N.Z. Anthropologist Returns on Holiday Visit

Grey River Argus, 5 January 1948, Page 8

N.Z. Anthropologist Returns on Holiday Visit

One of the few New Zealanders upon who the University of New Zealand has conferred honorary degrees, Dr. Diamond Jenness, has returned to the Dominion on a holiday, after being absent from New Zealand for 30 years. He is one of the leading anthropologists of the present day, and has spent most of his time in, Canada, where he is an authority on the Indians and Eskimos He is attached to the Department of Mmes and Resources at Ottawa, and is chief of the Canadian Government’s anthropological section. Dr ,Jenness was formerly a student ct Victoria University College, graduating M.A. in 1908 with firstclass honours in classics. He went, to Oxford after his studies in New Zealand and there took the second part of the Litera Humaniores school, and also obtained the diploma in anthropology. In 1912 he conducted an expedition to the D’Entrecasteaux Islands, New Guinea, where his bro-; ther-in-law was a missionary, and in 1920, with his brother-in-law, published an account of his researches, entitled ‘The Northern D’Entrecasteaux.” , , ~ Dr. Jenness was a member of the Canadian Arctic expedition in 1913-18. and has written numerous and extensive articles dealing with various phases of' Eskimo anthropology, and in addition a wellknown book entitled “Children of the Twilight,” published in 1925. In 1932 he published an exhaustive report on the Indians in Canada. An important series of monographs by leading American authorities dealing with the American aborigines was published under his editorship in 1933 and to this series he contributed a paper on “The Problem of the Eskimo.”

As chief of the anthropological section of the Canadian Government, Dr. Jenness is also in charge of the anthropological department of the Canadian National Museum, Ontario. In 1935, on the recommendation of the Academic Board, the Senate of the University of New Zealand conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature. Only seven other honorary degrees have been conferred by the University, and the recipients have included Lord Rutherford, Sir Peter Buck. Sir George Julius, and Sir William Marris