Bruce Grandison Biggs

Bruce Biggs was born in Auckland and educated at New Lynn Primary School and Mt. Albert Grammar. He continued his studies at Auckland Training College in 1939 and spent two years in Epsom and a third year teaching at Murupara. He spent three months in a territorials camp, went to Trentham and was seconded to the Fijian Military forces. From 1941-1945 he was a member of the New Zealand and Fiji Military Forces and was a Sergeant in the Fijian Army. When he returned to New Zealand he married Joy Hetet, taught at Te Kao Primary School and spent five years teaching at Waiorongomai School in Ruatoria. Biggs was appointed Lecturer in Māori Studies at the University of Auckland in 1951 and in 1955 graduated with an MAfrom Auckland University. At the end of 1955 he went to Indiana University and wrote a PhD thesis on "The Structure of Māori" which was later published. From 1959-1960 he conducted field research in the New Guinea highlands and in 1964 pursued further research at the East West Centre. In 1966 he took up a two-year appointment as Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii. In 1969 Biggs returned to New Zealand to take up a Chair in the Anthropology Department at Auckland University; he was Professor in Māori Language and Oceanic Linguistics up till 1986. From 1987-1988 he was a Research Fellow at the University of Waikato and was Emeritus Professor of Māori Studies and Oceanic Linguistics at the University of Auckland. During the course of his career Biggs conducted research in the Wallis and Futuna Islands, New Guinea, Arizona, Fiji, Rarotonga, Tahiti, Niue, Vanuatu and New Zealand. He was President of the Polynesian Society for some ten years. He edited The Cook Islands Dictionary written by Dr Jasper Buse and was a consultant for the Niuean Island Dictionary which the Niuean Island Government published in 1997. Biggs worked on a Māori to English Dictionary for most of his life; it is now stored on computer. He also worked for thirty-five years on a Comparative Polynesian Dictionary. Biggs edited, translated and annotated Pei Te Hurinui Jones’ History of Tainui which Jones wrote in Māori and gave to Biggs before his death. Biggs was awarded the CBE in the 1996 New Year awards for services to education and to the Māori people. He was consultant to the Tai Tokerau Māori Dictionary Project. Biggs assisted in annotating some of his own articles and publications; these are included in quotation in this bibliography.

Biographical sources

• Interview, correspondence and phone conversation with Professor Biggs, Aug.1992, 14 and 22 Sept. 1998.
• Te Ha questionnaire, 1992.
• Ed. Kawharu, I. H. Waitangi: Māori and Pakeha Perspectives. Auckland, N.Z.: Oxford UP, 1989.
• Rimoldi, Eleanor Rimoldi. Annotated Bibliography of Theses in Social Anthropology, 1986.
• The Press 31 Dec. 1995.