Herries Beattie
James Herries Beattie | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth date Gore, New Zealand |
| Died | May 11, 1972 (aged 90) Timaru, New Zealand |
| Occupation(s) | Bookkeeper, journalist, historian, ethnologist, bookseller |
| Known for | Research on southern Māori traditions and history; author of 27 books on Māori and Pākehā subjects |
James Herries Beattie (6 June 1881 – 11 May 1972) was a New Zealand-based bookkeeper, journalist, historian, ethnologist, and bookseller.
Early life
Known as Herries, James Herries Beattie was born to Scottish immigrant parents James Beattie and Mary Roden Thomson, who settled in Otago in 1862 and wed in 1874. After a period of farming, James Beattie established a drapery business in Gore and held the mayoral office there for four terms.
Beattie entered the world on 6 June 1881 in Gore, New Zealand. Among nine siblings, four passed away during childhood. The family adhered to strong religious convictions, initially following Presbyterianism before converting to the Congregational church in 1892.
Although raised with firm Protestant principles, Beattie placed great importance on education. Fascinated by literature and natural history, he left Southland Boys' High School in Invercargill after two years in 1896 to take up bookkeeping within the family enterprise—a role he found monotonous but which sparked his desire to write.
Early interest
Beattie's youthful fascinations included local fauna, particularly birds, alongside pursuits in poetry, short fiction, and historical novels that mirrored his inquisitiveness about Otago and Southland. By age eleven, he was actively engaged in documenting local history by gathering pioneer family stories around Gore as well as narratives from whalers and others at Bluff and Riverton/Aparima, many of which involved the Māori community.
His initial historical endeavor was a biography of his uncle William Adam from the Taieri Plain, who maintained close relationships with Māori in the Henley district. Spending holidays with Adam at Otokia allowed Beattie to form early bonds with southern Otago Māori and cultivate a lasting interest in Ngāi Tahu traditional life and history. Another significant influence was Southland settler W. H. Sherwood Roberts, who aided Beattie’s research by providing foundational knowledge about early southern pastoral runs and their holders. Roberts also encouraged Beattie's focus on place names and Māori terminology.
Though acquainted with regional archival histories such as Thomas Hocken’s Contributions to the early history of New Zealand (Otago) and Robert McNab’s Murihiku, Beattie did not receive formal academic training. His methodology relied heavily on interviews supplemented by family records, genealogical data, and newspaper sources, resulting in a distinctive anecdotal approach. His first published piece was a brief history of Gore featured in the Southern Standard (1898). Early major publications included the two-part series Pioneer recollections (1909, 1911) and an extensive study of southern Māori traditions, history, and place names published in the Journal of the Polynesian Society between 1915 and 1922.
Career
As his scholarship gained esteem among professional ethnologists, Beattie pursued a career aligned with his intellectual pursuits. After an unsuccessful attempt at passing a teaching examination, he joined the Mataura Ensign as a journalist in 1916, accepting a substantial salary reduction. By 1919, his publishing accomplishments and papers accepted by the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute prompted Harry Skinner from Otago University Museum to sponsor a year-long ethnological survey of southern Māori communities in 1920—a project that shaped much of Beattie's subsequent work.
Earning £5 weekly, Beattie traveled using trains and bicycles to remote Māori settlements, offering modest gifts without compensating interviewees financially. Initially relying on memory to record conversations, he later developed extensive written questionnaires—beginning with sixty-five questions and expanding to nearly one thousand—working diligently with informants often aged between seventy and eighty; some interviews extended over multiple days. Although possessing working knowledge of Māori language, interviews were conducted primarily in English with younger relatives frequently serving as translators. Principal contacts included Hōne Taare Tīkao at Rāpaki and Eruete Kingi Kurupohatu at Kaka Point; additional key collaborators were Tiemi Haereroa Kupa, Erute Poko Cameron, Taare Reweti Te Maiharoa, and Tuhituhi Te Marama across more than six decades of field research.
In Old Waikouaiti, he briefly interviewed Tame Wiremu Hipi and his sister Mere Harper; however, Hipi’s knowledge proved less comprehensive than expected.
Beattie held deep respect for Māori elders and generally received warm acceptance during his fieldwork. Some saw him as a custodian preserving traditional knowledge undervalued by younger generations. The 1920 survey remained incomplete due to limited engagement with individuals from Otakou and Kaiapoi as well as constrained resources that hindered coverage beyond Christchurch from his base near Oamaru. Data from Westland and northern districts were also scarce. Nevertheless, this project represented the pinnacle of his career at that time, generating over 1,000 pages of detailed material. Though unpublished initially, Beattie extensively utilized this research for later publications; it was eventually released in 1994 under the title Traditional lifeways of the southern Māori.
Research
In 1921, Beattie held the position of librarian and ethnologist at the New Plymouth Public Library, known as Puke Ariki. Following his marriage to Mary McKenzie in 1910, concerns regarding her health prompted him to acquire a bookshop in Waimate, which he managed until 1939. He sold the business after the Great Depression once he was able to obtain a reasonable price. At the age of 59, Beattie dedicated himself entirely to writing and publishing. Over his career, he authored 27 books, including 12 focused on Pākehā pioneers and 10 centered on Māori subjects, such as Tikao talks (1939), Māori lore of lake, alp and fiord (1945), and Our southernmost Māoris (1954). The remaining five works explored scenic locations and tourist attractions.
Assessment and recognition
Beattie’s contributions exhibit both notable strengths and certain shortcomings. He conducted thorough interviews with Māori elders and Pākehā settlers to compile comprehensive historical narratives that frequently expanded upon or contested prevailing accounts. Nonetheless, specific attribution to individual informants is occasionally ambiguous, compounded by the loss of his original notebooks. Although he drew from an extensive array of sources and updated his interpretations when new information emerged, he did not consistently assess the reliability of these sources. His principal publications often maintain a scrapbook-like format with informal language. Initially met with skepticism by academic historians who preferred more traditional Māori studies such as those by Elsdon Best, Beattie’s work nevertheless influenced the dominant view that northern Māori traditions represented the standard.
As oral history gained wider acceptance and interest in the southern Māori dialect increased, Beattie’s research earned greater recognition. His compilation of South Island oral testimonies remains unmatched except by early collectors like Edward Shortland and Walter Mantell.
Awards and honours
In recognition of his anthropological research, Beattie was awarded the Percy Smith Medal by the University of Otago in 1941. Later, in the 1967 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his services to historical scholarship in New Zealand.
Beattie’s personal archives were entrusted to the Hocken Collections at the University of Otago and were subsequently included in 2018 on the UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand Ngā Mahara o te Ao register.
Personal life and death
Having taught Sunday school for four decades, Beattie eventually became affiliated with the Open Brethren. He passed away in Timaru on 11 May 1972. His wife Mary had died in 1944, and one son predeceased him. He was survived by three daughters.
Publications
- The Māoris and Fiordland: Māori myths, fables, legendary lore, traditions, and native nomenclature / by Herries Beattie