1919–1923 Dominion Museum ethnological expeditions

Research expeditions studying Māori culture April 2024 April 2024 thumb|Āpirana Ngata (left) and Te Rangihīroa during the Fourth Dominion Museum ethnological expedition to Waiomatatini in 1923 The 1919–1923 Dominion Museum ethnological expeditions were a series of ethnological research expeditions encouraged and led by Āpirana Ngata and Te Rangihīroa, and undertaken between 1919 and 1923 with Elsdon Best, James McDonald and Johannes Andersen, to study Māori culture.Q124738173Salmond Anne Lythberg Billie March 2019 Spiralling histories: reflections on the 1923 Dominion Museum East Coast Ethnological Expedition and other multimedia experiments http://www.thepolynesiansociety.org/jps/index.php/JPS/article/view/390 Journal of the Polynesian Society 128 1 43–63 10.15286/jps.128.1.43-63 subscription Schorch Philipp McCarthy Conal Hakiwai Arapata March 2016 Globalizing Māori Museology: Reconceptualizing Engagement, Knowledge, and Virtuality through Mana Taonga https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muan.12103 Museum Anthropology en 39 1 48–69 10.1111/muan.12103 0892-8339 10536/DRO/DU:30118330 free Tapsell Paora Māori and museums – ngā whare taonga - Māori engage with museums, 1870s to 1970s https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-and-museums-nga-whare-taonga/page-2 live https://web.archive.org/web/20240604012419/https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-and-museums-nga-whare-taonga/page-2 4 June 2024 4 June 2024 Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand Inception The idea for the expeditions came while Āpirana Ngata was revising the Dictionary of the Māori Language. He wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs saying, "It was all very well collecting and defining words in a dictionary, but that didn’t very well serve a culture that had embedded its wisdom, traditions, and history in the nuances of spoken language rather than in literature."  He said it was better to send specialists out in the field to record the songs and oratory of Māori and to undertake, “the ‘filming’ of hakas and pois, and of Maori village life, showing ‘tangis’, meetings, life on the cultivations and so on”.Yarwood Vaughn 2022 Hei taonga mā ngā uri whakatipu: treasures for the rising generation https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/hei-taonga-ma-nga-uri-whakatipu-treasures-for-the-rising-generation/ live New Zealand Geographic Jan-Feb https://web.archive.org/web/20240604013330/https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/hei-taonga-ma-nga-uri-whakatipu-treasures-for-the-rising-generation/ 4 June 2024 4 June 2024 Other research has points to Te Rangihīroa as being behind the idea of ethnological expeditions.Montgomery Denise Billie Lythberg: the business of being curious https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2022/05/02/billie-lythberg-profile-business-school.html live https://web.archive.org/web/20240604031148/https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2022/05/02/billie-lythberg-profile-business-school.html 4 June 2024 4 June 2024 University of Auckland : News and Opinion The four expeditions were across Te Ika-a-Māui, Aotearoa (North Island, New Zealand) and visited Gisborne, Rotorua, the Whanganui River region and Tairāwhiti / East Coast.Kapuni-Reynolds Halena 2023-04-03 Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu Treasures for the Rising Generation: The Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions 1919–1923: By Wayne Ngata, Arapata Hakiwai, Anne Salmond, Conal McCarthy, Amiria Salmond, Monty Soutar, James Schuster, Billie Lythberg, John Niko Maihi, Sandra Kahu Nepia, Te Wheturere Poope Gray, Te Aroha McDonnell and Natalie Robertson. Wellington, Te Papa Press, 2021. 368 pp., illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780995103108 (hbk). NZ$75.00. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223344.2022.2101909 The Journal of Pacific History en 58 2 212–214 10.1080/00223344.2022.2101909 0022-3344 subscription It was the first project of its kind in Aotearoa. Recording iwi and hapū around the North Island they captured knowledge of a range of fishing techniques, art forms like weaving, kōwhaiwhai, kapa haka, mōteatea, ancestral rituals and everyday life in the communities they visited. Māori were hit particularly hard by the 1918 influenza pandemic, with a death rate of fifty Māori people in one thousand, a rate eight times higher than the death rate of Europeans.Salmond Anne Introduction 2021-01-01 Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu Treasures for the Rising Generation: The Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions 1919–1923 12–75 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q127415342 2024-07-13 McCarthy Conal Salmond Amiria Many of those killed by the virus were experts in mātauranga Māori, te reo, tikanga or had extensive knowledge in ancestral arts. Overall the purpose was to record Māori life, traditions, and language at a time when traditional knowledge holders were at risk. Dominion Museum staff Johannes Andersen and James McDonald accompanied Elsdon Best on these expeditions and they were assisted at each venue by person's expert in Māori custom who could smooth the way for the Recordist.Elsdon Best's Recordings of Traditional Maori Songs