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Bones and words in 1870s New Zealand: the moa-hunter debate through actor networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2008

SIMON THODE
SIMON THODE
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Email: sathode@gmail.com.
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Abstract

The paper describes an episode in New Zealand science commonly referred to as the moa-hunter debate. In the 1870s the geologist and curator of the Canterbury Museum Julius Haast put forward a proposal that a race distinct from the indigenous Maori hunted the giant flightless birds known as moa to extinction. James Hector, director of the New Zealand Geological Survey and manager of the New Zealand Institute, rejected this proposal and challenged Haast in what would become a bitter fight. Because moa remains in the form of semi-fossilized bones, eggshells and occasionally preserved feathers and skin were important in the debate, the paper will use the analytical method of actor-network theory (ANT) to reopen it. The paper thus provides an opportunity to study the strengths and weaknesses of ANT as a form of analysis. This analysis emphasizes a number of interesting points about the moa-hunter debate, including the ability of human actors to manipulate the meaning of common terms in order to create new theories, in this case Haast's theory of an earlier indigenous race in New Zealand. Though dismissed at the time, this was a belief that has lasted in alternative forms to the present.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2009, pp. 225 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 British Society for the History of Science

From the early 1860s the New Zealand scientific community began to develop its own independent structure. Local institutions such as geological surveys, museums, philosophical societies and the umbrella organization of the New Zealand Institute provided the resources necessary to challenge the British naturalists and their interpretations of New Zealand's natural history. The colonials had their own, often extensive, collections as well as the ability to reconstruct the species they saw around them. With the publication of the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (henceforth referred to as the Transactions) from 1869, they gained the means to publish scientific papers domestically and establish the priority of their work.

The moa was an important research topic with which local naturalists challenged their British counterparts. Jacob Gruber has even argued that moa research established independent New Zealand science, by providing a unique resource on which to conduct research.Footnote 1 Local naturalists used the exchange of moa bones to fund their scientific independence and wrest control of moa research away from Richard Owen and his British colleagues. In these manoeuvrings New Zealand naturalists emphasized their proximity to moa-bone sites as an advantage to compensate for their inferior resources in other areas. In studies by James Moore and Ruth Barton on colonial science, this process is referred to as the ‘advantage of location’.Footnote 2 Those apparently at the periphery of calculation were often at the centre of accumulation and could use this situation to their advantage.

In spite of this advantage the development of an independent scientific structure was often a fractured process. Gruber argues that naturalists in New Zealand were loyal to their provinces rather than to any concept of nationhood. As a result provincial rivalry often marked the early interactions between naturalists, who were competing for limited resources and positions.Footnote 3 Such was the case in the 1870s when Julius Haast, a former German immigration agent and patriarch of science in Canterbury, and James Hector, the Wellington-based founding director of the New Zealand Geological Survey and manager of the New Zealand Institute, argued about which race of people had hunted the moa to extinction. This episode has since been referred to as the moa-hunter debate. It revolved around Haast's hypothesis that the moa had not been hunted by Maori but by a more ancient, ethnically distinct race: the moa-hunters. In response, Hector and his allies argued that Maori ancestors had seen moa and had hunted them to extinction. The disagreement between these men and their allies created an ill-feeling which, spurred on by provincial rivalry, remained evident long after the matter had been resolved scientifically.

The moa-hunter debate has been previously examined by a number of writers.Footnote 4 Most of these accounts have focused on broader metanarratives within nineteenth-century New Zealand science and have used the debate as an example of, a precursor to or a result of particular developments within the scientific community. For example, the accounts given by Keith Sorrenson and Kerry Howe are concerned with Maori oral traditions and origins; Andrews is interested in zoological discovery and accuracy in New Zealand; Gruber is concerned with professionalization in New Zealand science; while Francis Reid, in his recent dissertation examining the New Zealand Institute, delves into the way social status and the institute's structure drove the debate.

Here the debate is also examined within a broader narrative, but one somewhat removed from these other themes. Using it, I will test the somewhat anachronistic form of analysis labelled actor-network theory (henceforth referred to as ANT).Footnote 5 ANT was developed by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour as a methodology for the study of the procedural nature of science, of how facts become facts rather than of their impact after being hailed as such. It is founded upon three methodological principles: those of agnosticism (privileging no participant's point of view), generalized symmetry (the use of a single vocabulary to describe the actions of all participants), and free association (abandoning all distinctions between human and non-human participants). These principles aim to ensure not only the unbiased treatment of all human participants, whether on the ‘right’ or the ‘wrong’ side of a scientific debate, but also equal treatment for the non-human participants.Footnote 6

The central concept of ANT is the process of ‘translation’, the ordering of different actors through association to establish a scientific fact. One can imagine this translation of actors' interests through association as similar to placing parts into a machine. Each part has a different function (for this read interests), but together they have a common function (or interest), which differs from the original function of the separate parts.Footnote 7 Latour and Callon use the term ‘actor’ to refer to all entities, both human and non-human, involved in any scientific process. The term ‘actant’ refers only to an actor's behaviour within a network. Other terms to note are the four moments of translation as defined by Callon: ‘problematization’ (when principal actors define both a problem and the actors required for its solution), interressement (when principal actors attempt to stabilize the associations between these groups of actors through various techniques of manipulation and ensnarement), ‘enrolment’ (when interressement succeeds and actors become fellow participants in the research), and finally the ‘mobilization of allies’ (when principal actors negotiate between the members of the network for a solution that is in the best interests of the entire group). The principal actors thus attempt to make themselves obligatory points of passage into this area of study. In addition, the concept of ‘black-boxing’ is significant, as it describes the end result of translations within a victorious actor network. Once any controversy has ended, the black-boxed fact can be used in further acts of translation, as nature is continually re-examined and reinterpreted by new theories and hypotheses which are put forward by ambitious new principal actors.Footnote 8

As a methodology for the analysis of science, ANT is far from perfect. Among the many criticisms put forward against it is a concern over its analytic tautology. If the competition between two rival actor networks hinges on a trial of strength, then knowing the outcome is the only way to judge that strength. This can make ANT a somewhat weak resource.Footnote 9 However, as it focuses on processes rather than solutions, ANT can be a useful tool of analysis for the history of science. In a historical study the solution to a scientific problem is normally easy to discern; the process leading to that solution is less so. Through an examination of the scientific papers and accounts of a historical debate, a scientific solution can be reopened and re-examined.Footnote 10 A more pressing criticism is ANT's tendency to force its terms and structure onto the past. The urge to provide symmetry so that all actors have a voice certainly fails to fit the attitudes of those involved in science during the period of the moa-hunter debate. It ignores the hierarchical structure of science and the dominance of certain actors over others. ANT suffers from what Steve Fuller has labelled an overly democratic view of scientific endeavour.Footnote 11 This weakness is difficult to escape; however, working through this difficulty and being aware of it, an ANT analysis might still provide some useful insights. These insights might then be used in association with other analytical approaches to further one's understanding of the historical episode in question.

