Papers of Theodore B. Wallin - Collection 634

[Note: What follows is a description of the documents in this collection which are available for use at BGC Archives in Wheaton, Illinois, USA. The actual documents are not, in most cases, available online, only this description of them. Nor are they available for sale or rent.]

Table of Contents

Title Page and Restrictions

Brief Description of This Collection

Biography

An Essay on the Contents of the Collection (Scope and Content)

List of the Contents of Boxes of Paper Records in This Collection (Box List)

Collection 634                                                                                                [November 13, 2007]
Wallin, Theodore B.; 1897-1987
Papers; 1932-1979, n.d.
3 boxes (1.2 cubic feet)

Restrictions: None

Brief Description. Unpublished dictionaries, word lists, and unpublished manuscripts about the culture of the Ngbaka people of the Congo, translations of portions of the New Testament in Ngbaka, and autobiographical notes. The documents in the collection reflect Wallin’s research for Bible translation into the Ngbaka language.

Biography

Scope and Content

[Note: In the Scope & Content section, the notation “folder 2-5" means “Box 2, Folder 5"]

Arrangement: Alphabetical by title, titles were supplied by donor and in some cases simplified by archivist
Date Range: 1932?-1979, n.d.
Volume: 1.2 cubic feet
Boxes: 1-3
Geographic coverage: Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo)
Type of documents: Dictionaries, word lists, unpublished manuscripts about Ngbaka culture, Bible translations into Ngbaka, photocopied photographs
Subjects: Ngbaka and Lingala languages, Bible translation, language study by missionaries, Ngbaka culture, and the Ubangi region in the Belgian Congo ca. 1930s
Notes: Wallin’s papers consist of resource materials he and his wife Ella wrote or collected form as the basis for understanding of the Ngbaka culture and for Bible translation into the Ngbaka language. Some of the material grew out of the Wallin’s own experiences and work, but a good portion of the data, perhaps most, was compiled from other published and oral sources of westerners and Nbgakans. Language materials predominate, with some manuscripts in Ngbaka, Lingala, French and English or French. Some of these materials appears to have been compiled in the 1930s in the Congo, but most was gathered together and put in their final form by the Wallins in the mid to late 1960s in Bristol, Pennsylvania. The purpose of the compilation is not completely clear, but they were intended to be used in some way for the study of Ngbaka language and culture, probably in Bible translation.

Most of the materials consist of word lists, giving equivalent English and Ngbaka or Lingala words or phrases for the same concept. These cane be found in folders 1-9 through 2-2; 2-8 through 3-5; and 3-7 to 3-10. The vocabulary list in 3-8 is simply a xerox of one complied by G. Malcolm Guthrie in 1933. Folders 1-1, 1-4 to 1-7, and 2-4 to 2-6 contain notes, photocopies of materials from reference works and lists describing various aspects of Ngbaka geography, environment and culture.

Folder 2-7 contains a New testament in Ngbaka published by the Catholic Church. It is unknown what contribution, if any, the Wallins made to this book. Folder 2-3 contains a translation in Ngbaka of several books of the New Testament in which the Wallins participated in the 1930s.

Folder 1-2 contains a brief autobiographical sketch in which Wallin took his life up to the late 1930s. There is also some information on the Wallins’ life as missionaries in the Congo in the 1930s in the collection of photocopies of caption photographs in folder 3-6. Wallin’s interest in birds is show by his 1970 study of birds in the Ubangi region in folder 1-4 (with information also on birds and mammals) and the manuscript about the birds of Sweden, where Wallin spent his childhood in folder 1-3

Provenance

The materials in this collection were given by Theodore Wallin to Wheaton College, first through professor Dr. Wilbert Norton beginning in 1965, who then passed the initial accessions and then the process to the Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections (WCA&SC) in 1979. In 1987, the documents were transferred to the Archives of the Billy Graham Center due to their relevance to missions history. Correspondence between Wallin and WCA&SC referred to items that were not included in the accession as received by the BGC Archives.

Accession: 87-115
November 13, 2007
Eveline Guehring
Bob Shuster
P. Ericksen

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