Teenaa koe, Bruce Biggs

[Andy Pawley]

Teenaa koe, Isidore, for your tribute to Bruce Biggs. We will send it
on to Joy, at 20 Cameron St, Takapuna.

I have been busy in recent weeks writing and assisting with a number
of obituaries for Bruce but have neglected to post my tribute on
AN-lang.

It was Bruce who made me a linguist. The world and I were thereby
both saved from a misfortune, as at the time I was en route to
becoming a third rate anthropologist of one sort or another. I always
valued Bruce's advice above anyone else's -- even his bad advice was
pretty good.  No reira, teenaa koe e hoa. Thanks for your guidance
and friendship.  Haere, haere, haere ki to moenga roa.

Below is the obituary I wrote for Auckland University News. It is
slanted towards his contributions to Maori Studies and the NZ scene.
Longer obits will appear in due course in Oceanic Linguistics and the
J. Polynesian Society. An excellent piece by Lloud Ashton, of a very
different (and much more humorous) style, is about to appear in Mana,
the Maori monthly magazine. Other quite lengthy obits appeared in The
NZ Herald (Nov. 4)  and  the Auckland Sunday Star times (Nov. 5).
Friends of Bruce who would like copies of the published obits can
write to me.

Andy Pawley


_____________

Bruce Biggs died in Auckland on October 18, 2000.  He joined the
University of Auckland in 1951 as Lecturer in Maori Studies, became
Professor of Maori Studies and Oceanic Linguistics in 1969 and
retired in 1983. He headed the Department of Anthropology from 1969
to 1973.

Bruce was both an outstanding scholar and an exceptional builder of
academic institutions. He was the leading figure in academic Maori
Studies in the 20th century. He developed, at Auckland, the first
university program in the study of Maori language, culture and
literature,  compiled the textbooks for it, and trained the people
who later went on to head Maori Studies programs at other New Zealand
universities. Internationally, however, he is probably best known as
one of the founders of modern Oceanic linguistics. And he introduced
ethnomusicology at Auckland, recruiting Mervyn MacClean in 1968 both
to teach and to establish the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music in
the Department of Anthropology.

His books on Maori topics include The Structure of NZ Maori, Let's
Learn Maori, Maori Marriage, The Complete English-Maori Dictionary,
and (with Pei Te Hurinui Jones) Nga Iwi o Tainui: The Traditional
History of the Tainui People. He also did original research on
Fijian, Rotuman, Futunan, Futuna-Aniwa, Marquesan  and Rarotongan,
and Kalam of the Highlands of New Guinea. During the last 35 years he
compiled a Comparative Polynesian Dictionary, a huge work stored on
computer and circulated worldwide in electronic form.

Bruce was born at Auckland on September 4 1921 and attended Mt Albert
Grammar, where Keith Sinclair and Rob Muldoon were contemporaries.
Although his father had Ngati Maniapoto blood Bruce did not learn to
speak Maori until his 20s.  He went to Auckland Teachers College then
spent 1942-45 as a sergeant in the NZ army in Fiji, where he learnt
Fijian and did research on various dialects of Fijian. At the end of
the war he married Joy Hetet, niece of the eminent Maori scholar, Pei
Te Hurinui Jones. He and Joy went teaching at Te Kao, in the far
north, then taught at Ruatoria for five years, where Bruce played
rugby, studied part-time for a BA and greatly improved his Maori.

In 1951 Ralph Piddington, the newly appointed Professor of
Anthropology at the University College of Auckland, advertised a post
in Maori Studies and Bruce was persuaded to apply from Ruatoria  He
recalled that there were more highly qualified applicants but he got
the job because he was the only one with a coherent plan. To create
new institutions and make them work, in a university as elsewhere,
you need to combine cleverness with common sense, ambition with
political savvy, and vision with organisational ability and hard
work. Bruce brought most of these ingredients with him; the others he
acquired under pressure in the not-so-gentle world of academia.
Maori Studies had never been taught as a university subject and some
senior academics in the Classics, English and French Departments
viewed it with disdain. Maori was, they said, the language of a
primitive culture, without a  literature. A proposal to introduce
Stage II Maori courses was defeated on these grounds. The following
year Bruce and his colleagues were better prepared. They lobbied
colleagues in the Faculty of Arts and Bruce pointed out that the
Maori people had one of the great oral epic literatures of the world,
published as Nga Mahi a Nga Tupuna. He and the anthropologist Bill
Geddes brought to the critical meeting an imposing pile of books and
journals relating to Maori language and culture and they won the day.

In 1955 Bruce went to the University of Indiana to do a PhD in
linguistics, which he completed in two years. He felt a training in
modern linguistics would give him a cutting edge to develop Maori
language research and teaching. On his return in 1958 he co-founded
(with Jim Hollyman) of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand and the
next year initiated the first program in linguistics in New Zealand.
I was a student in his first linguistics course.  He spent three
years at the University of Hawaii in the 1960s, forging longstanding
scholarly links with linguists there, before returning to Auckland in
1969 as Professor of Maori Studies and Oceanic Linguistics.

There were several sides to Bruce's character, and some
contradictions. He could appear reserved, even dour. He did not
suffer foolishness or hot air gladly and his comments could be
trenchant.    A  couple of years ago, when we were talking at his
house in Takapuna,  I  took a position on linguistic methodology that
went against his principles.  "You've forgotten everything I ever
taught you!" he said indignantly.  But under that stern exterior
dwelt a large heart and a rich sense of humour.  He loved good
conversation and could be the best of company.  And he gave
encouragement and wonderfully shrewd advice to many students. The
list of his students who went on to make their mark as academics is
remarkable: It includes Pat Hohepa, Hirini Moko Mead, Rangi Walker,
Sir Robert Mahuta, Dame Anne Salmond, Andrew Pawley, David Simmons,
Wharehuia Milroy, Richard Benton, Bernie Kernot, Koro Dewes, Merimeri
Penfold, Tamati Reedy, Pita Sharples, Parehuia Hopa, Margaret Orbell,
Bill Tawhai and Margaret Mutu, among others.

There was one considerable paradox.  Bruce described himself as a
natural conservative who treated every new idea with the utmost
caution, and as 'simple-minded', meaning that he was uncomfortable
with complex ideas. Yet he was an innovative thinker, who was often
well ahead of his time. How could a person so distrustful of novelty
be such a considerable innovator?  I think the answer lay in his
combining a good imagination with analytic rigour with intellectual
honesty.  If, after carefully evaluating all the possibilities, the
best solution is a radical one, then so be it.

Sensing that many Maoris wanted to take Maori Studies in new
directions Bruce retired three years early, in 1983. He did not
approve of some of these directions but he did not want to stand in
the way. He continued to do some teaching and his appetite for
research and writing remained strong even when his health began to
fail in the last few years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society of NZ in 1969, was for 15 years President of the Polynesian
Society and was awarded a CBE and OBE for services to education and
the Maori people.




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