It is the aim here, therefore, not only to give a singular account of the moa-hunter debate, but to establish whether an ANT analysis, despite its difficulties, might be useful in the historical study of messy and confused scientific disagreements such as this. The analysis of the debate proceeds in three stages. The first gives a description of Haast's proposal and Hector's reaction to it. Analysis focuses on the setting up of competing actor networks by Haast and Hector, their negotiation with human and non-human actors, and how these actors fitted into their proposals. The second part analyses the role of Walter Mantell, a New Zealand-based man of science and politician, the son of the British geologist Gideon Mantell (‘Mantell’ in this paper refers to Walter). Walter Mantell's early collection of moa bones, particularly from ancient Maori middens at the Waingongoro site in the 1840s, meant that both Hector and Haast attempted to interest and enrol him in their competing networks. The third part of the analysis concentrates on the defection of Haast's assistant, Alexander McKay, to Hector's actor network. It examines how this defection influenced the outcome of the debate in terms of the speed of resolution and the hostility between various parties.

The concluding summary attends particularly to the value of any insights arising from the use of ANT analysis in this case, as well as its deficiencies. It also offers a brief comparison of alternative interpretations that might be attained using the recent analytical approaches of David Livingstone and Tony Ballantyne, which focus on the geography of science and on its webs of interconnection. The final, broader, issue to consider beyond this particular case study is whether a rigid analytical method such as ANT can provide worthwhile insight into historical scientific debates, or whether it is best to steer clear of such theoretical entrapment.

New Zealand science

Before the mid-1860s it had been very difficult for New Zealand naturalists to have their ideas published and thus to gain recognition for their work. Those naturalists who wished to establish their own conclusions found it difficult, as establishing priority in identifying and naming new species centred on publication. They had to send their papers overseas and were susceptible to distant criticism from resource-rich European naturalists. In his study of the ornithologist Walter Buller, Ross Galbreath states that many New Zealand naturalists refused to enter into theoretical speculation. It was seen as the domain of the imperial scientists in Britain and Europe, those men who had access to a wide range of reference material upon which to base their conclusions.Footnote 12

Domestic support and publication of local naturalists' work began to improve after the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition of 1865. The colonial government established several institutions to assist and direct those provincial institutions already established. The two most important national bodies were the New Zealand Geological Survey established in 1865 and the New Zealand Institute established in 1867. The New Zealand Society (renamed the Wellington Philosophical Society and established in 1851) and the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, which Haast helped to found in 1862, both became affiliated with the New Zealand Institute. The provincial geological surveys, including those already established in Canterbury under Haast and in Otago under Hector, were superseded by the national Geological Survey. Museums offered a third type of scientific institution then coming into being. The Colonial Museum in Wellington was directly connected to the Geological Survey, while the Canterbury Museum, established by Haast, was supported through the international exchange of moa bones from Glenmark swamp as well as bird skins.Footnote 13 Geology was very important both to the survival of these early museums and to the careers of their directors. The discovery of gold in New Zealand from 1852 made geology an important science with practical applications. This helped establish and enhance the public reputation of geologists in New Zealand. Charles Fleming notes that, for the general public of this period, geology meant progress.Footnote 14 The geological surveys to which this support gave rise allowed geologists to travel the countryside in search of the specimens that would enhance their scientific reputations both in New Zealand and in Europe.Footnote 15 Gruber argues that Haast and Hector were the two major figures in this early independent science. Both began their careers in New Zealand as geologists, after which they became museum directors and naturalists of international note.Footnote 16

The German-born Julius Haast arrived in Auckland in December 1858 as an immigration agent. Haast was ostensibly a widower with a son back in Europe, though more recent evidence has established that his wife died after he arrived in New Zealand. In addition, Haast's attendance at university and training in geology has been called into question. It is almost certain that Haast actively concealed the details of an unsuccessful earlier life in Europe.Footnote 17 Once in New Zealand, however, he would benefit from a most fortunate coincidence. The day after his arrival in Auckland, Austrian geologist Ferdinand Hochstetter arrived on the frigate Novara. The ship was undertaking a scientific voyage around the world. However, due to provincial governments' demand for geologists, Hochstetter stayed behind when the ship departed and enlisted the German-speaking Haast, whom he had met, to assist him in his surveys. Together they went from Auckland through central North Island, and then to Nelson, where they found their first moa bones. By the time Hochstetter had left in October 1859, Haast had gained both training and reputation. The two became friends and in subsequent years Haast benefited from Hochstetter's patronage. Haast was asked to stay on in the Nelson region where he was involved in a number of successful coal finds. He became Canterbury provincial geologist in 1861. His work in this position further improved his reputation. He was fortunate again in 1866 when a local farmer found moa bones in a swamp on his property. The man offered Haast the bones as well as access to the swamp and assistance in excavating it. Haast's first visit to the Glenmark swamp provided him with a wagon-full of bones. He estimated that there were one thousand moa in the swamp, along with the numerous remains of other birds – a quantity equal to the amount found in the previous thirty years. Most fortuitously, some of the bones were clearly from individual moa. This had not been the case with the bones that the British naturalist Richard Owen had used in his earlier work.Footnote 18

In 1868, as the Canterbury Geological Survey drew to a close, the provincial government granted funds for a museum. Haast was offered the position of director in February 1869. With a ready supply of moa bones and bird skins, Haast began exchanges with overseas institutions, including museums in Britain, North America, South America and Europe. This increased both his museum's resources and his ability to engage in classification and scientific speculation.Footnote 19 Susan Sheets-Pyenson argues that museum curators tended to develop their collections along the lines of their own interests, and at this time there was a shift towards ethnology, anthropology and archaeology.Footnote 20 This trend was certainly in evidence in Canterbury, where Haast began excavating ancient Maori campsites and connecting them to the moa, on which he was quickly becoming the acknowledged authority within New Zealand. This research led to a number of papers on the moa-hunters.

