Elsdon Best and the metamorphosis of Måori spirituality. Te painga rawa o ngå ao rua

478 Pages·2007·9.13 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

Best of both worlds: Elsdon Best and the metamorphosis of Måori
spirituality. Te painga rawa o ngå ao rua: Te Peehi me te putanga
k∂ o te wairua Måori.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Måori in the University of Canterbury

by

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

University of Canterbury

2007
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Contents.
Abstract. 3-4.

Introduction. 5-17.

Chapter 1. “New Zealand and the People without History”: Post-colonial
Discourse Theory and Literature Review. 18-84.

Chapter 2. Early intellectual influences on Best: visions of the primitive
mind. 86-122.

Chapter 3. Tuhoe into Print: Best’s writing life in the Urewera, 1895-1910.
123 -193.

Chapter 4. Best and Nature: the origins of a localised Romanticism in his
popular writings. 194-227.

Chapter 5. The Måori according to Best: “Ka tø he rå, ka ura he rå!”. 228-
275.

Chapter 6. Tutakangahau on the record: historicizing a Måori informant.
276-329.

Chapter 7. Best’s bequest: mauri in Best, and the post-mortem literature.
330-376.

Conclusion. 377-381.

Acknowledgements/Mihimihi. 382.

Appendices. 383-458.

Bibliography. 459-477.
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3

Abstract.

Best of both worlds: Elsdon Best and the metamorphosis of Måori spirituality.
Te painga rawa o ngå ao tokorua: Te Peehi me te putanga k∂ o te wairua
Måori.

This thesis is a study in the history of ideas in late 19th and early 20th century
New Zealand: it examines the writings and correspondence of the Påkehå
ethnographer, Elsdon Best, and his principal Tuhoe source, Tutakangahau of
Maungapohatu. His intellectual influences are analysed, especially the
writings of Edward Tylor and Max Müller, and their views on socio-cultural
evolution, human progress, and a myth-making stage in humanity’s
development. Such mentors combined to produce Best’s over-riding literary
image: the mythopoetic Måori. The study charts his transformation from field
anthropologist to government ethnographer at the Dominon Museum
(Wellington), arguing that Best is the father of received versions of Måori
culture.

The work traces Tutakangahau’s history in published sources and official
correspondence, to evince the political reality in which Måori were fully
engaged. This conflicts with Best’s romantic vision of the surviving “oldtime
Maori” as yesterday’s men. By writing of Måori as primitive survivals, Best
managed to both exoticise and detemporalise his subjects. The sources are his
articles, correspondence, notebooks and published monographs; in
Tutakangahau’s case, letters and reports in the AJHR. The thesis questions
the political argument that Best has misrepresented Måori, presenting him
instead as the author of modern visions of Måori authenticity.
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Best sought a lost Måori being (ontology), obliterated by colonisation; the
essential, pre-contact Måori psyche he described has remained active and
pervasive in subsequent literature. His views have been absorbed into a
reconstructed authentic Måori being, based on tradition - particularly in the
post WW2 Måori renaissance. Many advocates of such essentialism seem
unaware of the presence of Best’s image of Måori authenticity in their
writings. The study argues that there is no possibility of a late 19th century
Måori epistemology unmediated by Påkehå influence. Through an evidential
examination of Best’s use of sources, a metamorphosis of views on Måori
spirituality is observed taking place in the period. The thesis concludes that
the post-mortem rejection of Best’s methods and conclusions have led to an
under-estimation of his underlying influence in the literature.

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Abbreviations.

AJHR. Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives.
ATL. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
CT. Canterbury Times.
JPS. Journal of the Polynesian Society.
MA. Måori Affairs.
NA. National Archives, Wellington.
NZJH. New Zealand Journal of History.
WW2. World War Two.
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Introduction.

"Best of both worlds: Elsdon Best and the metamorphosis of Måori
spirituality. Te painga rawa o ngå ao tokorua: Te Peehi1 me te putanga k∂ o te
wairua Måori”.

