Percy Smith (ethnologist)
Stephenson Percy Smith (11 June 1840 – 19 April 1922) was a New Zealand
Early life and education
Stephenson Percy Smith, known as Percy, was born on 11 June 1840 at
Percy went to school first at New Plymouth and then in
Career
Surveying
Smith joined the survey department of province of Taranaki in February 1855. He subsequently spent months in the bush with other surveyors, which brought him into contact with the indigenous Māori people. Some of this work took place during the Taranaki wars.[1]
Smith studied and wrote about the origins of the Māori people.[2] While his work has not proven to be entirely correct, his research set a standard for ethnology in New Zealand and encouraged further study.[1]
In 1862 Smith moved to
He rose through the ranks of the civil service:[1]
- 1877: first geodesical surveyor and chief surveyor of the provincial district of Auckland, in the surveyor general's department
- 1881: assistant surveyor general
- 1888: commissioner of Crown lands for the Auckland district
- January 1889: surveyor general and secretary for lands and mines
He retired on 30 October 1900.[1]
Ethnology
Smith was not formally trained in ethnology, but had become familiar with the Māori language and culture, partly out of necessity in his work, but also because he was interested in it as a scholar.[1]
During his survey expeditions, he had collected and recorded information about Māori history and culture, which became the basis for his later career, after his retirement from the civil service, as Polynesian scholar. His contemporaries recognised his status as a scholar of the language, and he was considered a leading Pākehā authority on the history and culture of the people.[1]
In 1892, he co-founded, with
During this time Smith also published a large number of articles, books, and pamphlets on the history, mythology, and traditions of
Other roles
Smith served on several local bodies during his surveying career, including: Public Trust Office board member Government Life Insurance Department board member Taranaki Native Reserves board member Chairman, Board of Land Purchase Commissioners Chairman, Board of Examiners for surveyors Commissioner under the Urewera District Native Reserves Act 1896
After retiring from surveying, Smith returned to New Plymouth, but was still called upon to engage in various government business. After the annexation of Niue to New Zealand, he was sent there to help draft a constitution and develop an administrative system. Spending four to five months there, he gathered information which he used to write Niue-fekai (or Savage) Island and its people (1903), and A vocabulary and grammar of the Niue dialect of the Polynesian language (1907, with Edward Tregear).
Smith was a corresponding member of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Società d'anthropologia d'Italia, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Hawaiian Historical Society.[1]
Recognition
- 1920: Hector Memorial Medal and Prize, in recognition of his research in Polynesian ethnology[1]
Major works
His major works include:[1]
- The peopling of the North: notes on the ancient Maori history of the northern peninsula and sketches of the history of the Ngati-Whatua tribe of the Kaipara, New Zealand (1898)[1]
- Hawaiki: the whence of the Māori (1898)
- Wars of the northern against the southern tribes of New Zealand in the nineteenth century (1904)
- History and traditions of the Māoris of the West Coast, North Island of New Zealand prior to 1840 (1910)
- The lore of the whare-wānanga (1913–15)
Personal life
Smith married Mary Anne Crompton ((1842–1911[3]) on 23 April 1863. They had four children.[1]
Death and legacy
Smith died at his home in New Plymouth on 19 April 1922.
The assessment of Smith's contribution, unreservedly generous at his death, has changed somewhat in recent decades. In 1966, The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand was generally positive, with some qualification. "His careful recording of traditional material, cross checked as far as possible by varying tribal histories, left an invaluable contribution... Although they can now be amplified or corrected on points of detail, the structure is substantially unchanged. In his studies on
Smith's biography in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography states "In some areas, particularly his account of the origins of the Maori and their arrival in New Zealand, Smith's interpretation has not survived the light cast on it by later historical and archaeological research. Scholars have criticised Smith's use of his source materials and his editing of Maori traditions for publication.... Smith's careers in surveying and ethnology were characterised by hard work and dedication, and he received recognition for both in his lifetime. Although it is now generally accepted that much of his work on the Maori is unreliable, his research nevertheless provided a basis for the development of professional ethnology in New Zealand. As a successful civil servant and respected scholar he was perhaps one of New Zealand's most prolific intellectuals of the late nineteenth century, and was a major contributor to the scientific debate over the origins and nature of the Maori".[1]
Historian Rāwiri Taonui, writing in 2006 for the website Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, accuses Smith of falsification: "The Great Fleet theory was the result of a collaboration between the 19th-century ethnologist S. Percy Smith and the Māori scholar Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury. Smith obtained details about places in Rarotonga and Tahiti during a visit in 1897, while Jury provided information about Māori canoes in New Zealand. Smith then 'cut and pasted' his material, combining several oral traditions into new ones. Their joint work was published in two books, in which Jury and Smith falsely attributed much of their information to two 19th-century tohunga, Moihi Te Mātorohanga and Nēpia Pōhūhū".[4]
Percy Smith Medal
After the award of the Hector Medal and prize money to Smith in 1920, he retained half of the money, 20 pounds, and sent the rest to
Skinner recommended that the inaugural award be given to
The medal is
Winners of the Percy Smith Medal include:[5]
- 1925: Harry Skinner
- 1929: Peter Buck (aka Te Rangi Hīroa)
- 1934: D. G. Kennedy
- 1937: David Teviotdale
- 1941: Herries Beattie
- 1948: Roger Duff
- 1950: Catherine Berndt, New Zealand-born Australian anthropologist[6]
- 1956: J.D. Freeman, W.R. Geddes, L.Lockerbie
- 1960: H. B. Hawthorn
- 1965: T.T. Barrow
- 1970: None[b]
- 1978: Foss Leach
Footnotes
- ^ Photograph by kind permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, Reference number: 1/2-005564-F
- ^ "In 1970, the University decided that one medal too many had been awarded and that another should not be awarded until 1974; in that year, however there was no candidate of sufficient merit."[5]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Byrnes, Giselle. M. "Smith, Stephenson Percy 1840 – 1922", in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 1993.
- ^ a b "Smith, Stephenson Percy (1840–1922)", A. G. Bagnall, in A. H. McLintock (editor), Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, 3 Volumes. (Government Printer: Wellington), 1966, III:265–266.
- JSTOR j.ctv2tsxmrq.17. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
- ^ Taonui, R. "Canoe traditions", in Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 3 April 2006.
- ^ a b c d e Davidson, Janet (1978). "The Percy Smith Medal". NZ Archaeological Association. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-252-06084-7. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
Further reading
- Simmons, D.R. (1976). The Great New Zealand Myth: A Study of the Discovery and Origin Traditions of the Maori. A. H. & A. W. Reed. )
- Sorrenson, M.P.K. (1979). Maori Origins and Migrations: The Genesis of Some Pakeha Myths and Legends. Macmillan Brown lectures. Auckland University Press. ISBN 978-1-86940-053-8.
- Tara'Are, A.; Walter, R.; Moeka`a, R.; Smith, S.P. (2000). History and traditions of Rarotonga. Memoir (Polynesian Society (N.Z.)). Polynesian Society. ISBN 978-0-908940-03-5.
External links
Media related to Percy Smith (ethnologist) at Wikimedia Commons