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Te Ao Hou, 1973, Page 58

provide information of interest to antiquarians but rather to set up “bench-marks from which change can be measured and its significance assessed”. Today, the Polynesian remains a Polynesian but, with the help of Sir Peter Buck's work, the degree and the direction of the acculturation which has taken place may be better appreciated. Practically throughout this book, the author emphasises the importance of the close relationship between Te Rangi Hiroa and Sir Apirana Ngata. Thus, in the chapter “Leadership and Direction”, we find: “By this time, Te Rangi Hiroa was more than a medical expert. Ngata leant on him more and more. Their intimacy was such that no initiative was launched on which they were not of one mind. Ngata worked to Parliament and in meetings; but Te Rangi Hiroa was the doctor who worked in the villages and won the confidence of his patients. They spoke with one voice and the people learned to trust them.” Te Rangi Hiroa has referred to Ngata as “the greatest Maori leader of all time”. But, in dealing with the Young Maori Party, Condliffe claims: “Te Rangi Hiroa played a large role in this renascence. He was Ngata's mainstay, with intellect and learning to match his, equally able to gauge the subtleties of the Maori mind in reaction to new challenges, and equally devoted to developing Maori citizenship.” Te Rangi Hiroa and Ngata corresponded at length during most of the years that the former held his important posts abroad. This book draws attention to the very great importance of this correspondence. While it is good to know that it is housed and available to research students in the Turnbull Library, Wellington, the hope Mr J. M. McEwen expressed in his foreword that it should be published in full may well be echoed and applauded. The extracts from that correspondence quoted in this biography certainly whet the appetite for more. In one of his letters of March 1936 Ngata urged Te Rangi Hiroa not to hold the gift of imagination too tightly in leash, saying, “In the next few years it will have its way and not till then will the world realise what

a treasure it is to have wit, humour, an inherited talent for narration playing brilliantly about data organised in a scientific and masterly manner.” Perhaps—this is not made clear—The Vikings of the Sunrise, which appeared two years later, was the result. At any rate, as Condliffe stresses, Te Rangi Hiroa “was a good raconteur and had an unending fund of stories to tell”. Perhaps at this point the reviewer could slip in a reminiscence of his own. I recall with pleasure hearing Te Rangi Hiroa lecture in 1935 in the Otago Museum. With characteristic tact and charm, he began by paying tribute to those who had assisted in his education at the University of Otago. He did this by reciting the ancient Maori greeting of the dawn by the sentry who had kept guard over the sleeping pa and then the English translation, the one given at the conclusion to the chapter on “The Economic Status of the Maoris” in J. B. Condliffe's economic history, New Zealand in the Making: “The night is dark and long, The young sleep and dream their dreams, In the minds of the old is doubt, trouble, and fear, Long and dark is the night, but its hour draws to a close, Behold it is dawn, it is dawn, it is day.” For himself, he claimed with pleasing flattery, it had been night before he came to Dunedin, but then he had witnessed the dawn of a new day and all was light. Interestingly enough, in June 1951, Te Rangi Hiroa wrote to Eric Ramsden telling him how he had recited the same “piki mai” chant when called on to respond on behalf of the 25 recipients of honorary degrees at Yale. This had enabled him to make play with Yale's motto, “Lux et Veritas” (Light and Truth), before giving the translation of his chant, which “referred to the long night of darkness and ignorance which was ended by the coming of dawn and the light of knowledge”. In the “Memoir” already mentioned, Ramsden also mentions that Te Rangi Hiroa chanted his favourite “piki mai” chant for the last time at a medical conference held in Honolulu in November 1951, a month before his death. The other memory which lingers with me concerns the manner in which Te Rangi Hiroa lauded the way his European wife, Margaret, looked after all the travel arrangements and all the administrative details which ensured that he was in the right place at the right time and in good shape. With a reference back to his Army career, he said, “She is my Adjutant, my Quartermaster and my Transport Officer all in one”. From Professor Condliffe's account, it is clear that Mrs Buck had psychological and other problems in later years and became ‘a problem drinker’. In the years up to the Second World War at least, she was an indispensable member of the partnership and this should perhaps be set against the distressing details of the years of decline. In view of the general excellence and the warm human appeal of his book, it may appear churlish to mention a few unimportant mistakes but, in case a second edition is contemplated, I list some which could be easily corrected. On the last line of page 29, the word ‘student’ would make much better sense than ‘study’. In footnote 5 on page 76, ‘Heintson’ should read ‘Hewitson’. On page 221, the reference to Lord Freyberg as ‘New Zealand-born’ is incorrect as he was born in Richmond, Surrey, England on March 21, 1889. On page 259, Ramsden's account of the massacre at Tuturau which ended Te Puoho's raid appears to exaggerate the number killed. “Dedicated to the Memory of Te Rangi Hiroa and Apirana Turupa Ngata and to the Young Maoris who will Voyage into Te Ao Hou”, this biography will serve to keep the memory of two great Maoris alive for generations to come. It will be treasured