Migrations, Myth and Magic from the Gilbert Islands (Grimble)

A collection of Gilbertese (i-Kiribati) oral traditions recorded by colonial administrator and ethnographer Arthur Grimble during his decades in the Gilbert Islands in the early twentieth century, edited and published posthumously by his daughter Rosemary Grimble in 1972. It preserves creation narratives centered on the spider-being Nareau, genealogical chants and magical practice as told to Grimble by named Gilbertese informants. Its strength is direct transcription from island narrators at a period when the traditions were still actively transmitted. Its limit is that it reaches readers through a colonial administrator's selection and translation rather than a native-language critical edition.