Speak-House - Island of Mariki - Gilbert Islands

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

20234

Title

p. 20, Speak-House or House of Parliament in republican Island of Mariki - Gilbert Islands. Engaged in passing law - Murder - Fine £3 - telling a lie £10.Concealed weapons 4 shillings.

Description

Gilbert Islanders in the act of passing legislation are seated around the side of an open-sided hall, with a very high roof. Tall poles run down the middle of the building, supporting the roof.

The image is from the photograph album entitled 'The Cruise of the Equator' of Robert Louis Stevenson's travels around the Gilbert Islands and Samoa in 1889.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1889

Size

17.4 x 24.5 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

The photographer was either Joe Strong or Lloyd Osbourne.

The Equator (the ship which the Stevensons were travelling on) was at Mariki, or Marakei Island, in the Gilbert Group, from 17th to 20th August, 1889.

The Gilbert Islands (formerly known as the Kingsmill Islands) are a chain of 16 atolls and coral islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Born in Edinburgh on 13th November 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, playwright and travel writer. Although he was plagued by ill health all his life, he was extraordinarily well-travelled, visiting Europe, America and the South Seas. He married American born Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne in 1880 and is best-known for works like Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (both 1886). From the late 1880s, Stevenson stayed in the South Pacific with his family on his own estate in Vailima in Samoa. He died here on the 3rd December 1894 of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 44, leaving what many consider his best work, Weir of Hermiston (1896) unfinished.

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Government > National > Parliaments

Places > Oceania > Gilbert Islands

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