Ethnologist
In 1910, Best was appointed ethnologist at the Dominion Museum which allowed him to pursue his research in a more focused manner. In 1912, he published The Stone Implements of the Maori, which was followed four years later by an accompanying bulletin on Māori storehouses. In 1919, his The Land of Tara appeared, a history of the Māori of Wellington Harbour. A systematic survey of traditional Māori culture, The Maori, appeared in two volumes in 1924, and in 1925 Best's Tuhoe, the Children of the Mist. This a monumental study in 1200 pages of the traditional history and culture of tribe with which he had spent so much of his life.
In 1914, Best was awarded the Hector Medal of the New Zealand Institute, and in 1919 he was made a fellow.
Best died in 1931 in Wellington, survived by his widow Adelaide (née Wylie). They had no children.
Read more about this topic: Elsdon Best