In the Urewera Country.

It was early in 1896 that Mr. Smith induced Elsdon Best to make the Urewera Maoris his special study. The Government was engaged in surveying the Urewera tribal lands and beginning the main highway that now links up Rotorua with Lake Waikaremoana and the East Coast. There was difficulty in persuading the Maoris that they would not suffer by the making of this road. Shrewdly and prophetically they foresaw that it would destroy their prized isolation and gradually change the life of the people. The first part of the survey and road-making was carried on under the protection of an armed covering party of the Permanent Force from Auckland and Wellington— a precaution that was not really necessary, after Sir James Carroll had seen the chiefs at Ruatahuna and convinced them that there was no hidden “catch” in the survey. Percy Smith arranged that Best should be given employment in the Lands Department, and he was sent to Te Whaiti as timekeeper on the road works that were to be carried out by the parties of bushmen and navvies. This gave him his great opportunity. For several years he lived at Te Whaiti, at Ngaputahi, and at Ohiramoko, near Ruatahuna, steadily gathering traditions and noting down all manner of curious lore of the mountain tribes.

When the road-making parties were withdrawn, before the works reached Ruatahuna, Best remained, fascinated by the prospects of studying a people so far untouched by scientific-minded enquirers.