This project is a study in the history of ideas in late nineteenth and early
twentieth century New Zealand, examining the published writings and
correspondence of the Påkehå ethnographer, Elsdon Best, and his principal
Måori source amongst Tuhoe, the Tamakaimoana chief, Tutakangahau of
Maungapohatu. The work looks at Best's intellectual influences, both local
and international, especially the writings of E. B. Tylor and F. Max Müller.
Their views on socio-cultural evolution, human progress and a mythmaking
stage in the mental development of humanity, were powerful influences on
him. His biographical influences, both Påkehå and Måori are also examined,
and the ways they combined in his aims, to produce an overriding literary
image: the mythopoetic Måori. The study charts the transformation of Best
from a pioneering ethnographic fieldworker to the great white tohunga of the
Dominion Museum in Wellington. Best is revealed as the most important of
the early New Zealand ethnographers and the father of received versions of
Måori culture.

The study traces Tutakangahau's history in published sources and official
correspondence, such as his letters to government agents and the Premier,
Richard Seddon. The aim is to restore something of their conversations and
signal the political reality in which Måori were fully engaged. This conflicts

1 This transliteration of “Best” is variously rendered “pehi and Peehi” in Måori letters
and documents from 1895 onwards, but the double vowel becomes more standard
over time, as does the capitalisation of the name (see eg, Buck/Ngata letters of the
1930s). The form as used in the title above reflects what is now standard practice
amongst Måori who use the transliteration.
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with Best's romantic vision of the surviving "oldtime Måori" as yesterday's
men. These men were emblematic of conflicting views of the Måori past and
their present at the turn of the 20th century; there was a persistent Påkehå
tendency to anthropologise Måori history, minimising Måori involvement in
the politics of modernity. By writing of Måori as primitive survivals, and
seeking to isolate their unique psyche as “mythopoetic”, Best managed to
both exoticise and detemporalise his subjects. The major sources are his early
published articles, letters to other ethnographers, notebooks and published
monographs; in Tutakangahau’s case, letters and reports in the AJHR. The
major goal of the thesis is to question the political argument that a racist Best
has completely misrepresented Måori, and present him instead as the
disowned author of modern visions of Måori being.

This thesis then has two major premises: in the first instance that Best sought
a lost Måori being (ontology) obliterated by colonisation, and that what he
came to see as the essential, pre-contact Måori psyche has remained active
and pervasive in the subsequent literature. Since his death in 1931, Best’s
views have been absorbed into a reconstructed “authentic being” based on
“tradition”- particularly in the post WW2 Måori renaissance. Many advocates
of an essential Måori being seem unaware of - or fail to acknowledge - the
presence of Best’s image of an authentic Måori being in their own versions.
The thesis also aims to show that there is no possibility of a late 19th century
Måori epistemology unmediated by Påkehå influence. In examining what Best
made of his sources through an evidential study of his writings, a
metamorphosis of views on Måori spirituality is observed as taking place in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is not a discussion of Måori
spirituality per se - nor traditional Måori belief and practice prior to European
contact - but an attempt to assess what Best did with the materials he
gathered, and the subsequent effect of their publication on views of Måori
religion and essential being. The thesis will argue that the post-mortem
rejection of Best’s methods and views has led to an under-estimation of his
pervasive influence in the literature.
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Overview:

This introduction opens the discussion of Best’s influence, placing his ideas in
their historical context, laying out the contents of the thesis chapter-by-
chapter. The problem of his writings as a largely unexamined and
uncontested view of traditional Måori lifeways and their culture is outlined.

Chapter 1. Theory and Literature Review:

This chapter breaks into two related halves: a discussion of colonial discourse
theory and a review of the New Zealand literature on Best. The aims of part
(a) are to test and examine theoretical models such as orientalism, alterity,
subalternity, historicism and the place of syncretism in the collision of
traditional societies with colonial modernity. What is the role of the theorist in
affirming or undermining the possibility of indigenous agency? The theme-
based structure of the review is to break down the general writings on issues
in colonial representations and early anthropology. Section (b) moves on to
more subject-specific publications applicable to the New Zealand and Tuhoe
situations. This will involve some reference to cognate areas, but more
importantly, identifying gaps in the field concerning Best, a summary of the
common knowledge, and the positioning of this thesis to show a unique
contribution.

