Post on 02-Feb-2023
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<CT>Dividing Oceania</CT>
<CST>Transnational Anthropology, 1928-1930</CST>
<CA>Geoffrey Gray</CA>
In the first decades of the twentieth century Oceania was a site
of international ethnographic interest (Stocking 1995;;: Kuklick
1991;; Morphy 1997;; Penny and Bunzl 2003;; Buschmann 2008;;
McDougall and Davidson 2008). As part of this interest there
were multi-disciplinary ethnographic expeditions to the Torres
Strait islands, Papua and New Guinea, as well as the Australian
mainland. It is interesting to reflect on the importance for a
history of anthropology, the fact that 'the "the crucial
fieldwork experience that shaped the theoretical stance of the
two founding fathers of British social anthropology, Bronislaw
Malinowski and AR Radcliffe-Brown, was undertaken in this
region' region" (Mulvaney 1988: 205). The imperial nations,
Britain, Germany, France and the USA implicitly divided Oceania
into areas of national interest. After World War One I there was
further elaboration of these areas and the introduction of
Japan, Australia, and New Zealand as part of the imperial family
taking on responsibility, under a League of Nations '"C'"
mandate, for the ex-German colonies of Micronesia, New Guinea,
Samoa, Nauru. This paper chapter illustrates the transnational
intersection and accommodation of Australian, American, and
British ethnographic interests in Oceania as expressed through
some of the correspondence between A.R.A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and
H. E. Gregory.
In the decade preceding the appointment of AR RadcliffeA.
R. Radcliffe-Brown as Foundation Professor of Anthropology at
the University of Sydney, Australian scientists, along with some
of their British counterparts, urged the Australian government
to establish a chair of anthropology in an Australian
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university. Such calls began with the British Association for
the Advancement of Science meeting held in the Sydney and
Melbourne in August 1914. Before this meeting many of its
members were of the opinion that anthropological teaching should
be expanded not only in British universities but in key imperial
universities as well. In fact a committee had been formed at the
previous meeting to report to the 1914 meeting on the expansion
of anthropology in British universities. War intervened and it
was not until 1921 that interest was resumed, at the 1921
Australian Association for the Advancement of Science
conference;; this was followed by the Pan Pacific Science
Congress of 1921, which had also expressed the need for
anthropological research in Oceania, and the second Pan Pacific
Science Congress held in Australia in 1923. The previous year
the Australian National Research Council (ANRC), made up of one
hundred eminent scientists, supported the need for '"the
endowment of systematic scientific research in the Pacific
Islands under Australian Control'."1 The resolutions supporting
the establishment of a chair and systematic research in Oceania
were aimed primarily at the Australian Government government and
its colonial administrations in the Australian controlled
Territory of Papua and the Australian Australian-administered
League of Nations Mandate of New Guinea.2
The Congress, in A. P. Elkin's view, was a key event in the
formation of a Chair of Anthropology. A. P. Elkin, who attended
the conference, argued that the Congress was a key event in the
formation of a chair of Anthropology, its '"initial success
arose from the standing of . . . Congress, the status of the
[ANRC], and the calibre of the individual scientists concerned'"
(Elkin 1958: :230-231). Such a view minimizes the '"systematic
international policy pursued by the Rockefeller Foundation'" and
undervalues the persistence and contacts of the ANRC executive,
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as well as the role of the British anthropologist A. C. Haddon,
whom David Orme Masson, President of the ANRC, thanked: '"we owe
it [the chair] to you'" (Mulvaney 1988: :220).
The calls for a chair were driven by two arguments:,
firstly that training in anthropology was crucial to enlightened
governance in the colonies;;, and, secondly, a belief that
Aboriginal people were close to extinction and that all should
be recorded about these '"very interesting people'" before it
'was too late. It was also decided at the Congress that the
University of Sydney was the most suitable site to house the
chair. Sir Baldwin Spencer, the most eminent anthropologist in
Australia in the first decades of the twentieth century, when
asked why the University of Sydney and not the University of
Melbourne was chosen, told his questioner,: '"Sydney had always
been in closer contact with the Pacific Islands'." He went on:
'"For all that . . . [,] important anthropological work would be
undertaken in Melbourne. This would be more particularly
connected with the study of the Australian Aborigines, for it
was in Melbourne [undoubtedly referencing himself] that the
principal works of native anthropology had been written. This
should be an indispensable study, because the Australian
Aborigines--the most primitive race on earth--were but surely
passing away'." He also emphasised emphasized the importance of
anthropology in training colonial officials and missionaries.3
It was resolved at the 1923 Congress that research was
'"urgently needed'" due to,
<EXT>i) The undoubted disappearance of the native population in
many areas, which will not only affect the labour problem, but
involves the loss of most valuable scientific material, and . .
