75

<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

76

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,

77

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

78

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

79

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

80

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

81

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.

82

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?

83

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

84

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

85

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?

86

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.

87

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?

88

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.

89

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

90

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

91

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.

102

Barnes, John A. 1965. Preface. In Kinship and Conflict. L. R.

Hiatt. Pp. L. Canberra: Australian National University

Press.

Buschmann, Rainer. 200*M.;; The Ethnographic Frontier in German

New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawai<OKINA>i Press.

Elkin, A. P., 1956.: 'AR Radcliffe-­Brown, 1880-­1955.', Oceania,

vol. 26 (2):, pp. 239-­251.

<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

Inc.

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.

L Please supply complete page range for this preface. M Please supply date of publication. N Is this the correct city of publication?

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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

2:S., 1990/2.

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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

Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science 15:T

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Thomas, Nicholas. 1989.: The Force of Ethnology: Origins and

Significance of the Melanesia/Polynesia Division., Current

Anthropology, vol. 30:27-­41., 1989, pp. 27-­41.

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