James Hector followed quite a different path to New Zealand from that of Haast. A Scotsman, Hector was educated in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but had taken lectures in zoology and geology. His potential as a geologist was recognized by Roderick Murchison, geologist, geographer and patron of science, who in 1857 recommended him for a position as surgeon–geologist on John Palliser's expedition to western Canada. He gained a good reputation from this expedition and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1861 Murchison recommended him for the more demanding position of director of the Geological Survey of Otago, the strongly Scottish province in New Zealand. Hector arrived in Dunedin in 1862, just as the discovery of gold was transforming it into the colony's largest city. Over the next two years Hector successfully mapped much of Otago.Footnote 21

Hector's appointment as director of the New Zealand Geological Survey in 1865 can be attributed to his nationality and his placement in Dunedin as much as to his expertise in geology. In 1864 the colonial government, then in the process of moving from Auckland to Wellington, turned to Hector for advice on the form its new survey should take. Hector had been made commissioner responsible for exhibits at the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition in 1865. In addition, he had organized the display of New Zealand's geology with Haast and James Crawford. Crawford, a Wellingtonian, convinced the government to use Hector's expertise. Gruber suggests that Hector's ‘Britishness’ gave him an advantage over Haast in gaining this position. Rivalry between provinces and Dunedin's growth – it was the dominant economic centre through the gold rushes of the 1860s – may also have played a role.Footnote 22 Hector suggested a more ambitious project than the government had anticipated, proposing that an organization based around a museum be set up, with funding for fieldwork, an office and a laboratory. This proposal was accepted with remarkably little debate. Hector was appointed director of the national Geological Survey. He moved to Wellington, taking many of his loyal staff with him to help run the multitude of organizations that he would soon control. Within a year Hector was given control of the Geological Survey, the Colonial Museum, the Colonial Laboratory and the Meteorological Office, and asked to publish his geological reports.Footnote 23

In 1867 the New Zealand Institute Act was passed to establish a body to oversee science in New Zealand and to publish scientific papers. The act was helped in its passage by W. T. L. Travers, MP for Christchurch, and by Walter Mantell, who by this time had been elected to the Upper House of Parliament. Based in Wellington and already in charge of the survey, Hector was seen as the logical choice to run the institute, and in October was appointed full-time manager and editor of its Transactions. He would hold this position for thirty-five years.Footnote 24

The analysis of the debate

In March 1871 Haast read a paper before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury.Footnote 25 People in New Zealand, he said, assumed that the moa had died out recently, but this assumption was not necessarily true. Haast described the four divisions of prehistoric people – Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age – and, using these earlier European constructs as a point of passage, stated his proposal: there was evidence of a Palaeolithic period in New Zealand dominated by a race ethnically different from Maori. Haast advanced his proposal by enrolling the stone implements found at various archaeological sites. There were two separate types of tool: the first were rough stone chips, the second polished and made of material such as greenstone. At the same time, Haast attacked a potential competing actant – the bones of moa found strewn on plains by early settlers in New Zealand. The position of these bones did not necessarily support a recent date of extinction but, rather, indicated higher rates of erosion due to deforestation and other human impacts. Haast stated that an

argument in favour of this supposition, that the Dinornis [moa] must have become extinct much earlier than we might infer from the occurrence of bones lying amongst the grass, is the fact proved abundantly by careful inquiries, that the Maoris know nothing whatever about these huge birds, although various statements have been made to the contrary, lately repeated in England … Footnote 26

Haast referred to early inquiries into Maori oral traditions, most notably by William Colenso, the missionary–naturalist who had arrived in New Zealand in the 1830s. Haast cited Colenso's earliest paper on the moa, published in Australia and England in the 1840s, which stated that the Maori had no strong tradition of the moa, and that, except for perhaps a few isolated individuals, it had died out before the peopling of the country by the present race of New Zealanders.Footnote 27 An example of one of these oral traditions is the story of the moa of Whakapunake, recorded in Colenso's earliest paper as well as during the time of the moa-hunter debate. Colenso reported

[f]alling in lately with an old chief of the Ngatiporou tribe, from Tokomaru, near the East Cape, and enquiring of him, if he knew anything of the Moa? He replied, ‘No; all that was known by them was the old tradition from their forefathers, that the Moas all perished through the fire of Tamatea, save one which escaped to the mountain Whakapunake; where it was said to sit in its cave with its mouth open, and hence to live on air.’Footnote 28

Haast reminded his audience that Colenso was studying earlier Maori traditions from a period when they were less corrupted by the inquiries of other European naturalists. Only these traditions could be taken as legitimate actants for enrolment into an argument, as their recorder understood that Maori oral traditions were not historical fact. Rather, they were ‘esoteric myth’.Footnote 29 However, those ethnologists who recorded tales provided by Maori, of methods of hunting Moa and personal accounts of feasts they had attended in their youth, and whose stories were subsequently enrolled against Haast, refused to accept this charge of historical inaccuracy.Footnote 30 By using Colenso's black-boxed findings, those observations in the early paper that had been widely acknowledged and applauded by men of science in both New Zealand and Great Britain, Haast was trying not only to interest and enrol the actants used by Colenso, but also to gain the support of Colenso himself and anyone who adhered to the argument of his article.Footnote 31

Like Colenso, Walter Mantell had been one of the earliest naturalists in New Zealand. He had collected moa specimens to send to his geologist father in England, including the significant finds from Waingongoro in 1847. After some initial doubts both Mantell and his father had accepted that Maori hunting of the moa had occurred, though Gideon hypothesized that the majority of the moa population had perished in antiquity due to the subsidence of vast tracts of land. In his work the father made note of his son's observations of Maori middens that contained moa, human and dog bones all mixed together.Footnote 32 Haast had to address these observations when he attempted to convince Mantell to ally with him. Haast was very systematic in his attempt to interest Mantell. Firstly, he enrolled mammoth bones from the northern hemisphere in his proposal. These bones could be connected to moa bones in terms of organization as they were normally found deep within the Earth. Secondly, he used ethnological work that dated the Maori arrival in New Zealand to five hundred years previously. Having linked the extinction of the moa to a period before the arrival of Maori, Haast then attempted to retranslate Mantell's early findings. The middens that Mantell had identified at sites such as Waingongoro and Awamoa showed evidence of humans hunting moa, but at the same time they did not confirm the role of Maori in such acts. Haast argued that Mantell, busy in his government work, had simply lacked time to establish the difference between moa-hunter middens and the more recent Maori middens that contained human bones.Footnote 33