. is itself the most serious obstacle to the duty accepted by
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the Mandatory Powers of promoting the material and moral well-
being and social progress of the inhabitants [;;]
ii) The practical importance of the ethnological study of native
races. . . . Experience has shown the economic value of placing
the control of labour in the hands of a man who has a
sympathetic knowledge of native conditions and thought in
eliminating disputes and inducing a contented frame of mind in
the workers.</EXT>
Interest in Aborigines was motivated by a belief that they
represented
<EXT>one of the lowest types of culture available for study, of
the rapid and inevitable diminution of their numbers, and of the
loss of their primitive beliefs and customs under the influence
of a higher culture . . . that steps be taken, without delay, to
organise the study of those tribes that are, as yet
comparatively uninfluenced by contact with civilisation.4</EXT>
It was further proposed that Oceania should be divided into four
main areas--Australia, New Guinea and Melanesia, Polynesia, and
Micronesia. It was suggested firstly, that Australia take
responsibility for Australian ethnology;; and second thatly,
Australia '"should more particularly investigate Papua, the
Mandated Territory of New Guinea and Melanesia, but Great
Britain and France should assist in this work'";; and thirdly,
that the investigation of the Maoris be the responsibility of
New Zealand. The rest of Polynesia was regarded as '"pre-
eminently the field'" for American research, with the
cooperation co-operation of France and New Zealand;; and finally,
the study of Micronesia was the '"particular province'" of Japan
and Americathe United States. It was undecided which parts of
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Oceania required research priority, although it was thought that
Micronesia should be first '"since the culture and ruins of this
group are of such a nature that . . . they should furnish the
clue to much that is obscure in Oceanic mythology, folk-lore and
culture generally'."5
Notwithstanding the division proposed at the Congress, one
of the initial tasks for Radcliffe-Brown was to determine the
areas in which Sydney would take responsibility for ethnographic
research. He told Raymond Firth, who had written seeking a
fellowship, that there would be no problem '"in providing [him]
with funds'" which were '"intended to be used for
anthropological research in Australia, New Guinea and Melanesia,
although, in exceptional circumstances, it might be possible to
provide funds for work in Polynesia or New Zealand'."6 The
general research plan laid down by Radcliffe-Brown paid
'"special attention to research in Australia so as to complete
if possible, our knowledge of the aborigines before it is too
late;; . . . to increase our knowledge of the peoples of New
Guinea and Melanesia with the resources at our disposal, not
only for scientific purposes, but also that the results may be
available for the Administrations concerned'."7 Overall he wanted
'"the sociological investigation of primitive peoples--
systematic investigation directed by sociological theory'."8
Radcliffe-Brown distinguished '"historical sciences'" and
'"inductive sciences'." The former, he suggested to the American
anthropologist Robert Lowie,9 '"give us exact knowledge about
particular facts and events;; the latter general laws. The main
point, which I am throughout insisting, is the possibility and
the need of an inductive science of the phenomena of culture,
and I think that the study of culture has been held back by the
over-emphasis on the historical point of view'."109
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Research under Radcliffe-Brown and those who succeeded him
at Sydney concentrated on '"the preservation of some record of
the aborigines, who are in the process of rapid extermination as
a result of the appropriation of their lands'." It was not only
Aborigines who were under threat of extinction;;, depopulation
was a problem for Melanesia as well. Radcliffe-Brown noted that
'"everywhere throughout Australia and Melanesia the natives are
dying out rapidly or they are losing their customs and
traditions'."11 10 In Australia there were few places unaffected
by the European invasion, occupation, and settlement.
Paradoxically, seen from the standpoint of today, one of the
underpinnings of the new discipline of social anthropology was
the fiction of an Aboriginality comparatively uninfluenced or
affected by white invasion.
The area between the Kimberley in northwest Western
Australia, Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, and Cape York
in Northern Queensland was chosen as the location for intensive
anthropological research. It was in this area that Radcliffe-
Brown considered Aboriginal people to be as '"yet comparatively
uninfluenced by contact with civilisation'," despite the
dramatic effects of European settlement which had led to the
dispossession, displacement, resettlement, and in some places
the almost total disappearance of Aboriginal people, --with
consequent cultural, social, and economic destruction (Biskup
1973A:1-26;; Gray 2002:23-50). In his opinion there were
sufficient old people, --particularly old men --over fifty-five
years of age--who remembered life before contact with Europeans
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and it was therefore one of the last places where Aboriginal
people could be described and captured for scientific
posterity.12 11 The call '"before it is too late'" has weavedwove
its way through Australian anthropology for the better part of
the twentieth century. The anthropologist Nicolas Peterson
suggests that '"the significance of research on Aboriginal
cultures and societies has continually been fuelled either by
the belief that Aboriginal people were doomed to extinction by
the operation of natural laws or by the belief that access to
the authentic pre-colonial practices was about to disappear'"
(Peterson, 1990: :4).
Outside of Aboriginal Australia, New Guinea, Melanesia and
its the Polynesian outliers such as Tikopia and Rennell Island,
Radcliffe-Brown took a view that the Bernice P. Bishop Museum
(in Hawai<OKINA>'i) was responsible for Polynesia (see Thomas
1989: :27-41).13 12 The Bishop Museum, as had beenlike its fellow
institution the University of Hawai'iHawai<OKINA>i, was a
recipient of funding due to recommendations made by Wissler and
Embree as a result offollowing their tour of Australia, New
Zealand, and Hawai'i Hawai<OKINA>i in 1925-1926 (Jonas,
1989:144). Radcliffe-Brown told HE GregoryH. E. Gregory,
director of the Bernice P Bishop Museum,:
<EXT>We are dividing our research as well as we can between
Australia itself and New Guinea and Melanesia and I am trying to
plan a co-ordinated series of field researchers on special
problems. Last year we had [Lloyd] Warner studying the tribes of
A Please add Biskup 1973 to reference list.
