COLLEAGUES’ TRIBUTE TO OTAGO ANTHROPOLOGIST

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28895, 15 May 1959, Page 17

COLLEAGUES’ TRIBUTE TO OTAGO ANTHROPOLOGIST

-Th® Press" Special Service

DUNEDIN, May 14. A group of former pupils and colleagues of Dr. H. D. Skinner, the first teacher of anthropology in the Southern Hemisphere and ‘ ‘dean of Polynesian ethnologists,’ ’ will publish a handsome presentation volume in October this year to commemorate his contribution to science. Dr. Skinner retired as director of the Otago Museum in 1957. That year, when about 1800 scientists gathered in Dunedin for the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science, the group decided to mark the occasion of his seventieth birthday and their admiration for his work by presenting a volume of essays to him. "Anthropology in the South Seas” will cover a wide field—as do Dr. Skinner’s own interests—from studies in Polynesian pre-history and ethnology to an account of a modern Maori community in north Auckland. Its contributors include an historian, a demographer and an ethnologist, and archaeologists and social anthropologists who have carried out field research in New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, Tikopia. New Guinea and other parts of Oceania.

The volume is intended to be a personal appreciation of the great debt owed by each contributor to Dr. Skinner for his stimulation and help and a public acknowledgment of his achievements in Oceanic anthropology museum administration and public service.

The editors are Dr. J. D. Freeman, former lecturer in anthropolcgy at Otago University, now of the Australian National University, and Professor W. R. Geddes, formerly of the University of Auckland, now professor of anthropology at Sydney University. Those contributing to the volume include: Dr. Roger Duff, director of the Canterbury Museum; Mr J. Golson, senior lecturer in pre-history at the University of Auckland; Mr L. Lockerbie, education office, Otago Museum; Dr. R. Barrow, ethnologist, Dominion Museum: Professor Raymond Firth, University of London; Dr. Catherine H. Berndt, University of Western Australia; Dr. J. D. Freeman, reader in social anthropology Australian National University; Professor W. R. Geddes, University of Sydney; Dr. Angus Ross, reader in history, University of Otago: Professor W. D. Borrie, professor of demography Australian National University; and Mr J. Booth, research officer, Department of Maori Affairs. Dr. Skinner was born in December, 1887, in New Plymouth, at that time the centre of a remarkable group of men responsible for the courageous and successful venture of the Polynesian Society.

His father waa one of their number, a Taranaki surveyor, whose work and interests brought him in close touch with the Maori in the early years of European settlement. Dr. Skinner himself developed this early acquaintance with the subject matter of anthropology by studies under Professor Haddon at the University of Cambridge. In the period that followed. Dr. Skinner, as director of the Otago Museum and keeper of the ethnological collections, and reader in anthropology at the University of Otago, created the fine research and public institution that the Otago Museum is today; founded New Zealand archaeology; systematised its ethnology; and taught and trained generations of students.