vi Obituary. 



The foundations of his Maori collection were laid in the early years of 

 his residence in New Zealand, when he collected with characteristic energy 

 and thoroughness in the region centred at Hawke's Bay. Here he secured 

 most of the wood-carving, the flax fabrics, and the articles connected with 

 fishing — in all, the largest part of his collection. To this period belong 

 his first field expeditions among the ancient village sites of the East Coast 

 and about Porirua. Though he had visited Okarito, the stay had not. 

 I believe, contributed anything to his ethnological material. The most in- 

 teresting period, though the articles collected bulked less largely than those 

 of Hawke's Bay, came with his removal to Dunedin on his appointment 

 to the Registrarship of Otago University. The beaches along the east 

 coast of Otago are the classic collecting-ground of New Zealand, and here 

 the most interesting part of his collection was brought together. Li com- 

 pany with Mr. (now Mr. Justice) Chapman he excavated the camping- 

 ground of the moa-hunters at Shag Point. The tedious work of digging 

 and sifting sand was carefully carried out, and an observation of some 

 importance historically was made — namely, that greenstone was known 

 to and worked by the men who hunted the moa. 



When, on the retirement of Sir James Hector, Augustus Hamilton was 

 appointed Director of what is now the Dominion Museum the Govern- 

 ment acquired his collection, and he devoted his powers to the augmentation 

 of the national collection. His work at the Dominion Museum was in all 

 but one respect a complete success. The confidence he inspired in other 

 collectors and ethnologists was shown by the splendid gifts to the Museum 

 of the Buller collection, the Turnbull collection, the objects brought to 

 England by Captain Cook and presented by Lord St. Oswald, and by many 

 other gifts. The one respect in which he fell short of complete success was 

 his failure to persuade successive Ministers of Finance to house adequately 

 the material he had brought together. 



But whatever fame the future may give him will come to him more 

 as a writer than as a collector. The whole of his written contributions to 

 the science of ethnology are descriptive : accounts of Maori artifacts and 

 designs or of the results of archaeological work, and the conclusions that 

 might safely be deduced from them. The two outstanding features of 

 these contributions are, first, complete detachment from the influence 

 of theories as to the origin or relationships of artifacts and designs, and, 

 second, thoroughness and accuracy. In "Maori Art" and in the Bulletins 

 of the Dominion Museum he brought together and systematized a great 

 mass of facts which nnist form the starting-point of all future research 

 in these fields. The whole theory of the subject has yet to be written, 

 but the ground has been cleared and the foundation laid by the work of 

 Augustus Hamilton. 



In a stimulating chapter on Maori art, Max Hertz affirms it the chief 

 defect in Hamilton's work that he advanced no theory as to its origin or 

 affinities. But in truth this avoidance of all theory was one of his greatest 

 merits. It is not rash to say that the bulk of the writings on Maori eth- 

 nology have been warped by the influence of preconceived theory. It needed 

 strength of purpose to resist an influence' which thus flowed in from every 

 quarter. Hamilton knew that facts enough had not yet been recorded to 

 form the basis of scientific theory, and he resolutely set himself to the 

 accumulation of facts. It is from such a groundwork that students of 

 the future will be able to venture with some certainty into the region 

 of hypothesis. 



