ELSDON BEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 214, 10 September 1931, Page 9

ELSDON BEST.

GREATEST OF COLLECTORS

PRESERVER OF MAORI I»ORE,

MR. J. C. ANDERSEN'S TRIBUTE

"Those who have seen his work •will know, -as I know, that.lie was.the greatest collector .we havehad; and /-that is saying a great deal when we remember such names as Sir George Grey, Edward •Short land,. William Collenso,- S. Percy Smith, ' Lieutenant-dolonel John White,'and Edward Tregear.- He was greater because • his , interests - had been .wider, and his sympathies" no less, jfaori and pak'eha>w6re equally fortunate in having him ,as a friend," N said Mr. Johannes C. Andersen'," director " of the Turnbiill ; Xibrafy,';-i%.\'Commeiftjiig yesterday * on the death' of Mr. Elsdon Best. 1 _ - ' . • ''/■, 1 : ' "As" he' had' learned •Spanish; so he learned Maori,' by • mother-wit,'thehelp

pf one or two N good books in the language, and contact with the people about him. The Maori people among whom he lived learned quickly to regard him rather as a f,riend than as an official. He knew their language, their : history, their traditions, better than they did themselves. 'Moreover, he was not content merely to learn them and keep them stored in his mind, to perish with him; he made extensive notes- —how extensive few could realise, few could believe. "Whilst he noted all that he was able, he was still extremely cautious in his statements and inferences, allowing himself theories, perhaps, but taking care to keep ' them ' well in the background .in his writing. He was painstaking beyond belief, filling notebooks, copying out fail - , and indexing everything thoroughly. As he said, 'Notes are of no. use unless you can „put your hand on them at a moment's riotice.' If, then, he felt that he would like to-'write a paper on, say, Maori agriculture—a --huge subject—from his index he was able to-turn up every note he had ever collected oil the subject— and, more than that, everything that he had • ever read on the subject also. And it must be remembered that his only; convenience was that afforded by an eight by ten tent and ordinary camp furniture. I believe, though, that his camp was a model good to see. Collecting Maori Songs. "In his' role as ' a collector of Maori :songs I knew, him;' it was as a collector that I can speak more 'Certainly of liim, and as a friend of the Maori — what - they themselves call a kaumatua .—-an elder, an-adviser, the * repository of;-their tribal lore. An idea may be! had of the. amount of material he gathered when it is said that from one old'couple- alone, who looked after his camp, he <gathered one winter over 400 songs. Again, - the Tuhoe tribe, among .whom; he lived,long, have lamented that their, own, kaumatua have gone, and that their history is-being lost, much being, already forgotten by them. But Elsdon Best was one of them; he was a friend of ..those .kaumatua, .and .from th'em' ; ha<l;'.learrie<i! much 4 of ."their lore; j;he ■: has written what he calls a fragI ment of their history—an octavo volume ■of sover-1000 pages. I wonder how many realise what this ; means to 'the Tuhoe folk, the - People of the Mist, and how they' venerate .the pakeha who in his Jove; and sympathy lias preserved the "lore ,so precious to them and so lamentably lost. They, should realise it -if the tremor the thought awakens in, my 'heart': could; be -given -full expression."