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However, once his son’s role has been established, it is apparent from Reischek senior’s
own writings that he did in fact respect the Maori as a people, he did sympathise with them, and
he did value their generosity and friendship. Most significantly, Reischek wholeheartedly adopted
the Maori version of events in the wars of the 1860s and British colonisation in general, despite
popular European evidence. While both Dieffenbach and Hochstetter sided with the Maori in
their accounts of colonisation and Maori-Pakeha conflict, Reischek’s viewpoint is actually the
most pro-Maori. As his sources were predominantly Maori themselves, he appears even more on
their side, if not one-sided in their favour, through emphasising their being robbed, maltreated and
cheated through unjust European land purchases, and the dishonour and corrupt nature of British
troops in battle. He was also able to recognise the difference between Te Ua’s ‘Pai Marire’
teachings and the actions of the ‘Hauhau’, despite the European predilection to group the two
together. Even though his account may not be wholly balanced either, it still comes closer to
understanding and identifying the Maori viewpoint than most observers would have. When it
came to Social Darwinism, Reischek may not have embraced the belief as much as the title of
Sterbende Welt might suggest, but he, nevertheless, was influenced by the same common images
and philosophical position as his mentor, Hochstetter, and was in the constant company of
museum curators and collectors when he was not away exploring the land who shared this same
mentality. This in turn combined with his own experiences and observations over more than a
decade to form the same line of thinking as a more professional anthropologist or ethnologist.
However, even his most scholarly of contributions on the Maori reveals a less trained, insightful
and philosophical mind than his son would have us believe, which at times tended to reproduce
the standard beliefs of Hochstetter or simply relayed those of the Maori themselves rather than
develop his own conclusions. Although somewhat misguided in his beliefs, in the end, there is no
question that he felt he was serving science and the greater good in the tradition of the scientific
ethos at the time by ‘preserving’ or even ‘saving’ Maori relics from oblivion, if not from the
plunder of individuals of perhaps less scrupulous character, the very thing he is accused of being,
as it is as much about the way he is portrayed to have done it, as it is what he actually did. These
same views, however, would also appear in the accounts of other ethnologically interested
travellers from Germany and Austria, and Reischek’s emphasis on New Zealand nature would be
surpassed by a greater focus on the urban and cultural realities of the colony.
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