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For the purpose of this chapter we must make do with Reischek junior’s revised diary,
Reischek senior’s assortment of published articles and glimpses of the original German
notebooks. When compared with these notebooks, the majority of Reischek senior’s draft
material does appear in Sterbende Welt. However, in order to make it read well and be of interest
to the general public, the more learned Reischek junior (albeit still with an incomplete education
in the fields of medicine and philosophy due to his being conscripted during the First World
War) 33 had to improve the quality of the original manuscripts both stylistically and in language,
as much of the material is little more than fragments of barely readable notes and scribbles, and
where sections are still legible his father’s standard of writing in both German and English at
times leaves much to be desired (although the state of the aborted manuscripts would have been
of a higher standard when aided by an editor, as is apparent in his numerous published articles
and papers):
Imzuge dieser Metamorphose – um den Text dem Publikumsgeschmack näher zu bringen – ist
auch viel Schmeichelhaftes und dem Originaltext fremdes Gelehrsames miteingeflossen, sodaß
letzlich der Originalcharakter des Werkes Reischek Seniors verloren gegangen ist. Die übertrieben
romantische Sprache, Latinismen (wie z.B. die Anspielung auf “Tacitus redivivus”) und anderes,
dem heutigen Geschmack nach eher als bombastisch erscheinendes Beiwerk sind der Feder des
klassisch gebildeten Sohnes entsprungen, waren aber dem einfachen, geraden Geist und trockenen
Stil des Vaters fremd. Einstellungen zum Maori als Edlen Wilden und das romantische Bedauern
über die zerstörerische Wirkung durch das Vordringen der westlichen Zivilisation sind bei
Reischek Senior nur embryonalhaft angelegt und entsprechen mehr dem romantisch gefärbten
Vorstellungsniveau des Gebildeten in Zentraleuropa in früheren Dekaden unseres Jahrhunderts. 34
The result is a work more in the mould of an adventure novel than a true and faithful
representation of his father’s diaries, which often emphasises the Maori episodes and his father’s
ethnological contribution over his ornithological, when in many instances the reverse should in
fact be the case, and at times bends the truth with popular stereotypes and ‘Romanticism’, rather
than merely sticking to the facts. Furthermore, as intimate thoughts, feelings and philosophical
and there to publish a book upon New Zealand in the English and the German languages. It will be a popular work,
and will no doubt contribute to an extension of the knowledge about New Zealand throughout Europe” (“Mr
Reischek”, in: NZH 23 May (1888): 5). Interestingly, the mistakes that Kolig points out in King’s list of manuscripts
and diaries presented in 1921 to the British Government by Reischek junior (King, Collector, Appendix II, 176),
whereby the eighteen notebooks are incorrectly said to be largely in English instead of German and seen to be
ordered neatly and naturally from one to eighteen with firm dates, which is not the case at all, match the son’s claims
that he first and foremost translated the work from English (Kolig, Umstrittene Würde, 74f.). The source for the
discrepancies is unclear. Possibly those on the list are different diaries from the ones Kolig viewed or else, if the list
in question is indeed accurate, Reischek junior would therefore be the one responsible, as many of the statements he
made in order to sell the collection show a lack of knowledge of the facts, implying in the process that he had not in
fact read most of the material or possessed even then a willingness to bend the truth (King, Collector, 153-55).
33
Ibid., 152.
34
Kolig, Umstrittene Würde, 68.
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