1919–1923 Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions

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.

Inception

The idea for the expeditions came while Āpirana Ngata was revising th
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''”.

Other research has points to Te Rangihīroa as being behind the idea of ethnological expeditions.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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 t''o 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 rea
here
on PapersPast.

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

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