From Colonial Collection to Tribal Knowledge Base: Herries Beattie, Ngāi Tahu Whānui and the many lives of an archive

Herries Beattie began collecting and writing about the history of southern New Zealand during his youth in the 1890s and remained active through to his death in 1972. He was a prolific author, regularly producing books, pamphlets and newspaper columns on the natural history, toponymy, exploration and colonisation of Otago and Southland. He was especially interested in the indigenous traditions of the region and in the development of its principal Māori iwi (tribe), Ngāi Tahu Whānui. This paper explores the development of Beattie's intellectual routines, stressing the importance of his personal construction of a mixed archive of handwritten notes, newspaper clippings, interviews and objects in his writing practice. It also reconstructs how the collection has been mobilised, especially the significance of parts of his collection in Te Kerēme, the Ngāi Tahu Claim to the Waitangi Tribunal, and its subsequent emergence as a key element in the iwi's efforts to construct a useful, accessible, and culturally meaningful set of archives as part of what the great Ngāi Tahu scholar and leader Sir Tipene O'Regan has dubbed a "tribal knowledge base."