John Francis Stimson
John Francis Stimson was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on October 3, 1883, to John Ward Stimson and Eleanor Elvira Maxson. He went to school at Phillips Andover Academy, pursued literary and musical interests at Yale without taking a degree, and studied architecture at the Ateliers of the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He had no formal training in either linguistics or anthropology.
Stimson first arrived in Tahiti on vacation in 1912, and remained in French Polynesia until his death. Upon arrival in the islands, Stimson determined to master the local language and commenced to work with Teuira Henry, the noted compiler of Ancient Tahiti. He set himself to learning one hundred Tahitian words each day, and soon had acquired a thorough vocabulary. His primary interests were to study the classical speech and culture of pre-European Polynesia.
In 1918, Stimson completed a Tahitian grammar to be used by the Mormon Mission, an analysis that established his reputation as a Polynesian scholar. By 1923, he was approached by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum (Honolulu, HI) to assist Kenneth P. Emory as a research associate in linguistics for a survey of the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. His assignment was to make a study of the Tuamotuan dialects. As representative for the Bishop Museum, Stimson attended Yale University's first session of the Linguistic Institute in 1928, the same year he was appointed as special editor for Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia of Webster's New International Dictionary (2nd edition). A controversy later arose when Stimson and Emory reached opposing views about the existence of a Tuamotu religious sect of the supreme god, Kiho-Tumu (Kio-Tumu), which ultimately changed Stimson's association with the Bishop Museum.
In 1951, Donald Marshall received a fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY) and the Peabody Museum (Salem, MA) to collaborate with Stimson to make available his forty years of Polynesian linguistic and ethnology research. After the death of Stimson, Marshall completed the editing of the Dictionary of Tuamotuan Dialects, which was published by the Peabody Museum in 1964. A digitized version of the dictionary is available on PEM's Internet Archive page.
Stimson passed away on October 20, 1958, in Punaauia, Tahiti Polynesia, France.
John Francis Stimson
John Francis Stimson was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on October 3, 1883, to John Ward Stimson and Eleanor Elvira Maxson. He went to school at Phillips Andover Academy, pursued literary and musical interests at Yale without taking a degree, and studied architecture at the Ateliers of the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He had no formal training in either linguistics or anthropology.
Stimson first arrived in Tahiti on vacation in 1912, and remained in French Polynesia until his death. Upon arrival in the islands, Stimson determined to master the local language and commenced to work with Teuira Henry, the noted compiler of Ancient Tahiti. He set himself to learning one hundred Tahitian words each day, and soon had acquired a thorough vocabulary. His primary interests were to study the classical speech and culture of pre-European Polynesia.
In 1918, Stimson completed a Tahitian grammar to be used by the Mormon Mission, an analysis that established his reputation as a Polynesian scholar. By 1923, he was approached by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum (Honolulu, HI) to assist Kenneth P. Emory as a research associate in linguistics for a survey of the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. His assignment was to make a study of the Tuamotuan dialects. As representative for the Bishop Museum, Stimson attended Yale University's first session of the Linguistic Institute in 1928, the same year he was appointed as special editor for Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia of Webster's New International Dictionary (2nd edition). A controversy later arose when Stimson and Emory reached opposing views about the existence of a Tuamotu religious sect of the supreme god, Kiho-Tumu (Kio-Tumu), which ultimately changed Stimson's association with the Bishop Museum.
In 1951, Donald Marshall received a fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY) and the Peabody Museum (Salem, MA) to collaborate with Stimson to make available his forty years of Polynesian linguistic and ethnology research. After the death of Stimson, Marshall completed the editing of the Dictionary of Tuamotuan Dialects, which was published by the Peabody Museum in 1964. A digitized version of the dictionary is available on PEM's Internet Archive page.
Stimson passed away on October 20, 1958, in Punaauia, Tahiti Polynesia, France.