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the north-east corner of Arnhem Land and also Miss [Ursula]
McConnel working at a tribe in Cape York Peninsula. This year
Warner goes back to his people for another season's work;; [AP]
Elkin is working in the KimberelyB District of Western Australia;;
[Donald] Thomson will study some of the tribes of the Cape York
Peninsula and [CWM] Hart will investigate the natives of
Melville and Bathurst Islands of the coast of Northern
Australia. If we can go on as we have begun we should be able to
complete a survey of the northern parts of Australia within the
next few years.
In Melanesia the work is very urgent, as in most parts the
natives are either dying out or losing their culture with great
rapidity. I hope to have a definite plan for work amongst the
Melanesians in about a year's time, but for the present, we are
concentrating on the outlying islands of Melanesia that show
Polynesian affinities. One of our men, [Herbert Ian Priestley]
Hogbin,14 visited Rennell Island and either he or someone else
will probably return there later.13 Hogbin then proceeded to
Ontong Java or Luaniua and has spent some months there . . . Dr
[Raymond] Firth is leaving next month for Tikopia where he will
spend a year . . . Firth being a New Zealander is already well
qualified in Maori and general Polynesian ethnology and I put
Hogbin through a short course in Polynesian languages and
cultures before he started on his field work. The only other
worker we have in the field at present is a New Zealander, [Reo]
Fortune, who is working in the D'Entrecasteaux Group at the east
end of Papua.
B Should this be Kimberley?
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We have about sixty students in the first course and a
smaller number in the second together with a number of more
advanced students working for the Diploma of Anthropology. Six
of these are cadets from the Mandated Territory of New Guinea,
who, on the completion of a year's work with us, will be
appointed as Patrol Officers in that Territory.1514</EXT>
Gregory's plan of research was based on the assumption that
under Radcliffe-Brown's
<EXT>direction, and from Sydney as a center, intensive work
would be done on Melanesian culture--your work and the Museum's
work thus paving the way for comparative studies extending into
Indonesia and Micronesia. But as the work under your direction
within the Melanesian area seems likely to record the needed
information from such '"Polynesian Islands'" as Rennell, Ontong
Java, Sikaiana, and Tikopia it seems that the Museum can erase
these places from its field program. . . . By the end of 1930,
the Museum in cooperation with New Zealand institutions will
have completed the field study of islands within the geographic
limits of Polynesia--what might be called '"detailed
reconnaissance'." The next job on the tentative program was to
segregate the Polynesian cultural elements within geographic
Melanesia and on through Indonesia to Asia. All this on the
assumption that the Museum's contributions to Pacific ethnology
should be the history of the Polynesian race as distinguished
from Melanesian and other races, and that the '"Polynesian
remnants'" outside of Polynesia, could best be studied by men
who had worked extensively in Polynesia, men like [Edward S.]
Handy,16 [Peter] Buck,17 [Kenneth] Emory,18 [John F. G.] Stokes,19
[Ralph] Linton,20 [Edward W.] Glifford,21 and youngsters with
similar experience.15
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However I want to assist your good work in every
practicable way. Any of your young men who come to Honolulu will
be treated like brothers, and, if you wish, their manuscripts
which include Polynesian material will be published by the
Museum. Also after next year some of the Museum ethnologists
will be available for your staff.2216</EXT>
Six months later Gregory commented on the work coming out of
Honolulu and how it complemented that of Sydney:.
<EXT>As far as I can see we are doing the same kind of work:
recording all that can be found about Pacific native races and
stressing the obvious need of studying these people while they
retain some of their indigenous culture. The new thing
represented by the work emanating from Sydney, Wellington [New
Zealand], and Honolulu is the feeling that library theorizing
gets nowhere, that island people must be carefully studied on
their home ground, and that until adequate facts of direct
observation are assembled, generalizations are likely to be as
confusing as helpful. Naturally, each field worker will do best
with the topic that interests him most, and inexperienced
youngsters will devotedly follow the slant of their most recent
teachers. Whether the work is classed as '"comparative
sociology'," or the equally nebulous '"origin and migrations'"
or '"history'," it will be complete only when all aspects of
native life are understood.
Because anthropological research involves such a huge
program--environment, physical form, customs, history, social
organisation, art, music, folklore, religion, with their host of
subdivisions--Bishop Museum decided to concentrate on the
Polynesian '"race'," studying them in the east Pacific, through
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Melanesia, Indonesia, and on into southeast Asia. With less thatC
$[US]100,000 a year to spend, even this seems a staggering load.
So far the Museum's publications have been largely on
material culture, folklore, and somatology, because the other
material is slower to work up. Linguistic studies are
progressing and the workers in '"sociology'" are getting busy.
Published and unpublished stuff in the Museum gives a fair
picture of the Marquesas, Society Islands, Tonga, and Samoa.
During the next two years, parties now in the field should learn
a good deal about the Tuamotuans and the Cook Islanders. The
plans for 1929-30 include survey ([sic]) of Rotuma, Uvea
(Wallis), Ellice, and Gilbert Islands. This will complete what
we can call '"the first round'" of '"detailed reconnaissance'"
studies. Plans for future work then can be intelligently
revised.
