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with sixty-five and ending up with about a thousand. These were worked through patiently with his informants, who were often 70 to 80 years old; the interviews sometimes took many days to complete. Beattie had a working knowledge of Māori, but no facility in speaking it, so his interviews were conducted in
English, though usually with a younger member of the informant's family to translate as needed. His most important contacts were
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case of Māori especially, it is not always obvious to which informant material should be attributed, and his original notebooks were not preserved. Beattie used the widest range of material and showed explicitly how his arguments and conclusions were revised as new evidence came to hand, but he did not discriminate between sources of varying quality. His major works retain the scrapbook nature of their origins and are written in a
379:. He ran that business until 1939, the earliest he could get an acceptable price for it after the depression, but remained in Waimate and, at the age of 59, was finally able to devote himself fully to writing and publication. Besides smaller works and pamphlets aimed at the tourist market, Beattie produced many works of lasting importance. By the end of his career his prolific writing had produced 27 books, of which 12 were on the
257:; but lacking academic training, and with opportunities for collecting first-hand accounts all about him, his writings were based upon interviews, buttressed with information from family notes, genealogies, and newspaper articles amongst more orthodox sources. From such material Beattie developed his own eclectic, anecdotal style. His first publication, in 1898, was a short history of Gore for the
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203:. From an early age Beattie had sought out surviving pioneers of European settlement. By the age of 11 he "was well and truly smitten with the history microbe" and had begun to keep notebooks recording the recollections of pioneer families around Gore and those of the surviving whalers and other old identities at
238:. He assisted Beattie's "chronicling apprenticeship" and provided a nucleus of information about the early southern runs and runholders around which Beattie constructed later publications. His interests in place names, and his style of writing about them, can also be traced to Roberts' Māori nomenclature.
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and districts to the north. Nevertheless, the 1920 ethnological project was the major achievement of his career. It produced more than 1,000 closely written pages of information; failing to get this published at the time, Beattie mined it extensively for his subsequent books. It was published in 1994
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These works reveal the strengths and weaknesses of
Beattie's approach. He systematically interviewed Māori elders and Pākehā pioneers, and constructed from their recollections detailed accounts of history and ways of life that greatly amplify, and occasionally challenge, other accounts. Yet, in the
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On a salary of £5 per week, Beattie travelled by train and bicycle to isolated Māori communities. He gave small presents out of courtesy but did not pay for interviews. As a young man he had relied on his memory to write up conversations, but now he prepared written questions in advance, beginning
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Beattie held the Māori elders in high regard (less so the younger generation), and he seems to have been received well on most occasions. Some clearly regarded him as offering the last chance to preserve substantial areas of traditional knowledge that they thought were not properly appreciated by
283:, Beattie sought ways of developing a career closer to his intellectual interests. He first attempted to become a schoolteacher, but failed the examination, then in 1916 he accepted a substantial drop in salary to become a journalist with the
187:, he left in 1896 to work in the family business as a bookkeeper. This was less from choice than from filial duty, and the tedium of the job served only to further stimulate a powerful desire—present since childhood—to write.
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with his uncle, through whom he made his first contacts in the southern Otago Māori community, and began to develop a wide-ranging and lasting interest in the traditional lifestyle and history of
319:, but others who provided much of his information during more than 60 years of periodic fieldwork were Tiemi Haereroa Kupa, Erute Poko Cameron, Taare Reweti Te Maiharoa and Tuhituhi Te Marama.
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The content and style of
Beattie's work can be traced to a number of early influences. His first attempt at a historical work was a biography of his uncle, William Adam of the
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Museum to fund a year-long ethnological survey of southern Māori communities. This was carried out in 1920, and it set the pattern for most of
Beattie's subsequent work.
265:(1909, 1911). Next came his detailed account of southern Māori traditions, history and place names, based in part on Māori interviews, which was published in the
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style. In their time, they were regarded with suspicion by academic historians and anthropologists who preferred the more conventional publications on Māori by
423:, Beattie's research has achieved a more general esteem. In his collection of original material from oral sources in the South Island, he can be compared with
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The Māoris and
Fiordland : Māori myths, fascinating fables, legendary lore, typical traditions and native nomenclature / by Herries Beattie
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375:. He had married Mary McKenzie at Gore on 25 May 1910, and concerns about his wife's health brought him south again, to purchase a bookshop in
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Alongside strong
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their descendants. His survey in 1920 was incomplete, however, because he gained little from people who had lived at
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on 11 May 1972. Mary
Beattie had died in 1944, and a son also predeceased him. He was survived by three daughters.
