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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.

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

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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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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.

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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

36 Hector, J., ‘On recent Moa remains in New Zealand’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1871), 4, 110–20, 110.Google Scholar

37 Hector, op. cit. (36), 110–18; Andrews, op. cit. (4), 137–9.

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

39 Haast, J., ‘Third paper on the Moas and Moa hunters’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1871), 4, 94–107.Google Scholar

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

53 Haast, J., ‘Notes on the Moa-hunter encampment at Shag Point, Otago’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1874), 7, 91–8, 97.Google Scholar

54 Anderson, op. cit. (29), 102–3; Andrews, op. cit. (4), 139–40; Cooper, op. cit. (47).

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

59 Andrews, op. cit. (4), 140; Anderson, op. cit. (29), 103–6.

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).