Relief from the big load of Polynesian studies is greeted
with cheers. As you have studies in Tikobia [sic](sic), Ontong
javaD, and Renell under way, I hope that you will assume
responsibility also for the Polynesian strays in the Loyalty and
New Hebrides islands. With the Polynesians in Melanesia no
longer an obligation, American institutions could work more
intensively in Polynesia proper, or could make the jump to
Polynesian problems in Asia. Lau Islands should perhaps remain
on the Museum program because of the bearing on Tonga, but I
assume that Fiji is your job.
C "Than"? Please check. D Should Java be capitalized?
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Almost any division of work or co-operation in work will
have my backing with men intent on doing a big job before it is
too late, I see no chance for competition. I worry not at all
about conflicting interests or lack of funds. But I am disturbed
a bit at the scarcity of workers which makes it necessary to
assign to poorly trained inexperienced men, jobs which demand
the attention of the ablest, most experienced men.2317</EXT>
Radcliffe-Brown had a less nationalistic approach to recruiting
researchers and consequently the financial burden, which Gregory
frequently complained about, was somewhat eased. There were, he
told Gregory, researchers in the field from Oxford, Cambridge,
Basel, Hungary, and Pennsylvania.2418
Gregory could not attend the fourth Pan Pacific Science
Congress in Java, which led Radcliffe-Brown to write a long
letter on various matters which they had discussed over the
years:.
<EXT>I am very sorry that you were not able to come to Java, as
I very much wanted to talk over our work with you. I am afraid
that I may have misunderstood certain matters, and a chat
together would have made it easy to put things straight. I was
told (by Haddon and others) that an agreement was reached before
I had anything to do with it, the Bishop Museum was to make
itself responsible for Polynesia, Japan for Melanesia, and
Australia was to take over the whole field of study of
Australia, New Guinea [including Papua] and Melanesia. . . . I
interpreted this in a geographical sense. I concentrated as much
as I could on Australia. In the field of Melanesia I planned
work in New Caledonia, New Hebrides and Solomon islands, some of
which has been done.
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We were asked by the British Government to send a geologist
and an ethnologist to Rennell Island (Ea Polynesian community)
and I sent Hogbin. He was only able to stay there two months and
as the preparation I had given him was entirely in Polynesian
language and culture I sent him on for the rest of his time to
Sakiana and Ontong Java. He was only just in time in the latter
place to obtain important information from old men who have
since died.
Raymond Firth, another student trained in Polynesian (i.e.
MaoriF), applied to us for a grant to work in Tikopia. He had
special reason for wishing to check the account by [W. R.]
Rivers. It did not occur to me to refer Firth to you, and in any
case it would have meant a delay as he wished to start work at
once, having just completed his PhD at London University. We
therefore gave him a grant, and he has done a year's very
thorough work.
I thought that in this working Tikopia, Ontong Java, and
Rennell we should really be helping your work. I gathered later,
from your letter, that it had interfered with your plans. I need
hardly tell you that I am exceedingly sorry for this.
It is clear that I must have misunderstood the intentions
of some of those who discussed the '"partition'" of the Pacific
and it is most desirable that a new and proper understanding
should be reached. . . .
E Should these parentheses be brackets, or is this original to the quotation?
F Should these parentheses be brackets?
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My own chief interest is of course in the Australian
aborigines and I have devoted most of energies to carrying out a
systematic study of this area. I would be quite pleased if we
could simply confine ourselves to this area, at any rate for a
period of years.
But the department here was established specially in
connection with the two territories of New Guinea. We shall
therefore necessarily have to devote a good deal of attention to
New Guinea and those Melanesian islands that come under the
Mandate to Australia.
These two areas, Australia and New Guinea, give us more
than we can cope with.
I am of course only too glad to welcome workers from
elsewhere who come to these regions . . . Thus if there any of
the islands near New Guinea (Aua for example) that you would
like your people to investigate we would give them every
possible assistance and we should be only too glad for you to
send them.
There remains the rest of Melanesia. It should, of course,
be done systematically, and must be done immediately if it is to
be done at all. We cannot do it though it is supposed to be in
our area I shall try to do what I can. If, therefore, the Bishop
Museum can see its way to coming into the Melanesian field, even
if only to investigate those peoples with nearest affinities to
Polynesia, I shall be delighted and immensely relieved.
Rennell Island is geographically in Melanesia, but has some
Polynesian affinities. Hogbin, who has been there for a short
time, wishes to spend two years there to make a thorough
investigation. He would probably be as good, if not better than,
anybody you could send, and I have practically promised him the
job when he returns from Europe. But I feel that you may think
this an area that should have been done by the Bishop Museum.
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Would you like to have Hogbin do the work for you instead of for
us, or would you like to send one of your own men there?
Could you persuade the Bishop Museum to take over the
Melanesian area? My own view is that to understand the Oceanic
cultures they must all be studied together.
Apart from this question of Melanesia, can you suggest any
other ways in which I can co-operate with you. . . .
Although our chief work here lies in Australia and New
Guinea, we shall probably always be greatly interested in
Polynesia. I have myself lived and worked there, and Firth, who
is to be my assistant, and I hope my successor when I leave made
the Maori the subject of his early studies. There are certain
problems relating to Samoa, Tonga and Fiji that I am very
interested in, and I would like to have a chance to return there
and carry out further investigations. . . .
