Charles Elliot Fox Papers
Mandeville Special Collections Library
Mandeville Special Collections Library
The UCSD Libraries
9500 Gilman Drive
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093-0175
Phone: (858) 534-2533
Fax: (858) 534-5950
URL: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/
Copyright 2005
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Creator:
Fox, Charles Elliot
Title: Charles Elliot Fox Papers,
Date (inclusive): 1924-0
Extent:
0.60 linear feet
(2 archives boxes)
Abstract: Photostatic copies of papers of a British missionary who served on San Christobal in the Solomon Islands and elsewhere in
Melanesia. Materials consist of Fox's manuscript for a dictionary, grammar, and transcribed tales of the Arosi language of
San Cristobal island, ca 1924; and a dictionary and grammar of the Lau language of Malaita, n.d. The Arosi tales have not
been translated. Also included is a photocopy of Fox's article "Beliefs and Tales of San Cristobal" (1915).
Repository:
University of California, San Diego. Geisel Library. Mandeville Special Collections Library.
La Jolla, California 92093-0175
Collection number: MSS 0018
Language of Material:
Collection materials in English
Access
Collection is open for research.
Acquisition Information
Not Available
Preferred Citation
Charles Elliot Fox Papers, MSS 0018. Mandeville Special Collections Library, UCSD.
Publication Rights
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Biography
Charles Elliot Fox, British missionary in Melanesia, was born in Stalbridge, Dorset, England in 1878. He was educated in
New Zealand and graduated from the University of New Zealand in 1901. In 1902 he received a degree in theology from St. John's
College in Aukland. He joined the staff of the Anglican Melanesian Mission in 1903 and was ordained the same year. During
his more than seventy years of service as a missionary and teacher, Fox lived and worked in most of the islands of the Solomon
chain, on the Banks, and in the New Hebrides.
Fox's activities embraced a much wider field than the customary missionary tasks of teaching and baptizing. During his first
assignment of duty, as housemaster at St. Barnabas School on Norfolk Island, from 1903 to 1911, he was introduced to the new
science of anthropology by the British Anthropologist R.H. Rivers. Fox's association with Rivers, which lasted until Rivers'
death in 1922, contributed to Fox's interest in the scientific study of Melanesian culture.
Fox did much of his work on the island of St. Cristobal, in the Solomon chain, where he lived from 1911 to 1924. There and
elsewhere in Melanesia he acquired a thorough knowledge of many Austronesian languages. He wrote dictionaries of the languages
of Arosi, Mota, Lau, and Gela, and grammars for Arosi and Gela. Fox also published many scientific papers on the comparative
linguistics of the Austronesian languages.
In 1932 Fox declined an offer of the post of Bishop of the Melanesian Missionary Church. In the same year he was admitted
as the only white member to the Melanesian Brotherhood, an Anglican monastic order founded by indigenous Melanesians and dedicated
to the principles of the church. In 1962 Fox's autobiography, Kakamora, was published in London. The title came from the
name of a major spiritual being of the Arosi culture. Fox's last major work, THE STORY OF THE SOLOMONS (1967), was intended
to describe Melanesian culture and history to native schoolchildren. He died in 1974.
Through his anthropological research and his linguistic studies, Charles Fox gained empathy and respect for the culture of
the Melanesians. He took the position that superimposition of English civilization could not effect a permanent conversion
of the Melanesian mind to Christian thinking. Transformation of the Melaniesians, he thought, must begin with the recognition
of the environmental and historical influences that had conditioned their minds.
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers of Charles Elliot Fox consist largely of photostatic copies of two manuscripts: "Dictionary of the Language of
Arosi" and a dictionary of the Lau language. The photostats were sent to Professor Leonard Bloomfield of Yale University
by Lieutenant Commander John Burke, USN, from San Francisco in 1946. The materials were later found in an office at Yale
by Professor Isadore Dyen, who sent them to UCSD in August of 1984.
Fox's "Dictionary of the Language of Arosi" consists of four parts: a bibliography, a grammar, the dictionary, and tales in
the Arosi language. The tales have not been translated into English. Fox compiled the dictionary during his stay on S.
Cristobal from 1911 to 1924. He collected the tales while living in the homes of the island's natives.
Fox wrote the dictionary of the Lau language while working in the mission village at Fouia on the mainland of Malaita. The
actual date of the manuscript is unknown, but the dictionary was published in 1974 by the Linguistic Circle of Canberra (Australia)
in Pacific Linguistics.
Also included in the collection is a photocopy of Fox's article "Beliefs and Tales of San Cristobal," from the Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain 45 (1915), pp. 13-228. Fox incorporated this material in his book THE
THRESHOLD OF THE PACIFIC in 1925.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Fox, Charles Elliot -- Archives
Arosi language
Lau language
Tales -- Solomon Islands
Missionaries -- Solomon Islands
Missionaries -- Melanesia
Solomon Islands -- Languages
San Cristobal (Solomon Islands)
Oceania
Collection Contents
box 1, folder 1
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Bibliography and Grammar
1925 - 1925
box 1, folder 2
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Dictionary
1925 - 1925
box 1, folder 3
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Dictionary
1925 - 1925
box 1, folder 4
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Dictionary
1925 - 1925
box 1, folder 5
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Dictionary
1925 - 1925
box 1, folder 6
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Dictionary
1925 - 1925
box 2, folder 1
Dictionary of the Language of Arosi - Tales
1925 - 1925
box 2, folder 4
Beliefs and Tales of San Cristoval
