Collected songs and legends from the southern Cook Islands
Prefatory Notes
Prefatory Notes
[Note added by Bob O'Brien as transcriber:]
This part of the collection is in a "standard" notebook (40 pages 150x80mm, lined) but to preserve the notebook Hutchin or Hall had sewn on a cover made from part of a sheet (pages 7, 8) from a newspaper. The dateline is Monday 27 November 1882 and as it contains mainly advertisements for auctions and merchandise with Auckland addresses it itself raises interesting questions about how it came to be used for the purpose. I can't recall if the Hutchins journeyed from Auckland on their initial voyage in 1883. Hall's purple pencil has been used again but Hutchin had a table of contents on the fortieth page. Na Atoni on the front newspaper cover suggests that it was all Hutchin's work. It may have been one of the first anthologies that he assembled. The handwriting is more careful and even. It may have been one of his early exercises to improve his command of the language.
Alexander Turnbull Library MS Papers 4151*38. Transcribed by Bob O'Brien in February/March 1996.