Haast described the difference between his Maori and moa-hunter actors at the Rakaia site in Canterbury. Two skulls that he had found at this site showed anatomical differences from Maori skulls. Haast was now merely waiting for expert confirmation before black-boxing this fact.Footnote 34 He also implied that the naturalists J. W. Stack, Colenso and Alexander McKay were all enlisted on his side. He began mobilizing their support but had some difficulty in this regard. Stack, whose response was recorded in the same volume of the Transactions, generally agreed with Haast's proposal. There was strong presumptive evidence that the Maori were not the moa-hunters. His study of the oral history of the South Island Maori through ten generations of Ngai Tahu, covering an estimated period of 250 years, preceded by the Ngati Mamoe and Waitaha peoples for a further ten generations, found no stories about the moa. Stories of moa-hunting should have been widespread and topics of excitement, but those few he had heard in the North Island were regarded by all, except by those who related them, as ‘fabrications’. Despite agreeing with Haast, Stack resisted enrolment by criticizing the lack of positive evidence for a primitive race in New Zealand. He expressed a growing belief in the pre-settlement death of the moa, and adhered to the supposition of Colenso's earliest paper that the knowledge the Maori had of a giant flightless bird came from their ancestors' contact with the cassowary.Footnote 35

James Hector, the head of the New Zealand Geological Survey, responded critically to Haast's proposal. He set about establishing his own actor network to compete against it. Hector first concentrated on interesting moa remains that refused to associate with Haast. He enrolled finds of well-preserved bones, feathers and flesh, including the cervical vertebrae of a grown moa made by Dr Thomson of Clyde in Otago:

These remains were chiefly remarkable on account of the well-preserved condition of some parts of the skeleton, portions of the ligaments, skin, and feathers, being still attached to some of the bones; whereas Moa bones, in the condition in which they are usually found, are to some extent fossilized, or at least have undergone sufficient chemical change to deprive them not only of all ligamentous appendages, but to some extent of their original proportion of organic matter.Footnote 36

In addition, Hector attacked several of Haast's enrolled actants, particularly those from the sites at Rakaia. He appealed to Mantell's earlier conclusions, expressing the opinion that those moa, dog and human bones, together with rough and polished stone implements found in and around old native ovens, did belong together and could not be separated into two actants, nor ordered as Haast had ordered them. Hector enrolled the broken eggshells found at these sites. Their sheer quantity indicated that moa eggs were a delicacy. This could explain why relatively few stories of the moa survived. The consumption of the eggs would have led to their rapid extinction without a great amount of hunting. The enrolment of eggshells into Hector's actor network translated Hector's argument and led him to focus more on the potential factors that accelerated the moa's demise.Footnote 37

The naturalist W. D. Murison aligned himself with Hector. For Murison the contemporaneity of the Maori and the moa was a black-boxed fact that could not be reopened. Furthermore, the work of both Colenso and Mantell, as well as of those associated actants they had described, fitted better into Hector's network. For example, Murison described the layers of eggshells observed by Mantell at the Waingongoro site. Murison claimed that the sheer number of layers indicated eager and consistent consumption that would have accelerated the moa's extinction. Murison also examined the issue of rough and polished stone implements. These two actants were often found together at archaeological sites. Polished stone implements were often ploughed up in areas which could only have been occupied for moa-hunting. Murison proposed that there was every reason to believe the moa had existed within the previous century, as opposed to Haast's estimate of an age of five hundred years or more.Footnote 38

In his response, Haast concentrated more on attacking competing actants in Hector's network than on enrolling more within his own.Footnote 39 He was confident that he had mobilized enough support to undermine his opponents. Haast addressed Murison's objections by claiming there was a similarity between the South Island Rakaia site and North Island sites. Finding polished stone implements together with moa bones and eggshells did not mean that they were associated. Murison could not prove that the Maori had not visited the site later. Any similarity between Maori and moa-hunter sites only meant that the moa-hunters had been part of an earlier wave of Polynesian migrants, sharing a similar culture and background but differing in the level of civilization they had reached. Sir George Grey sent a letter to the Zoological Society of London in March 1870 commenting on the allusions to moa-hunting in ancient Maori poems and stories. But Haast noted that none of these allusions were to be found in any published traditions, including Grey's own book.Footnote 40 Furthermore, he believed Hector's attempt to enrol Mantell was futile. Haast noted that in an article in the Wellington Independent dated 3 July 1871 Mantell had used the term ‘pre-historic man ovens’. Mantell had seen the error in his earlier work and was now aligning himself with Haast.

Haast wrote on the separate origin of rough and polished stone implements. He claimed no polished implement had ever been found in a moa-hunter kitchen midden. In addition, he declared that Colenso had written to him offering his full support: ‘Believe me, no Maori of thirty or thirty-five years ago ever once supposed the Moa bones to be those of a bird, they always obstinately denied it. That they since have done so is entirely owing to the pakehas [Europeans].’Footnote 41 Haast did acknowledge that the human skulls he had sent to Europe had resisted enrolment. A more detailed analysis had shown that they were no different from Maori skulls. Deprived of this potentially devastating black-boxed fact, Haast did his best to repair the damage. He stated that if the skulls had belonged to the prehistoric moa-hunters, a claim for which there was suddenly no evidence, then it only proved the two races had originated in the same region.

Thus in 1871 Hector and Haast mobilized their support in their competing actor networks. Each sought to vindicate his own research and consolidate his own position as the obligatory point of passage into the subject of moa-hunting. Hector drew support from W. D. Murison, Sir George Grey and the early missionary–naturalist Richard Taylor.Footnote 42 Those non-human actants that he could rely on included well-preserved moa remains, the vast number of eggshells found at archaeological sites, the description of middens originally given by Mantell, and the Maori traditions recorded by several of his supporters. Haast drew his support from Colenso, Stack and Alexander McKay. He had split various non-human actants into two groups; one group belonged to the Maori and the other to the moa-hunters. A key justification for this ordering was the difference between rough and polished stone implements. Haast attacked Hector's reliance on moa remains found deep within the Earth and in dry climates, as well as the use of heavily translated and manipulated Maori traditions.Footnote 43 Hector's strength lay in moa remains while Haast's lay in his criticism of Maori tradition. However, it was the weaknesses in each actor network that would determine who lost the debate. Any weakness might lead to the puncturing of one network, its contraction and the subsequent expansion of the other network; the most damaging weaknesses in this case were those actors who resisted enrolment or defected after already being mobilized. The most significant early example of such a weakness was Walter Mantell. Both Hector and Haast claimed his support; both had attempted to mobilize his work.

