Elsdon Best, 1931^[1]

Elsdon Best (30 June 1856 — 9 September 1931) was an ethnographer who made important contributions to the study of the Māori of New Zealand. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (460x700, 49 KB) Elsdon Best, 1931 Elsdon Best, photographed in 1931 by Stanley Polkinghorne Andrew. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (460x700, 49 KB) Elsdon Best, 1931 Elsdon Best, photographed in 1931 by Stanley Polkinghorne Andrew. ... June 30 is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 184 days remaining. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... The word Māori refers to the indigenous people of New Zealand and to their language. ...

Early life and career

Elsdon Best was born 30 June 1856 at Tawa Flat, New Zealand, moving with his family to Wellington at the age of 9, where he went to school. He passed the Civil Service Examination and became a clerk in 1873, but within a year found the work uncongenial and moved to the east coast, where he worked in farming and forestry. In 1881, he joined the Armed Constabulary, but soon left it to travel, visiting Hawaii and then California, where he worked in cattle mustering and lumbering. June 30 is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 184 days remaining. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Wellington (Te Whanganui-a-Tara or Poneke in Māori) is the capital of New Zealand, the countrys second largest urban area and the most populous national capital in Oceania. ...

In 1886, Best returned to New Zealand, resuming his life in the bush where he came into increasing contact with the Māori, whose language he learned and culture he began to study. When the Polynesian Society was founded in 1892, Best was working in Wellington in a warehouse, and wrote an article on the people of the Philippines and submitted it to the society's new journal. He also began a series on the history of Wellington Harbour. The Polynesian Society is a non-profit organization based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, dedicated to the scholarly study of the history, ethnography, and mythology of Oceania. ...

Work among the Tūhoe

In 1895, when the Urewera district began to be opened up for European settlement, Best took a position as timekeeper with the road works, beginning in Te Whaiti. For the next 15 years, he worked in the district, using his presence in the area to record the facts of the culture and traditions of the Tūhoe, which were still relatively intact. He recorded his observations in field records and note books that he kept now for the rest of his life. Te Urewera, often known as The Ureweras is an area of the central North Island of New Zealand. ... Tuhoe comprise a Māori iwi (roughly: tribe) of New Zealand. ...

Best's devotion to his study, together with his facility in Māori, allowed him to win the confidence of the Tūhoe, whose traditions he published in a series of articles in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute and the Journal of the Polynesian Society. In 1897, he published the monograph Waikaremoana, the Sea of Rippling Waters, With a Tramp through Tuhoe Land, in which he presented the lore of the district.

Ethnologist

Elsdon Best with fellow ethnographer S. Percy Smith, 1908^[2]

In 1910, Best was appointed ethnologist at the Dominion Museum which allowed him to pursue his researches in a more focused manner. In 1912, he published The Stone Implements of the Maori, which was followed four years later by an accompanying bulletin on Māori storehouses. In 1919, his The Land of Tara appeared, a history of the Māori of Wellington Harbour. A systematic survey of traditional Māori culture, The Maori, appeared in two volumes in 1924, and in 1925 Best's Tuhoe, the Children of the Mist, a monumental study in 1200 pages of the traditional history and culture of tribe with which he had spent so much of his life. Image File history File links ElsdonBest_and_PercySmith_1908. ... Image File history File links ElsdonBest_and_PercySmith_1908. ...

In 1914, Best was awarded the Hector Medal of the New Zealand Institute, and in 1919 he was made a fellow.

Best died in 1931 in Wellington, survived by his widow Adelaide (neé Wylie). They had no children.

Notes

1. ^ Photograph:Stanley Polkinghorne Andrew. By kind permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, reference number: 1/1-018778-F
2. ^ Photograph by kind permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, reference number: 1/2-028237-F

References

• Encyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. 1, pp. 199-200.
• Journal of the Polynesian Society 41 (1932)

External links

Dictionary of NZ Biography entry