https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1294902 live https://web.archive.org/web/20240604024204/https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1294902 4 June 2024 4 June 2024 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa : Collections Online During the 1923 East Coast expedition, Te Rangihīroa was again a member of the team, and Apirana Ngata was present for part of the time. Of the three permanent team members, Best and McDonald were both staff members of the sponsoring institution. Best the ethnographer, McDonald the expert photographer and cinematographer and Andersen recruited because of his knowledge of music.Powell Courtney Amaama Safua Akeli 2023-08-10 Exploring connections: Reviewing aspects of Te Papa's historical South African Collection https://tuhinga.arphahub.com/article/106520/ Tuhinga en 34 75–86 10.3897/tuhinga.34.106520 free 2253-5861 Expeditions 1919-1923 First Dominion Museum Ethnology Expedition, 2–16 April 1919, Gisborne. Participants: Elsdon Best, Johannes Anderson, James McDonald. The expedition team was assembled to create recordings of a hui aroha to be held in Gisborne to welcome home the Māori (Pioneer) Battalion. The Battalion disembarked from the Westmoreland in Waitematā harbour, and 271 boarded the Mapourika to Gisborne to return home. A list of names of those disembarking can be found in an article in the Poverty Bay Herald, April 7, 1919, which can be read here on PapersPast.Soutar Monty 'Kia Ora Te Hui Aroha': The First Dominion Museum Ethnological Expedition, 2–16 April 1919, Gisborne 2021-01-01 Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu Treasures for the Rising Generation: The Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions 1919–1923 76–115 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q127415359 2024-07-13 The Hui Aroha has a massive undertaking and used the Poverty Bay Racing Club as a venue. Led by Āpirana Ngata, Captain William Tutepuaki Pitt, James Carroll, Heni Materoa Carroll, and an organising committee, tradesmen and labourers transformed the racecourse into a contemporary pā. Documentation of the Hui Aroha, included photographs taken by James McDonald of food preparation and hāngī. Dictaphone recordings were made of waiata, pātere ("songs of derision in response to slander"), and karakia, but the excitement of the occasion was such that most were too busy to talk with the group from the Dominion Museum. Second Dominion Museum Ethnology Expedition, 12 April - 8 May 1920, Rotorua. Participants: Elsdon Best, Johannes Anderson, James McDonald. Third Dominion Museum Ethnology Expedition, 17 March - 18 April 1921, Whanganui River. Participants: Elsdon Best, Johannes Anderson, James McDonald, Te Rangihīroa. Fourth Dominion Museum Ethnology Expedition ,18 March - 12 April 1923, Tairāwhiti / East Coast. Participants: Elsdon Best, Johannes Anderson, James McDonald, Te Rangihīroa, Āpirana Ngata. Collections Photography and other records from the Dominion Museum Ethnological Expedition can be found in the Archives section, of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The museum also has a series of sound recordings of Māori culture by Elson Best. The first set of recordings was made on expeditions to Gisborne 1919, Rotorua 1920 and the Whanganui River 1921. Other recordings done by Best can be found in the Christchurch Art Gallery collection.Capturing the Airs https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/bulletin/214/capturing-the-airs live Bulletin.214 23 November 2023 https://web.archive.org/web/20240604032220/https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/bulletin/214/capturing-the-airs 4 June 2024 Johannes Anderson had a diary for some of the later expeditions, and other work. It can be found in the Alexander Turnbull Library. It describes a visit (Mar-Apr 1923) to East Coast Maori pā (East Cape to Waipiro Bay) and Waiomatatini collecting recordings of Māori songs from Ngāti Porou.Andersen Johannes Carl Andersen, Johannes Carl, 1873-1962: Diary. Ref: MS-0053 https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23248110 4 June 2024 Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand Also an account of a visit to Tauranga (Dec 1923) and Kapiti (Dec 1924 -Jan 1925). The Alexander Turnbull Library also holds an album of photographs taken on the 1921, third expedition up the Whanganui River by James McDonald.McDonald James Ingram Photograph album of Whanganui River expedition Ref: PA1-q-257 https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23247514 4 June 2024 Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision holds some of the films James McDonald made from the First Dominion Museum Ethnology Expedition. (Te hui aroha ki tūranga, Gisborne hui aroha)McDonald James Te hui aroha ki tūranga (Gisborne hui aroha) https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/search-use-collection/search/F7882/ 4 June 2024 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision Further information relating to taonga collected on the expeditions can be found in the chapter Reconnecting Taonga by Billie Lythberg in the 2021 publication Treasures for the Rising Generation: The Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions 1919-1923. (pages 306–315) References Category:Expeditions from New Zealand Category:Māori culture Dominion Museum Dominion Museum