In his paper the following year Mantell encouraged Haast to continue investigation of moa-hunting. But he declared that, as it stood, the evidence was inconclusive on the antiquity of the moa-hunters:

I wish, in conclusion, to be distinctly understood on one point. I have not myself any fixed theory in connection with these Moas, their antiquity, or recentness. I feel that the information as yet accumulated is not sufficient to justify me in adopting any of the theories afloat, far less in venturing to add to their number. But while thus diffident myself, I do not feel called upon to withhold my respect from those who, with acuter intellect, or greater courage, step forward in the direction in which at present I dare not venture to advance … Footnote 44

Mantell made it clear that the moa had died out as a result of hunting. Yet he resisted enrolment by Haast, repeating that the middens he had found in the 1840s contained moa and human bones mixed together.Footnote 45 Mantell insisted that moa-eating and cannibalism in New Zealand had overlapped, so rejected the distinction Haast had made between the diets of moa-hunters and of Maori in his original proposal. Having declared Mantell an ally, Haast was now forced to counter his work. By resisting enrolment in Haast's network, Mantell aligned himself with Hector. In so doing he brought with him the middens he had described at the Waingongoro site. In so doing Mantell weakened Haast's position and strengthened that of Hector.Footnote 46

In 1873 and 1874 Haast continued to face challenges; the number of actors opposing him began to multiply. Matters climaxed in August 1874 when Hector read a paper by Alexander McKay to the Wellington Philosophical Society. A gold miner and prospector, McKay had been poorly educated but had a lifelong interest in geology. He had met Haast while prospecting in Canterbury and in 1870 Haast had begun using him as an assistant.Footnote 47 In 1872 McKay had excavated the moa-bone Point Cave in Sumner for Haast. At this site moa bones and eggshells were found with rough stone chips and polished stone implements in such a way as to make it impossible to separate them into the remains of two cultures. Although Haast incorporated this site into his own private research and subsequently dealt with the interpretive consequences for his theory, he delayed publishing the findings. It seems Haast hoped to find an additional series of actants that would help explain the Sumner site in a way that matched his original proposal. McKay's inquiries about when he might publish his results were angrily dismissed. Soon after this McKay moved to Wellington and in 1873 was employed by Hector at the Geological Survey.Footnote 48

The August 1874 paper was McKay's response to Haast's procrastination. McKay described the findings at Sumner and compared them to those at Rakaia, where no polished stone implements had been found. Haast's proposal as it then stood would have meant that Rakaia was the older site. The situation was complicated, however, by the identification of the bones of a larger species of moa (Dinornis robustus) at Sumner. These remains indicated to McKay and his intended audience that, even with its polished stone implements, Sumner was of greater antiquity:

The excavations at the Rakaia have not hitherto disclosed the remains of any of the larger species of the Moa, and it may be fairly argued that the more gigantic forms would be the first to disappear, whether in the ordinary process of extinction or by the hands of man.Footnote 49

This argument fitted into previously black-boxed ideas about the extinction of species expressed by naturalists throughout the period.Footnote 50 According to McKay the absence of polished stone tools at Rakaia meant only that its former occupants had been more careful with their tools than those at Sumner. McKay concluded that there was likely to have been a more gradual continuous progress from ‘moa-hunter to fish-eater’ in the history of New Zealand's people, though he did not completely abandon Haast's theory of a distinct race.Footnote 51

Haast reacted furiously to his former assistant's paper. He responded with a paper read in September 1874, constructed from notes written two years before. In it he explained away the polished stone implements at Sumner by allowing the moa-hunters a greater state of civilization. Haast had to admit that the chipped and the polished stone tools were part of the same culture. This admission transformed Haast's arguments and the associations within his actor network. Nevertheless, he doggedly maintained his original proposal that the moa-hunter and Maori cultures were distinct:

I have no doubt that my views expressed on this subject some years ago will gain general acceptance in due time, although I know that erroneous notions to the contrary, when they have once become popular prejudices, are difficult to eradicate; especially when they are supported by one or two scientific men in New Zealand, notwithstanding that their assertions never stood the test of critical examination, and have been refuted over and over again.Footnote 52

In order to maintain as much of his original proposal as possible, Haast continued to negotiate with many actants that had resisted enrolment and aligned themselves with Hector. When polished stone implements were found deep beneath the earth, Haast emphasized how their depth showed the great antiquity of human arrival in New Zealand. In his paper on the moa-hunter encampment at Shag Point, Haast criticized the enrolment of moa skin and feathers by his opponents, arguing that their preservation was due to exceptional conditions and dry environments in places such as Otago.Footnote 53 Haast also attacked his former assistant, dismissing McKay as a simple labourer whom he had trained and who had subsequently betrayed him. In response to Haast's attack, McKay replied that he would have been happy for Haast to publish the findings but had feared his former patron would instead suppress them. Haast responded that he had already conceded the contemporaneity of rough and polished stone tools in a letter to W. D. Murison and had discussed the findings at Sumner with Hector in 1872.Footnote 54 This period of non-publication, and Haast's angry reaction to McKay's paper, suggest that for a group of interested actors a series of translations are irrelevant or non-existent until incorporated into opposing networks. Only when they are defined, represented and expressed to all interested parties, in this case by being published, are their consequences fully registered.

