214 The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [Nov. 
scientists, however, are restricting their activities to the more outlying 
portions of Polynesia, and are depending upon New Zealand scientists to 
carry on parallel researches among the Maoris, with which their own results 
may be compared and correlated. 
Much excellent work in ethnology and archaeology has already been 
done in New Zealand, and such publications as the Transactions of the New 
Zealand Institute and the Journal of the Polynesian Society hold a very high 
place among the ethnological literature of the world. But the time has 
come for more accurate and intensive work. The United States was 
brought face to face with a similar problem forty years ago, and it is 
instructive to see what methods it adopted to meet the situation, even 
though they may not be fully applicable to New Zealand. 
The United States has several great museums—for example, the National 
Museum, at Washington, and the American Museum of Natural History, in 
New York. Each of these museums has its own staff of ethnologists and 
archaeologists, the majority of whom carry out special researches each 
summer among different Indian tribes, and then return to their museum 
to work up their results for publication in the yearly official reports. 
In addition to this the larger universities have chairs in ethnology or 
anthropology, filled by professors and assistant professors. Some of these 
universities—I may instance Harvard, Pennsylvania, and California—have 
their own museums, the staffs of which join with the university professors 
int carrying out field-work among the Indians and publish annual reports of 
their results. Thus, through the combined work of the museums and of 
the universities, more real knowledge has been gained of the Indian tribes 
of North America, their languages and their civilizations, than of any other 
native races in the world, and in the science of ethnology the United States 
holds the foremost place. 
In New Zealand there are four university colleges, one in each of the 
four principal cities, and four museums, all of which have larger or smaller 
ethnological collections. In Dunedin there is a lectureship in ethnology 
in the university college, combined with a curatorship of the ethnological 
museum. The largest museum, the only national museum, is in Wellington, 
and its work is the most important. Besides these there are a few inde¬ 
pendent workers among the Maoris and in Polynesia who are not connected 
with any institution. It would obviously give a great stimulus to ethno¬ 
logical research if the Dominion Museum in Wellington were made a central 
and co-ordinating institution, which could help in financing ceitain 
authorized researches and publish the results in a series of memoirs. This 
is the method that is adopted in Canada. The Victoria Memorial Museum at 
Ottawa has its own ethnological and archaeological staff, the members of 
which carry out field-work each year among the various Indian tribes ; in 
addition the museum finances or helps to finance various individuals from 
time to time in their field-work among other Indian tribes, and publishes 
their results in a series of museum memoirs. At the same time the Museum 
is empowered to purchase specimens from all parts, and has thereby become 
the greatest treasure-house of Canadian ethnological material in the world. 
All this, however, is a matter of organization. What I really wished 
to suggest were two methods by which information of the greatest value 
could be obtained by the museum at a very small outlay. The first relates 
to the physical anthropology of the Maoris, the second to the collection of 
a vast mass of ancient incantations, songs, folk-lore, legends, &c., which 
remain at present still unrecorded. 
