Beattie had a strong sense that traditional knowledge needed to be recorded fast. For twelve months, he interviewed people from Foveaux Strait to North Canterbury, and from Nelson and Westland. He also visited libraries to check information compiled by earlier researchers, spent time with Maori in Otago Museum recording southern names for fauna and artefacts, visited pa sites, and copied notebooks lent to him by informants. Finally he worked his findings up into the systematic notes, which eventually became manuscript 181 in the Hocken Collections, and now this book.