Haast attempted to have McKay's paper banned from publication in the Transactions. However, the board of the New Zealand Institute asserted that its content was of scientific interest and should be published. This decision was severely criticized by naturalists in the South Island, who saw it as poor etiquette and a jealous act by the Wellingtonians. In response, the Canterbury Philosophical Institute considered breaking away from the New Zealand Institute and sought outside adjudication from the president of the Royal Society of London, Sir Joseph Hooker. Disappointingly, Hooker agreed with the decision because McKay, hired as a simple excavator rather than a scientific assistant, had no obligation to share his personal views with his employer. Nevertheless, Hooker saw no reason for McKay's failure to inform Haast of his intention to publish.Footnote 55 During this period Haast refused to send papers to the Transactions, but Hooker encouraged him and his allies in Canterbury to reconcile themselves to the outcome of the controversy. In June 1875 he wrote to Haast to advise against making a ‘class or local question of it’:

I speak from long experience of British scientific Institutions. I never knew anyone gain by breaking with any of them, and I have known many to lose. Their enemies in the Institution chuckle over it; their friends in it feel that their cause is lost, that it is desertion.Footnote 56

Although Haast refused to abandon his proposal, he worked to repair his relationships with his fellow men of science, all except McKay, whom he never forgave. In 1876 he sent papers to the Transactions for publication. He began to cooperate with Hector as well, though more out of necessity than trust.Footnote 57

The dispute dragged on in the form of personal attacks and barbs until the start of the 1880s but never reached the same level of intensity as reached during the Sumner controversy. In the years after 1874 actants found at other sites accumulated in support of Hector's proposal. These actants were collected, defined and represented by Hector's allies, who worked to undermine Haast's proposal. Eventually the number of actants aligned against Haast grew so great that his hypothesis needed to be either fundamentally altered or abandoned. By the end of the decade Haast's views of the moa-hunters resembled more the gradual, continuous transition first emphasized by his opponents.Footnote 58 Inevitably translated by the actants found at each new site, his proposal became so transformed and diluted that it was unrecognizable when compared with its original version.Footnote 59

Conclusions

Before addressing some of the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis, we can comment on the legacy of this debate and how an ANT framework would colour it. The amalgamation of all relevant actors into one black-boxed solution, that devised by Hector and his allies declaring the moa to be both hunted by Maori and recently extinct, might indicate that a long-term consensus had been reached. However, this conclusion was in fact never fully established among New Zealand scholars. The idea of a distinct race did not hinge entirely on Haast's proposal. This proposal existed alongside the idea of an earlier race often identified with the Moriori of the Chatham Islands. The existence of this race, often perceived as of mixed or Melanesian ethnicity or origin, was supported by Maori traditions that were later expanded upon by the ethnologist S. Percy Smith and his allies. The related Great Fleet theory, championed by Smith, put forward the idea of a multi-waved settlement of New Zealand by Melanesian and Polynesian groups. These waves of settlement culminated in a Great Fleet of canoes that had supposedly arrived around AD 1350. The Great Fleet and the theories of the Melanesian settlement of New Zealand dominated study in the first half of the twentieth century and much of their archaeological foundation came from Haast's identification of two distinct cultures, primarily in the existence of two distinct sets of stone implements.Footnote 60

Kerry Howe and John Stenhouse have suggested that New Zealanders widely accepted the idea of multiple waves of settlement by different groups because it justified the subsequent British arrival and colonization and fitted well with commonly held social Darwinist views of human progress.Footnote 61 Using the ANT analysis sketched above, however, one might conceive of these later translations as arising out of actants such as stone implements moving from Haast's defeated network into Hector's victorious one. Hector's allies had used Maori traditions as legitimate sources of evidence. Later, as the issue of settlement in New Zealand developed, new principal actors such as Smith felt it legitimate to continue using these traditions when establishing their proposals. In this setting Haast's organization of stone implements could be combined with Maori traditions, a form of evidence which was, in Haast's view, deeply suspect. In turn, this was used to support an argument, now considered fallacious, of the existence of two separate indigenous groups. The danger of such a conclusion is that, by seeing later developments through the ANT analysis, one assumes simplistically that the moa-hunter debate was a direct cause of the later Great Fleet theory. This is simply not the case. It also avoids focusing on the example at hand, the moa-hunter debate of the 1870s, and the fact that neither Hector's nor Haast's proposal was completely accepted in the long term.

When studying history, there is a danger in using ANT, with its demand for absolute symmetry. While agency might be apportioned to all actors, the historian is reliant on these actions being recorded symmetrically. This never occurs. Maori are the prime example in the case of the moa-hunter debate. While Maori undoubtedly influenced the beliefs of the New Zealand men of science, their oral traditions were written down in English and their agency was coopted. Sorrenson expresses this exclusion by emphasizing that Maori traditions were always fitted to contemporary popular European modes of thought and that Pakeha scholars saw whatever they wanted in them.Footnote 62 Such an idea fits with Peter Gibbons's idea of cultural colonization, in which cultural practices, particularly writing and printing, were used to appropriate Maori words and culture.Footnote 63 Such an act once performed cannot simply be undone and as a result the effect of the Maori on this debate is not known. Such deficiencies are discussed in a typical historical account, but do not fit well – and indeed can unbalance – a rigid analysis such as ANT.

As a historical account, the greatest weakness of the above ANT analysis is its inability to examine the context and environment of the moa-hunter debate. As the debate unfolded, questions of personal motivation and geographical place – and how they influenced the actions of the protagonists – were replaced by the simple desire for victory over an opponent. Thus the analysis separated the actions of the debate from the wider world, isolating it rather than contextualizing it, risking the danger of rendering the account ahistorical. It is therefore preferable to make use of other, more open-ended, approaches alongside ANT. Two approaches that might reconnect this account to the historical period in which it is situated are those of David Livingstone and Tony Ballantyne.Footnote 64 Using Livingstone's geographical approach, it would be possible to emphasize how provincialism in New Zealand and the struggle for scientific resources fuelled the debate. Such an approach would emphasize Hector's proximity to the national institutions of science, including the centre of publication, while at the same time emphasizing Haast's proximity to the vast majority of hard evidence in the form of moa bones and ancient Maori hunting sites.Footnote 65 Hector's background in Otago might also have motivated him in his disagreement with Haast, while Haast's non-British background, compared to Hector's ‘Britishness’, would have to be taken into account.Footnote 66

Ballantyne's ‘webs of empire’ could be used alongside this analysis. The main advantage of the idea of webs of relationships is that it does not conceive of two distinct forces in competition, but rather an interconnected group of interested parties with centres of concentrated influence, in this case around Hector, Haast, the board of the New Zealand Institute and the president of the Royal Society. In this case, too, one could conceive of Wellington as being the centre, with its control over publication, but with a strong challenge from Haast and Canterbury with its rich moa-bone resources. London played only a minimal role in this debate and the importance of its influence differed between the New Zealand parties. When it appeared he might lose out to Hector and McKay, Haast was keen to receive the judgement of the traditional centre. In the short term it did him no good, but in the long term his close relationships with many distinguished men of science in London might well have helped prolong his ideas and encourage their use in later theories of New Zealand settlement.Footnote 67 This approach could emphasize the effect of ideas disseminated from other regions, for example Haast's adoption of the Palaeolithic–Neolithic division appropriated from Britain. It also avoids seeing the debate as simply a fight between Hector and Haast, which is the tendency when using ANT.