The examination of theoretical writing opens with international contributors
(Said and Gellner, Wolf and Chakrabarty), examining colonial discourse
theory from its beginnings in orientalism to recent debates about the
dehistoricisation of the subaltern subject. The work of George Stocking on
Victorian anthropology sets the scene for an appraisal of New Zealand writers
and the application of 19th century intellectual models to the New Zealand
scene. Section (b) of the chapter assesses Ballantyne, Sorrenson and Howe on
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the New Zealand, Pacific and imperial strands in colonial ethnography;
articles and theses on Best and Tuhoe, including Sissons, Ballara and Reilly;
and contemporary Måori criticism (Smith, Marie). It calls for a return to the
written record - in particular, the mass of untranslated Måori letters to
government in national archives - primary sources which may call into
question received certainties.

Chapter 2. Early intellectual influences on Best: visions of the
primitive mind.

Best’s thinking was deeply shaped by overseas writers, but little has been
done to examine by whom and to what degree. This chapter considers local
and overseas sources of Best’s thinking, as he began to develop theoretical
positions on culture, civilisation and the primitive. This thesis argues that
writers such as E. B. Tylor, F. Max Müller and Herbert Spencer were powerful
influences in shaping his worldview and providing him with theoretical
models. The aim of examining their impact on his evolving thought is to
uncover his basic assumptions about culture and race, as reinforced by the
scholarship he accessed from the mid - to late 19th century debates on the
nature (and relationship) of culture and civilisation. The question addressed
by this chapter is to what extent did he accept the major socio-cultural
evolutionary models as scientifically sound, and to what extent was he
bounded by their limitations and his own preconceptions. The research
involved in this chapter makes it clear that Best had absorbed the dominant
anthropological models of his day by the time of this arrival in the Urewera
amongst Tuhoe (1895) - and that his creation of the mythopoetic Måori is a
result of his intellectual debt to Müller. His concepts of cultural hierarchies can
be found in Tylor, while the extinctionist model that relates to an evolutionary
progress of humankind is the work of Herbert Spencer and his popularisers.
He belonged to a local intellectual milieu: the founders of late 19th century
Polynesian ethnography, Percy Smith and Edward Tregear. They introduced
him to the above literature - in Smith’s case, creating the opening later for him
to do his pioneering fieldwork amongst Tuhoe.
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Chapter 3. Tuhoe in print: Best’s writings from the Urewera,
1895-1910.

This chapter looks at ways Best used the foregoing foundational material in
his major fieldwork; it examines a cross section of Best’s writings either
written and published during the Urewera years, or - in the case of his major
work, Tuhoe - published later (1925). Best’s sojourn amongst Tuhoe greatly
expanded his firsthand experience, as well as confirming his existing
positions. The chapter tests the hypothesis that views of his informants’
material were distorted by a romantic, backward-looking vision of an
essentialised Måori psychology. The early writings from this period are
examined closely: his letters to Percy Smith, 1895-1908; sections of “Tuhoe”
(Vol I, Pt II: iii.); articles in the Journal of the Polynesian Society (JPS), 1897-
1907; and various newspaper articles (The Press, Canterbury Times).

The chapter analyses five major issues recurring in these genres over the
period 1895-1910: identity and belonging, Måori authenticity, esoterica and
the Io concept, primitive survivals and Måori agency. This involves some
speculation on Best’s need for Måori in order to locate his own identity, and
the metaphysical nature of his quest for the “kura huna” (hidden knowledge).
It is argued that a supposed pristine Måori nature, located in a vanished past,
exoticised Måori culture and contributed to their disempowerment in the
present.

Two major issues emerge from this study of Best’s Urewera writings, both
concerning the question of agency. In Best we have an example of Påkehå
using Måori cultural materials to define Måori being. Behind this extensively
documented strategy, we see glimpses of Måori using Påkehå cultural forms
to do the same. Best and Smith use whakapapa (genealogies) to locate Måori