Research Library / Appendices to the Journals of the House

Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives: the Cook Islands papers

The annual reports, despatches and select committee papers that New Zealand’s Parliament printed on the Cook Islands, known as the “A to Js”. The whole run from 1858 to 1950 can be browsed by session, volume or section at the Parliament’s Historic Journals of the House; the Cook Islands reports sit mostly in the A series (External Affairs and the Islands). The papers the series relies on are given here as they are reached, with a list of every Cook Islands paper to follow with Volume 4.

The papers held

AJHR 1896 A-3, Report No. 19, F. J. Moss to the Governor, 18 November 1895, with Enclosure No. 1: Report on the Succession of Arikis, 5 November 1895 (p. 27)

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Report on the Succession of Arikis: the Mode of Election and of Installation, adopted by the Ariki Council of Rarotonga on 5 November 1895 and agreed by the elected House on 15 November 1895; the Council’s own statement of the custom: election and installation by the kōpū ariki and the mata‘iapo. Cited in Volume 2, Chapters 24 to 26, and relied on in the Makea Nui applications of 2026 (record G).

Cook Islands Customary Law

The customary law, history and land of the Southern Cook Islands, from the records and from the people who kept them.

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Cover of Volume One: an engraved portrait of a Cook Islands man
Cover of Volume Two: a large group of Rarotongans in traditional dress
Cover of Volume Three: an engraving of a mission house among palms
Cover of Volume Four: Pa Ariki, Queen Makea, Hon C H Mills and Tinomana Ariki, photographed by G A Read
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