I hope that you did not misunderstand what I wrote in an
earlier letter on the somewhat different aims and methods we
have adopted here from your own. The differences are due to
difference of circumstance. For a museum the method of
ethnographic survey is appropriate or even necessary, and since
the general public is almost totally interested in historical
problems of dispersion and diffusion of cultures the study of
these is necessary in an institution that is to some extent for
the general public. Here on the other hand our principal if not
our sole raison d'etre is to train administrative officers for
their task of dealing with native peoples. For us therefore what
is essential is the intensive functional sociological and
biological study of native cultures. In drawing attention to
this difference of aim and method all that I intended to do was
to show that the two institutions can usefully supplement one
another's work, even if they were to work in the same area and
will not be competing with each other. Thus if [we?] could
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undertake an ethnographic survey of such a region as the Solomon
Islands we should be very glad and if we sent a worker to the
same region it would be for him to settle in one spot for not
less than a year and make a systematic study of the '"working'"
of a single culture. Our difference of method, so far from
preventing cooperation between us, should make cooperation more
valuable.2519</EXT>
Despite his earlier protestations, Gregory was not
interested in taking over Melanesia:
<EXT>Among those men who are financially and scientifically
interested in the Pacific I find the general agreement with my
views--that the game is an island-to-island survey carried out
as soon as possible by all agencies concerned and conducted in
such a way as to conserve the time and effort of workers, also
incidentally money. It has been a pleasure to urge continuation
and enlargement of support given in America [by the Rockefeller
Foundation?] to the University of Sydney. . . . I see no
'"interference'" or competition of your work with that of the
Bishop Museum. The '"gentlemans'G agreement'" as to the fields of
work is a guide in administrative policy, not a series of
'"do's'" and '"dont's'"! I feel that with such an astounding
amount of work being done--even the reconnaissance stages--no
two men can be spared to do what one man might do. While it is
true that the Museum had felt under obligation to study such
semi-Polynesian islands such as Tikopia, Ontong Java and
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Rennell, and had solicited funds for that purpose, the knowledge
that you had undertaken part of that job came as a pleasant
surprise. No member of the Museum staff could have gone to
Tikopia until 1931 or 1932. Polynesia proper is a whale of a
field for which the Museum feels a special responsibility. When
the general surveys of that region are completed the way is open
for going into Micronesia or for assisting you in Melanesia,
whichever seems scientifically more profitable. Museums might
'"do'" Fiji but extensive studies of Papuan and Melanesian
culture seem beyond its scope and means. By the end of 1930 two
areas remain on the present program: Rotuma-Hoorn and Ellice and
Gilbert Islands.2620</EXT>
There were differences in aims and methods;; Sydney had
different aims and methods to those adopted by the Bishop Museum
which, Radcliffe-Brown suggested, were due to '"difference of
circumstance'." For the Museum the method of ethnographic survey
was appropriate or even necessary, as the general public was
almost solely interested in historical problems of dispersion
and diffusion of cultures. At Sydney '"our principal if not our
sole raison d'etre is to train administrative officers for their
task of dealing with native peoples. For us therefore what is
essential is the intensive functional and biological study of
native cultures'."27 21 This was somewhat misleading, as we have
seen. Notwithstanding such a claim, Gregory argued that this
difference of method and aim showed how both institutions could
complement rather than compete with each other. Radcliffe-Brown
G Should this be "gentlemen's"?
92
was not convinced, being of the view that the differences were
problematic due in part that the work of a museum was
methodologically different to that of social anthropology.
By the end of the 1920s Oceania had been divided following
the guidelines set out in the 1923 Pan Pacific Congress
resolution. Sydney would focus on Papua, New Guinea, and
Australia. Japan was responsible for Micronesia, and the Bishop
Museum for Polynesia. Funding was sufficient for research in
those areas. Melanesia was open to research by either the Museum
or Sydney, depending on the availability of funds and
researchers. Radcliffe-Brown had put in place a research plan
which that he anticipated would provide sufficient information
to record cultures and peoples who were under imminent threat of
extinction. While there was a recognition that this threat was
brought about by government policies to relocate and dispossess
people it was no hindrance to the ethnographic project, to
salvage what was left before it was too late.
At the end of 1931 Radcliffe-Brown took up his new position
at the University of Chicago. He wrote to H. G. Chapman,
honorary treasurer of the ANRC, outlining his role in obtaining
a renewal of the Rockefeller Foundation grant for Sydney, the
influence he exerted on some changes in the fellowships and
reflected on ethnographic research in Australia under his
professorship:.
<EXT>I am delighted that the Rockefeller Foundation has made a
generous renewal of the grant for anthropological research. I
hope that the work will go on satisfactorily, both for its own
sake and also because I am seeking to make it part of a world
wide scheme in which I want the Foundation to spend a very large
sum of money. Another part of the scheme, for Africa, has just
been launched and has a very good chance of being thoroughly
93
successful. Success or failure in Australia--I mean by that the
quality of the scientific results obtained--will do a great deal
to help or to obstruct the accomplishments of the bigger scheme.
So far the Foundation has been satisfied with the Australian
work and I think the new grant is evidence of that. They rarely
give definite expression of approval or disapproval except in
that sort of way.
