Sir Peter Henry BuckKCMGDSO (ca. October 1877 – 1 December 1951), also known as Te Rangi HīroaorTe Rangihīroa, was a New Zealand doctor, military leader, health administrator, politician, anthropologist and museum director. He was a prominent member of [[Ngāti Mutpopo his mother's Māoriiwi.
Early life
Peter Buck was born in Urenui, New Zealand, the only child of Anglo-Irish immigrant William Henry Buck and Rina, a Māori woman. William's wife Ngarongo-ki-tua had been unable to have children and, in line with Māori custom, Rina, one of Ngarongo's relatives, became part of the household and produced a child for the couple. Rina died soon after Peter was born, and Ngarongo raised him as her own. He claimed to have been born in 1880, but the register of the primary school he attended records October 1877, which is likely to be correct.[1]
Rangi Hiroa in 1904
Te Rangi Hīroa was descended on his Māori (maternal) side from the Taranaki iwi of Ngāti Mutunga. In his teens,[2] his elders gave him the name Te Rangi Hīroa (also written Te Rangihiroa) in honour of an uncle of Ngarongo's and an earlier notable ancestor. His paternal ancestry was English and Irish. Though he was largely brought up within the Pākehā (the Maori term for non-Maori people, Caucasian people in particular) community, Ngarongo-ki-tua and his great-aunt Kapuakore instilled a love of Māori tradition and language in him.[1]
After Ngarongo's death in 1892 he moved with his father to the Wairarapa. In 1896 he started attending Te Aute College, a school that produced many Māori leaders of the time. In 1899 he was named Dux and passed a medical preliminary examination, entitling him to attend the University of Otago Medical School. He was later associated with the Young Māori Party.
Medical school and practice
Buck did well at Otago Medical School, where he also succeeded in sport, becoming national long jump champion in 1900 and 1903. He completed his MB ChB in 1904, and an MD six years later. During this time, in 1905, he married Irish-born Margaret Wilson. Their long marriage was often fiery, but was strong, and it was Margaret who often gave the impetus to Peter's career.
In November 1905 Buck was appointed as a medical officer to Māori, working under Māui Pōmare, initially in the southern North Island, then in the far north. Between them Pomare and Buck campaigned successfully to improve sanitation in the small Māori communities around the country.
narrow margin.[5] By this time, Buck had developed an interest in Pacific Island peoples, working briefly as a medical officer in both the Cook Islands and Niue during parliamentary breaks.
During the First World War, Buck helped in the recruitment of a Māori volunteer contingent. Buck joined this contingent as medical officer, travelling to the Middle East in 1915. He took part at Gallipoli, later being awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his heroism. He later saw action in France and Belgium, before being posted to the No 3 New Zealand General Hospital at Codford, England, in 1918.
Returning to New Zealand, Buck was appointed as Chief Maori Medical Officer, and in 1921 was named director of the Maori Hygiene Division in the Department of Health.
Bishop Museum
Peter and Margaret Buck passport application (1927)
Buck gained a five-year research fellowship at the Bishop MuseuminHonolulu, Hawaii, in 1927. At the end of the fellowship in 1932 he was appointed Bishop Museum visiting professor of anthropology at Yale University. He was promoted to Director of the Bishop Museum in 1936, a position he held until his death in 1951. He also served as a Trustee and President of the Board of Trustees of the museum.[1]
The Te Rangi Hiroa Medal is a social sciences award given biennially by the Royal Society of New Zealand. It is awarded for work in one of four disciplines: historical approaches to societal transformation and change; current issues in cultural diversity and cohesion; social and economic policy and development; and medical anthropology.[8]
Buck, Peter (1926), The evolution of Maori clothing (Memoirs of the Polynesian Society ; v. 7), New Plymouth, N.Z.: Printed by Thomas Avery, under the authority of the Board of Maori Ethnological Research
Buck, Peter (1936), Regional diversity in the elaboration of sorcery in Polynesia (Yale University publications in anthropology ; no. 2), New Haven, CT.: Published for the Section of Anthropology, Dept. of the Social Sciences, Yale University by the Yale University Press
The voice of Sir Apirana T. Ngata ; The voices of Sir Peter (Te Rangihiroa) Buck, Bishop Frederick Augustus Bennett (Bishop of Aotearoa), Te Puea Herangi [sound recording] (HMV PR-9) 10-inch / 78rpm, Wellington, N.Z.: His Master's Voice, 1949
Buck, Peter (1950), Material culture of Kapingamarangi (Bernice P. Bishop Museum bulletin ; 200), Honolulu, HI.: Bernice P. Bishop Museum
Buck, Peter (1950), The coming of the Maori (2nd ed.), Wellington, N.Z.: Māori Purposes Fund Board ; Whitcombe & Tombs
Buck, Peter (1952), Les migrations des Polynesians: les Vikings du soleil levant (The Vikings of the sunrise) [Bibliotheque scientifique], Paris, France: Payot
Buck, Peter (1993), Mangaia and the mission, Suva, Fiji: IPS, USP in association with Bernice P. Bishop Museum, ISBN982-315-001-X
Sorrenson, M.P.K. (ed.) (1986–1988), Na to hoa aroha = From your dear friend: the correspondence between Sir Āpirana Ngata and Te Rangi Hīroa, 1925–50 (3 vol.), Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust and the Māori Purposes Fund Board {{citation}}: |first= has generic name (help)