The ANT analysis of the moa-hunter debate does lead to some interesting conclusions. The first concerns the interaction between Haast and previously published work. When he attempted to interest, enrol and mobilize earlier translations, those responsible for those translations continued to exert influence over them. For example, although Walter Mantell's interest in natural history waned after the death of his father, twenty years later he was still able to exert control over the actants from Waingongoro, first enrolled and represented in his father's work. By participating in these earlier translations Mantell could, in a manner almost akin to judicial precedent, deny Haast any association with those he had represented. Despite meeting such resistance Haast refused to relent. It is obvious that a principal actor can continue to support a proposal that fails to enrol important actors whether human or non-human. In terms of non-human actors, when the two skulls Haast sent to Europe resisted enrolment, Haast preferred to dismiss them as unnecessary rather than integrate them into a revised proposal.

While the analysis has attempted to maintain symmetry between human and non-human actors, Haast's differing reactions to resistance from humans and non-humans clearly showed the asymmetry between these two groups. Historical figures rarely saw the non-human as an equal rather than as an object to be manipulated. Haast's concern at the resistance shown by the two skulls sent to Europe was minimal when compared to his concern at resistance from human actors such as Hector, Murison and George Grey. The only reason for Haast's differing reactions to these actants, if we are to follow through with the principle of symmetry, was his perception of their relative threat. The key example here is his fury at McKay's betrayal. Emphasis should be placed upon the power that human actors had to control and organize these networks as well as to represent armies of actants within them. This power was expressed through publication. The translations in the moa-hunter debate seemed only, in the minds of McKay and Haast, to become realities when they were expressed formally. Hence McKay, who wanted the findings to come out, was anxious to see them published, while Haast, who hoped they would yet be further qualified by new finds, was in no hurry to publish.

Perhaps the most significant conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is the power of human actors to create actors and actants that may never have existed at all. This occurs through the manipulation of the meaning of specific terms. An example of this creation through manipulation is Haast's use of the term ‘moa-hunter’, which he separated from the term ‘Maori’. By differentiating these two terms, Haast created two separate groups of actants that only existed through the authority of their author. When it had been previously assumed that the Maori had hunted the moa, there was only one set of actants. By manipulating the meaning of terms, Haast was able to create two sets of actants from evidence that had previously only supported one solitary set.

Despite its flaws the ANT analysis does help to break down the moa-hunter debate. ANT can be a useful tool as it helps the historian particularize the debate. The debate is broken down into as many components and steps as research will allow. If one avoids viewing the theory as a driving force of history then ANT is helpful in its focus on actors' slight changes of approach, of statement and of argument during a debate. Because of its rigid structure ANT cannot be used in isolation. Understanding the motivation of the actors requires some contextualization or the parallel use of another approach.

References

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5 Steve Fuller notes that ANT acts less as a sociological theory and more as a methodology (see S. Fuller, New Frontiers in Science and Technology, Cambridge, 2007, 103). The analysis in this paper views ANT more as method, as such a view allows the adoption of other methods when it is necessary to contextualize further the debate.

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11 Fuller, op. cit. (5), 103–5. For an example of the use of contemporary terms when studying the history of science, see Ruth Barton's article concerning the imprinting of the term ‘scientist’ onto the past. Barton, R., ‘“Men of Science”: language, identity and professionalization in the mid-Victorian scientific community’, History of Science (2003), 41, 73–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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13 Barton, op. cit. (2), 254–6; C. A. Fleming, Science, Settlers, and Scholars: The Centennial History of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Wellington, 1987, 5–10.

14 Fleming, op. cit. (13), 12.

15 Fleming, op. cit. (13), 11–12; S. Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century, Kingston, 1988, 30.

16 Gruber, op. cit. (1), 78–83.

17 W. Langer, ‘Haast, Sir (John Francis) Julius von (1822–1887)’, ODNB, Oxford University Press, updated 2004 (http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/view/article/11828/; accessed 21 February 2007).

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19 Barton, op. cit. (2), 255–7.

20 Sheets-Pyenson, op. cit. (15), 29–32.

21 Fleming, op. cit. (13), 11; R. K. Dell, ‘Hector, James 1834–1907’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 7 April 2006 (http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/; accessed 24 January 2007).

22 Gruber, op. cit. (1), 80–1.

23 Galbreath, op. cit. (12), 77–85; P. Burton, The New Zealand Geological Survey, 1865–1965, Wellington, 1965, 1–14; S. Nathan, ‘Geological exploration’, Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 26 September 2006 (http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/Geology/GeologicalExploration/en/; accessed 18 November 2006).

24 Fleming, op. cit. (13), 11–17; Dell, op. cit. (21).

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28 Colenso, W., ‘On the Moa’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1879), 12, 63–108, 85.Google Scholar In the earlier paper Colenso makes no mention of the Fire of Tamatea, although the fire tradition was commonly recorded by those interested in the moa's extinction. Colenso's earlier version informs us that the moa of Whakapunake resembles a domestic cock, with a face like a man, and that it is guarded by two immense tuatara (a species of New Zealand lizard).

29 Haast, op. cit. (4), 708–11. Atholl Anderson has noted the difficulty Europeans had in deducing whether the creatures Maori spoke of were real or imagined. Anderson states, ‘The duality of the concept “moa” apparent in the early references – which at the same time allowed moas to disappear long ago, but mythological “moa” to survive in certain places until the 19th century – was an obvious source of confusion.’ See A. Anderson, Prodigious Birds: Moas and Moa-Hunting in Prehistoric New Zealand, Cambridge, 1989, 176.