The officers of the Foundation were all away when I was in
New York but [Edmund] Day came up to see me and we had a long
interview in which I put the whole situation before him in
detail. He could not at that time express any opinion, but
merely gave the promise to put the case for Sydney before the
trustees. I am glad they have responded generously. I have been
expecting to see Day and [Max] Mason, but neither of them has
yet been able to come to Chicago and I have not been able to get
to New York.
I explained to Day my proposals to the ANRC for Field
Research Fellowships in Anthropology. In order that there may be
no misunderstanding I enclose the outline of what I suggested
[see Field Research Fellowships in Anthropology]. He did not
commit himself to any definite statement, but as you know the
Foundation prefers to leave things of this kind to the
institution to which the grant is made and to interfere as
little as possible. So you may possibly get an opinion from Day
or he may simply leave it to the Council to decide.
There was one matter that was settled in my interview with
Day and on that I wrote to [J. A.] Gibson [honorary secretary of
the, ANRC]. All the Rockefeller Foundation fellowships are now
managed from Paris and therefore any Australian candidate for a
fellowship in Anthropology to study abroad must send his
application to [Douglas] Copland of Melbourne [University]28 who
will forward it to Paris.22 Thus the ANRC will not have any more
94
to do with administering funds for fellowships for study in
Europe or America.29 23 The change is simply due to the new
organisation which has been set up since the foundation was
reorganised. I should think that in view of the exchange and
other things you will feel relieved at this alteration.
I saw the Rockefeller Foundation people in Paris and
discussed the Sydney situation with them. They are interested in
Firth of whose early work and promise van Sickle has a very high
opinion. The matter came up because in Europe they are looking
for a man to take control of the research in Africa which will
be carried out with Rockefeller funds by the International
Institute of African Languages and Cultures. (The scheme of
research I helped to plan while I was in London, and they will
adopt the scheme of five year research fellowships). I told van
Sickle that I thought it essential if the work in Sydney was to
go on that Firth should stay there, as he is the only qualified
man with the necessary special knowledge to plan research in the
regions with which Sydney is concerned and to train students for
the work in that region. Also there is his work in Tikopia,
which is of great scientific value, and which he has to work up
for publication in several volumes. Once he got into the African
field the Tikopia work would be indefinitely delayed. We argued
that there is no one else quite suitable for the African work,
that is as director of research, so that for the present no
appointment will made. I was relying, of course, on the
continuance of the Sydney chair, and on Firth's appointment to
it. I would suggest that now that the R.F. [sic] (sic) has made
a new grant, and that there is a new government it might be the
right moment to press the Commonwealth Government to promise to
maintain the department for a definite period of years. The ANRC
should be interested in taking strong action in this as if there
is no department it will be quite impossible to carry out
95
properly an extensive scheme of research such as is now provided
for. There would be no trained students in Australia except for
Elkin, Hogbin and Hart and you would have to draw your field
workers from England and America.
[Reo] Fortune's book on his Dobu work is out and is very
good. His Admiralty Island work which is even better should be
out soon. Hortense Powdermaker is still at work (at Yale) on her
New Ireland book and that should be ready soon. [W. Lloyd]
Warner is still at work on his big book on Australia and I hope
to see the manuscript or some large part of it in a month or
two. [Gerhardt] Laves, who is here, will have a hard two years
work to work up into good shape the great mass of material he
has. His work will provide the first scientific study of
Australian languages. I have favourable reports of Hart's here
and in London, and of Hogbin in London. Hogbin now has a long
list of good published papers to his name. With the exception of
[Dr. W.] Ivens whose [linguistics] work, though published, is
poor quality.30 . . . I think the ANRC can feel thoroughly
satisfied with the work accomplished under all the major grants
that were made for field work.24 The Adelaide [Board for
Anthropological Research] work is of poor quality and I notice
that very frequently in statements in the press about the work
no mention is made of the ANRC. [S. D.] Porteus has written a
book of which I have received a copy for review. I am extremely
disappointed in it. I am afraid in that instance I made a
mistake of judgment. The total scientific result of Porteus'
visit very small indeed.
I shall be glad if some arrangement can be made by which
people in America can purchase Oceania and also my monograph on
the Social Organisation of Australian Tribes. I think a fair
number of the latter can be sold here. I am lecturing on
Australia in April-<EN>June to graduate students and all the
96
members of the class would buy copies. A number could have been
sold in New York when I was there if they had been available
without too much difficulty.
Griffith Taylor [the Australian geographer] is quite
successful and much appreciated here.
P.S. By the way the Sydney grant now comes from the Social
Science Division of the R.F. and not the Medical Science and
Natural Sciences and the intention is that it is to be used
primarily for work in social anthropology. This, of course, does
not exclude work on such subjects as depopulation, but I think
it would be against the real present intentions of the
Foundation to use large sums for measuring skulls or heads. The
position is different now from when the first grant was made and
Vincent was president. Again the Foundation will lay down no
rules but if you recognise that the new grant is a Social
Science grant it will help in guiding the policy of the ANRC.
Here in Chicago (the Rockefeller University) anthropology is a
department of the Social Science Division of the Graduate
School.
