarmed protesters. A little known aspect of NZ history.

A.H. and A.W. Reed Ltd., Wellington, 1984. Hardback with dust jacket. 262 pages. SECONDHAND

Prepared for the Gilbert, Phoenix and Line islands becoming the independent nation of Kiribati and deals with myth, pre colonial and colonial history of the islands and their people. Illustrated.

Ministry of Education, Tarawa, Kiribati, 1979. Softback. 212 pages. SECONDHAND

The Frangipani is Dead. Contemporary Pacific Art In New Zealand by Karen Stevenson. This book offers a contextual understanding of the contemporary Pacific art movement in New Zealand and includes 88 full colour plates of Pacific art.

Paperback. 228 pages. NEW.