Elsdon Best

New Zealander ethnographer, Elsdon Best is a key figure in the history of anthropology due to his involuntary triggering of a fundamental and long-lasting anthropological debate on the Māori concept of hau. This volume is dedicated to  this important scholar, who at the same time was shadowed by metropolitan anthropology and became an excluded ancestor, along with his Māori interlocutors and ethnographic collaborators. By recentering his place as one of anthropology’s ancestors, the volume contributes to a new perception of the discipline’s past.

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman has published several books including Best of Both Worlds (Penguin, 2010) , a memoir, and several collections of poetry. His most recent publication is Lily, Oh Lily: Searching for a Nazi Ghost (Canterbury University Press, 2025).

Frederico Delgado Rosa is a researcher in the history of anthropology at CRIA/IN2PAST, Lisbon and Héritages, Paris. He is the coeditor, with Han F. Vermeulen, of Ethnographers before Malinowski: Pioneers of Anthropological Fieldwork 1870-1922 (Berghahn Books, 2022). He is currently co-director, with Christine Laurière, of BEROSE International Encyclopedia of the Histories of Anthropology.