30 For moa-hunting stories recorded during the period of the moa-hunter debate see Taylor, R., ‘An account of the first discovery of Moa remains’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1872), 5, 97–101Google Scholar; Stack, J. W., ‘Notes on the word “Moa”, in the poetry of the New Zealanders’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1874), 7, 28–9Google Scholar; Hamilton, J. W., ‘Notes on Maori traditions of the Moa’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1874), 7, 121–2Google Scholar; Kirk, T., ‘Extract from a letter from F. E. Maning, Esq., relative to the extinction of the Moa’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1875), 8, 102–3Google Scholar; Roberts, W. H. S., ‘Notes on the Moa’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1874), 7, 548–9.Google Scholar

31 Latour has noted the use of scientific articles to curb dissent (see Latour, op. cit. (10), 31–4). As an ‘argument from authority’ – something derided but often unwittingly used by those under pressure to prove themselves correct – an article helps to collect together allies in the form of authors, publishers and others associated with the work, while at the same time isolating dissenters through the sheer weight of numbers aligned against them.

32 Mantell, G. A., ‘On the fossil remains of birds collected in various parts of New Zealand by Mr. Walter Mantell, of Wellington’, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London (1848), 4, 225–41, 231–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Notice of the remains of the Dinornis and other birds, and of fossils and rock-specimens, recently collected by Mr. Walter Mantell in the Middle Island of New Zealand’, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London (1850), 6, 319–43, 333–42; Anderson, op. cit. (29), 98.

33 Haast, op. cit. (25), 67–78. Like Owen and Hochstetter, Haast believed that the extinction of the moa had been the cause of cannibalism in New Zealand. Gideon Mantell, however, thought that such an idea was pure speculation.

34 Haast, op. cit. (25), 79–88; Travers, W. T. L., ‘Notes on the extinction of the Moa, with a review of the discussions on the subject, published in the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute”’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1875), 8, 58–83, 58–9.Google Scholar Travers's article gives a summary of the moa-hunter debate as it unfolded until 1875.

35 Travers, op. cit. (34), 60–6; Stack, J. W., ‘Some observations on the annual address of the President of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1871), 4, 107–10.Google Scholar

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38 Murison, W. D., ‘Notes on Moa remains’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1871), 4, 120–4.Google Scholar

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40 Stack later examined the number of times the word ‘moa’ arose in Grey's collection. In the five hundred pieces of composition recorded, the moa was mentioned seven times, and Stack concluded that this was not enough to say Maori were familiar with the bird (see Stack, op. cit. (30), 28–9).

41 Haast, op. cit. (39), 110.

42 Travers, op. cit. (34), 67; Taylor, op. cit. (30), 97–101. In his paper, Taylor recounted stories of moa-hunting told to him by North Island Maori. In this same paper, Taylor also claimed that he had identified the moa before Colenso or Owen.

43 On the appropriation, colonization and misunderstanding of Maori traditions by Europeans see Sorrenson, op. cit. (4), 37–57; Gibbons, P., ‘Cultural colonization and national identity’, New Zealand Journal of History (2002), 36, 5–18Google Scholar; M. Orbell, Hawaiki: A New Approach to Maori Tradition, Christchurch, 1985, 65–6. The consequences for ANT analysis will be discussed in the conclusion.

44 Mantell, W. B. D., ‘On Moa beds’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1872), 5, 94–7, 97.Google Scholar

45 Anderson, op. cit. (29), 103.

46 Mantell, op. cit. (44), 94–7. This is an example of one network expanding after a competing network is punctured (see Latour, op. cit. (10), 249).

47 R. Cooper, ‘McKay, Alexander 1841–1917’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 7 April 2006 (http://www.govt.dnzb.govt.nz/; accessed 26 January 2007).

48 Andrews, op. cit. (4), 139; Anderson, op. cit. (29), 102–3; Cooper, op. cit. (47).

49 McKay, A., ‘On the identity of the Moa-hunters with the present Maori race’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1874), 7, 98–105, 102.Google Scholar

50 A particularly relevant example is Richard Owen (see R. Owen, Palaeontology, or a Systematic Summary of Extinct Animals and Their Geological Relations, Edinburgh, 1860, 398–9). Allusions to the belief of larger species perishing before their smaller counterparts can also be found in the works of Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin.

51 McKay, op. cit. (49), 102–5; Andrews, op. cit. (4), 140; Anderson, op. cit. (29), 102–3.

52 Haast, J., ‘Researches and excavations carried on in and near the Moa-bone Point Cave, Sumner Road, in the Year 1872’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1874), 7, 54–85, 81.Google Scholar

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55 Haast, op. cit. (4), 729–31.

56 Quoted in Von Haast, op. cit. (4), 733.

57 Joseph Hooker, quoted in Haast, op. cit. (4), 733–48.

58 For example, see Haast, J., ‘Notes on an ancient manufactory of stone implements at the mouth of the Otokai Creek, Brighton, Otago’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1879), 12, 150–2.Google Scholar

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60 Howe, op. cit. (4), 160–6; Sorrenson, op. cit. (4), 40–57.

61 Howe, op. cit. (4), 165–6; Stenhouse, J., ‘“A disappearing race before we came here”: Doctor Alfred Kingcome Newman, the dying Maori, and Victorian scientific racism’, New Zealand Journal of History (1996), 30, 124–40, 134–6.Google Scholar

62 Sorrenson, op. cit. (4), 37–57.

63 Gibbons, op. cit. (43), 5–18.

64 D. N. Livingstone, Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge, Chicago, 2003; T. Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire, New York, 2002.

65 Haast's geographical advantage has previously been explored by Barton in her paper examining the struggle between Owen and Haast over moa nomenclature (see Barton, op. cit. (2)).

66 As done in the case of the moa-hunter debate by Gruber and Reid (see Gruber, op. cit. (1); and Reid, op. cit. (4), 90–118). Geography is usually emphasized in New Zealand's colonial history because internal transport was difficult and transport between provinces usually occurred by sea. Traditionally, historical accounts of science in New Zealand have addressed issues of geography.

67 For example, Janet Garber states that Darwin supported Haast's election to the Royal Society, and viewed him as a useful correspondent and provider of data (see J. Garber, ‘Darwin's correspondents in the Pacific: through the looking glass to the Antipodes’, in Darwin's Laboratory: Evolutionary Theory and Natural History in the Pacific (ed. R. Macleod and P. F. Rehbock), Honolulu, 1994, 169–211, 177, 192–3).