Kupa mai te Tutolu or "Words from Tokelau" is a collection of oral texts covering a wide range of genres from the most formal to the informal. All the texts are presented in Tokelauan, a Polynesian language spoken by about 1600 people on the three Tokelau islands and by about 3000 Tokelauans living in New Zealand, and are accompanied by English translations and extensive notes. Great care has been taken to ensure that the particular characteristics of the oral performances have not been lost. The book combines a traditional philological analysis with empirically oriented, modern linguistic, and anthropological approaches. The combination of in-depth textual studies and a sensitivity to features of performance and context makes this study an original contribution to the field of Polynesian studies.

Exploring the oral traditions of the South Pacific, this work demonstrates that oral media and native cultural forms are vital throughout the South Pacific. It appeals to scholars concerned with the relationships between verbal art, social change, gender, power, and social organization.

Tokelau: A Historical Ethnography is the outcome of more than two decades of intensive and wide-ranging research in and about the three tiny Polynesian atolls known as Tokelau. The book is both a comparative ethnographic study of the islands of Tokelau and a narrative record of their past. The ethnographic study is set in the years around 1970, and local narratives and records complement foreign documents to tell the separate and combined stories of the atolls traditional, contact, and colonial pasts. Throughout, the differences and interrelationships between the three places are highlighted.