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Stephenson Percy Smith was born in England in 1840 and lived in New Zealand from the age of nine, where he died in 1922. A major figure in the history of Maori and Polynesian studies, he was the main founder, in 1892, of the Polynesian Society and the Journal of the Polynesian Society. He developed a particular interest in the problems of Polynesian origins and migration and undertook trips to the Pacific, resulting in the publication of Hawaiki in 1898. He is the author of an extensive bibliography, which also includes the translation of 19th-century Maori manuscripts, entitled The Lore of the Whare-wanananga (1913-1915).

Keywords: Amateur ethnographer | Polynesia | Maori

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