<EXTT>Field Research Fellowships in Anthropology</EXTT>
A fellowship will only be awarded to a candidate who has
attained a higher degree in anthropology (PhD for England and
America, MA for Australia) and who has closely carried out a
satisfactory piece of field research in anthropology of which at
least some parts of the results have been published.
97
A fellow will receive a stipend sufficient for him to live
on, and the stipend shall be larger for a married man than for a
single man.
A fellow will carry out for several monthsH field research
in an approved region of Australia, New Guinea or Melanesia and
will on his return from the field devote his whole time to the
preparation of his results for publication. During such time as
he is not in the field the fellow will be attached to the
department of anthropology in Sydney and may be expected to
assist in the teaching and other work of the department. The
only exception to this shall be if an arrangement is made for
the fellow to be attached to some other Australian university in
order that he may lecture there. In all instances the fellow
shall be required to carry out his research under the direction
of (or consultation with) the professor of anthropology at
Sydney. Fellowships will be awarded for periods of three, four
or five years.3125</EXT>
<A>Postscript</A>
Radcliffe-Brown has been accused of leaving Sydney to its fate
as the worsening economic storm threatened the viability of the
department of anthropology (Elkin 1956). Raymond Firth was
acting professor but he, too, was on the move, leaving for
London in September 1932. When Elkin took over as lecturer-in-
charge the future was bleak;;, he was merely the caretaker before
the expected demise of the department at the end of the year. At
the end of 1933 Elkin was appointed professor and the department
98
had a future--, funding from the Australian government was
guaranteed for another further five years. The research program
set out by Radcliffe-Brown remained in place with some
modification;; Rockefeller Foundation funding ceased in 1935 and,
with it, a '"golden age'" of Australian anthropological research
in Melanesia and the Australian mainland. There was a
concomitant cessation of international interest illustrated by
Levi-Strauss's observation that it was as if Australia itself
was '"frozen in the past'" with the work of Baldwin Spencer and
Radcliffe-Brown (Levi-Strauss, 1990: :12-13). It was as if
Australian anthropology itself had become a theoretical
backwater, a view endorsed by John A. Barnes (1965:ix).32
<A>Notes</A>
1. Minute Book, 17 August 1922, National Library of Australia
(hereafter NLA): Australian National Research Council (hereafter
ANRC) Papers, MS 482.
2. 'Summary of Resolutions Affecting Committees of the Various
Sections. P. xxxiii.'," Section F. Report of the Fifteenth
Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of
Science, 15 (Melbourne 1921), p. xxxiii.
3. 'CHAIR Chair OF of AAnthropology:NTHROPOLOGY. ItsTS PRACTICAL
Practical VALUE'Value." Melbourne Argus, 10 December 10, 1923.
H Should this be "months'"?
99
4. Extract from Minutes of General Meeting of the Second Pan-
Pacific Congress, Sydney, September 1923. AAI: A518, N806/1/1,
Part I.
5. Extract from Minutes of General Meeting of the Second Pan-
Pacific Congress, Sydney, September 1923Ibid.
6. Radcliffe-Brown to Firth, 1 March 1, 1927. LSEJ, Firth papers,
file 7/10/4.
7. Report to the ANRC General general meeting, January 1935.
Elkin Papers (hereafter EP): 161/4/1/81. See also, Memorandum on
the Study of Anthropology in Australia and the Western Pacific,
(Firth, May 1932). NLAK: MS 482, 849.
8. Radcliffe-Brown to Lowie, 3 July 3, 1928. EP: 164/4/2/17.
9. He told Lowie that he and the linguist Edward Sapir were
'"the only two anthropologists in America with whom I find
myself most in sympathy and whose work I most appreciate'."
(Radcliffe-Brown to Lowie, 3 July 3, 1928. EP: 164/4/2/17);;. 10.
Radcliffe-Brown to Lowie, 28 June 28, 1927. EP: 164/4/2/17.
1110. Radcliffe-Brown to Edwin Embree, 16 November 16, 1927. EP:
155/4/1/1.
1211. Asch suggests that this decision to focus on men in their
fifties '"offers evidence to prove that the Indigenous
political-legal system had been maintained notwithstanding the
severe impact of colonial rule'." (Asch 2009:163 n.21).Michael
I What does AA stand for? Please supply information regarding where this material is housed.
J What does LSE refer to? Please supply information regarding where this material is housed.
K Does this refer to the ANRC papers? If not, please supply information for the references section.
100
Asch, 'Radcliffe-Brown on Colonialism in Australia'," in Regna
Darnell and Frederic W Gleach (eds), Histories of Anthropology
Annual, Volume 5, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009:
163, fn21,
1312. Radcliffe-Brown to Gregory, 17 March 17, 1930. EP:
164/4/2/12.
1413. In 1929 Hogbin changed his name, from Herbert William
Hogbin, by deed poll in 1928.
1514. Radcliffe-Brown to Gregory, 2 April 2, 1928. EP:
164/4/2/12.
1615. AHandy was at the American Museum of Natural History, New
York.
17. A New Zealander,;; Buck was also known as Te Rangi Hiroa.
Trained initially as a medical doctor, he became an authority on
Polynesia.
18. See On Kenneth Emory, see Krauss, 1988.
19. A Stokes, a New Zealander, who was curator of artifacts at
the Bishop Museum.
20. EthnologistLinton was an ethnologist at the, American Museum
of Natural History, New York.
