This collection of Tales and Song Texts was made during a stay in Alu and Mono, Bougainville Strait, Western Solomon Islands in 1908-9 for ethnological research. Most of them were taken down from the dictation of the Mono-Alu man Bitiai, a blind man, son of the late chief Big Gorai. The song texts were given from dictation without the music. In the case of eight of the tales, the author had no Mono text. Many of the tales though gathered by Wheeler in Alu or in Mono, come from outside the
This collection of Tales and Song Texts was made during a stay in Alu and Mono, Bougainville Strait, Western Solomon Islands in 1908-9 for ethnological research. Most of them were taken down from the dictation of the Mono-Alu man Bitiai, a blind man, son of the late chief Big Gorai. The song texts were given from dictation without the music. In the case of eight of the tales, the author had no Mono text. Many of the tales though gathered by Wheeler in Alu or in Mono, come from outside the islands in the Bougainville Strait, from Buim (South Bougainville). Mono is known as Treasure Island, Alu as Shorthand Island; with Fauru they may be grouped as the islands of the Bougainville Strait.
