The spine of the notebook is marked Gambier. The main portion (70 pages) includes a copy of a Gambier-French vocabulary obtained from Father Louis Désiré Maigret, at one time a Roman Catholic missionary on Mangareva. There is also a note concerning infanticide in Hawaii from an article by the Rev. J. S. Emerson and notes on Ascension taken from G. W. Punchard and a related wordlist. There are notes from a journal of a Englishman named Smith, an English rendering of parts of the Maigret vocabulary, and the Lord's prayer in Mangareva.
Biographical / Historical:
Hale was the ethnologist on the Wilkes Expedition (United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1845.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 7441
Local Note:
The material was identified by the handwriting of Horatio Hale. In Hale's Ethnology and Philology (volume 6 of the report of the Wilkes Expedition [United States Exploring Expedition]), the Maigret vocabulary is mentioned and one of its terms and an explanatory definition is singled out for quotation. This together with the appearance of Maigret's name (Christian name in Latin form) provides the identification of the vocabulary.
Manuscript document
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