412:, and this served to reinforce a perception of northern Māori traditions and customs as the New Zealand standard.
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199:, short stories and historical novels. The latter reflected an intense curiosity about the history of Otago and
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area, from whom he gained a detailed knowledge of traditions and ways of life. Beattie had spent holidays at
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His earliest interests had been in local wildlife, especially birds, but as a youth he tried his hand at
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on 6 June 1881. He was one of nine children, four of whom died young. The family was deeply religious,
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in southern New
Zealand. Another important influence on his nascent career was the Southland pioneer
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Otago Place Names: Names
Bestowed by European Explorers and Settlers in Otago and Southland
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he briefly interviewed Tame Wiremu Hipi, whose knowledge disappointed him, and his sister
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in 1862 and were married in 1874. After some years of farming, James
Beattie opened a
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Beattie was familiar with the archive-based regional histories of his time, such as
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129:(6 June 1881 – 11 May 1972) was a New Zealand bookkeeper, journalist, historian,
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Shoemaker, Nancy (2013). "Race and Indigeneity in the Life of Elisha Apes".
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immigrants James Beattie and Mary Roden (Rodden) Thomson, who arrived in
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Bookkeeper, journalist, historian, ethnologist, bookseller in New Zealand
261:, but his earliest major work was a two-part history of early settlers,
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395:(1954). The remaining five were on scenic and tourist attractions.
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In 1921 Beattie was employed as librarian and ethnologist at the
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As this work began to bring him to the notice of professional
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business in Gore, where he became a well-known figure and was
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Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute
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Contributions to the early history of New Zealand (Otago)
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James Herries Beattie (known as Herries) was the son of
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and a resurgence of interest in the distinctiveness of
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New Zealand Members of the Order of the British Empire
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and he lacked the time and resources to go far beyond
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for services to historical research in New Zealand.
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but was not gifted academically. After two years at
49:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
211:, many of them descendants of marriages into the
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354:. He also obtained only limited material on
361:Traditional lifeways of the southern Māori
501:. Christchurch: Cadsonbury Publications.
456:Member of the Order of the British Empire
109:Learn how and when to remove this message
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415:With the recent acceptance attained by
447:for his achievements in anthropology.
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673:20th-century New Zealand journalists
47:adding citations to reliable sources
643:20th-century New Zealand historians
548:Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
466:Beattie, who served 40 years as a
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553:Ministry for Culture and Heritage
389:Māori lore of lake, alp and fiord
268:Journal of the Polynesian Society
439:In 1941 Beattie was awarded the
383:and 10 on Māori. These included
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315:and Eruete Kingi Kurupohatu at
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653:People from Gore, New Zealand
606:NZ Archaeological Association
452:1967 Queen’s Birthday Honours
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373:New Plymouth Public Library
181:Southland Boys' High School
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470:teacher, later joined the
399:Assessment and recognition
648:New Zealand ethnologists
600:Davidson, Janet (1978).
587:10.1215/00141801-1816166
543:"Beattie, James Herries"
668:New Zealand booksellers
602:"The Percy Smith Medal"
462:Personal life and death
393:Our southernmost Māoris
271:between 1915 and 1922.
236:W. H. Sherwood Roberts
263:Pioneer recollections
122:James Herries Beattie
160:Beattie was born in
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658:People from Waimate
445:University of Otago
435:Awards and honours
209:Riverton / Aparima
441:Percy Smith Medal
346:from his base at
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157:for four terms.
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581:(1): 27–50.
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611:25 November
454:was made a
410:Elsdon Best
385:Tikao talks
328:Mere Harper
215:community.
131:ethnologist
627:Categories
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517:Q106913704
406:colloquial
324:Waikouaiti
317:Kaka Point
137:Early life
99:March 2022
69:newspapers
232:Ngāi Tahu
201:Southland
558:13 March
513:Wikidata
497:(2006).
387:(1939),
367:Research
356:Westland
255:Murihiku
143:Scottish
450:In the
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377:Waimate
350:, near
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322:In Old
299:at the
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