21. Assistant Glifford was assistant curator at the department
of anthropology, University of California;; and curator of the
American Museum of Natural History, New York. Clark Wissler was
Head of the Bureau of Anthropology.
2216. HE GregoryH. E. Gregory to AR RadcliffeA. R. Radcliffe-
Brown, 27 September 27, 1928. EP: 164/4/2/12. This is in reply
to Radcliffe-Brown to Gregory, 2 April 2, 1928.
2317. HE GregoryH. E. Gregory to AR RadcliffeA. R. Radcliffe-
Brown, 11 March 11, 1929. EP: 164/4/2/12.
2418. Radcliffe-Brown to Gregory, 17 March 17, 1930. EP:
164/41/2/12.
101
2519. Radcliffe-Brown to HE GregoryH. E. Gregory, 17 March 17,
1930. EP: 164/4/2/12.
2620. HE GregoryH. E. Gregory to Radcliffe-Brown, 14 July 14,
1930. EP: 164/4/2/12. Reply to Radcliffe-Brown to Gregory, 17
March 17, 1930.
2721. Radcliffe-Brown to Gregory, 17 March 17, 1930. EP:
164/4/2/12.
2822. Fellowship adviser to the Rockefeller Foundation for the
Social Sciences in Australia and New Zealand.
2923. This change was critical in the matter of Ralph Piddington
and his criticism of the administration of Aboriginal affairs in
Western Australia. Had the ANRC been responsible for
administering the funds he would have been stripped of his
fellowship (Gray 1994: 217-245).
3024. See EP: 159/4/1/52. He worked as missionary in the Solomon
Islands until he took up a research position at the University
of Melbourne.
3125. Radcliffe-Brown to H. G. Chapman, 24 December 24, 1931.
ANL: MS 482, 850 (c). [Handwritten].
32. John A Barnes, Preface, LR Hiatt, Kinship and Conflict, ANU
Press, 1965, ix.
<A>References</A>
<B>Archives</B>
Elkin Papers, University of Sydney Archives. (Sydney)
ANRC Papers, National Library of Australia. (Canberra)
<B>Published</B>
Asch, Michael. 2009. Radcliffe-Brown on Colonialism in
Australia. Histories of Anthropology Annual 5:152-165.
Australian National Research Council Papers., National Library
of Australia, Canberra.
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Barnes, John A. 1965. Preface. In Kinship and Conflict. L. R.
Hiatt. Pp. L. Canberra: Australian National University
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Buschmann, Rainer. 200*M.;; The Ethnographic Frontier in German
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Elkin, A. P., 1956.: 'AR Radcliffe-Brown, 1880-1955.', Oceania,
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<3EM>. 1958.: Anthropology in Australia: One Chapter., Mankind,
vol. 5(, 6): 225-242.
Elkin Papers., University of Sydney Archives.
Gray, Geoffrey. 1994.: "Piddington's Iindiscretion": Ralph
Piddington, the Australian National Research Council and
Academic Ffreedom. Oceania vol. 64 (3):, March, pp. 217-
245.
<3EM>. 2002.: Dislocating the selfSelf: anthropological
Anthropological field Field work Work in the Kimberley,
Western Australia, 1934-1936., Aboriginal History (vol.
26), 2002, pp.: 23-50.
Jonas, Gerald. 1989. The Circuit Riders: Rockefeller Money and
the Rise of Modern Science., New YorkN: W. W. Norton & Co
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Krauss, Bob., 1988.: Keneti:. South Seas Adventures of Kenneth
Emory., Honolulu: University of Hawai<OKINA>i Press.
Kuklick, Henrika. 1991.: The Savage Within., Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
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Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1990.: The Berndts: An Appreciation., in
In Robert Tonkinson and Michael Howard (eds.), Going It
Alone? Robert Tonkinson and Michael Howard, eds. Pp. O.
Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
McDougall, Russell, and Iain Davidson, (eds.), 2008.: The Roth
Family, Anthropology and Colonial Administration., P: Left
Coast Press.
Morphy, Howard. 1997.: Gillen Man of Science., in In John
Mulvaney, Howard Morphy & Alison Petch (eds), My Dear
Spencer. John Mulvaney, Howard Morphy & Alison Petch,
(eds., Pp. Q. Melbourne: Hyland House.
Mulvaney, D. J., 1988.: Australasian Anthropology and ANZAAS:
Strictly Scientific and Critical., in Roy MacLeod, (ed.),
In The Commonwealth of Science. ANZAAS and the Scientific
Enterprise in Australasian 1888-1988. Roy MacLeod, ed., Pp. R. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Penny, Glenn H., and Matti Bunzl, (eds.), 2003.: Worldly
Provincialism., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Peterson, Nicolas. 1990.: Studying Man and Man's Nature: the
tThe history History of the institutionalisation
Institutionalisation of Aboriginal
anthropologyAnthropology. Australian Aboriginal Studies
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104
Stocking, George W., Jr. 1995.: After Tylor., WisconsinMadison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Summary of Resolutions Affecting Committees of the Various
Sections. 1921. Report of the Fifteenth Meeting of the
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Thomas, Nicholas. 1989.: The Force of Ethnology: Origins and
Significance of the Melanesia/Polynesia Division., Current
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