Towards the close of the year 1845 I was suddenly and unexpectedly required by the British Government to administer the affairs of New Zealand, and shortly afterwards received the appointment of Gover...

After the lapse of upwards of thirty years I have to write a preface to a second edition of a work which has long been out of print. This is in some respects a trying task. Those who were my fellow la...

Men had but one pair of primitive ancestors; they sprang from the vast heaven that exists above us, and from earth which lies beneath us. According to the traditions of our race, Rangi and Papa, or He...

One day Māui asked his brothers to tell him the place where their father and mother dwelt; he begged earnestly that they would make this known to him in order that he might go and visit the place wher...

Now quitting the deeds of Māui, let those of Tāwhaki be recounted. He was the son of Hema and Urutonga, and he had a younger brother named Karihi. Tāwhaki having taken Hinepiripiri as a wife, he went ...

We left Hinauri floating out into the ocean;12 we now return to her adventures. For many months she floated through the sea, and was at last thrown up by the surf on the beach at a place named Wairara...

Soon after Tūhuruhuru was born, Tinirau endeavoured to find a skilful magician, who might perform the necessary enchantments and incantations to render the child a fortunate and successful warrior, an...

Now about this time Tūhuruhuru, the son of Rupe’s sister, grew up to man’s estate, and he married Apakura, and she gave birth to a son whom they named Tūwhakararo, and afterwards to a daughter named M...

Before Tāwhaki ascended up into the heavens a son named Wahieroa had been born to him by his first wife. As soon as Wahieroa grew to man’s estate he took Kura for a wife, and she bore him a son whom t...

Our ancestors formerly separated⁠—some of them were left in Hawaiki, and some came here in canoes. Tuamatua and Uenuku paddled in their canoes here to Aotea; again, at that time some of them were sepa...

Now pay attention to the cause of the contention which arose between Poutini and Whaiapu, which led them to emigrate to New Zealand. For a long time they both rested in the same place, and Hine-tū-a-h...

Now pay attention to the cause of the contention which arose between Poutini and Whaiapu, which led them to emigrate to New Zealand. For a long time they both rested in the same place, and Hine-tū-a-h...

They then felled a tōtara tree in Rarotonga, which lies on the other side of Hawaiki, that they might build the Arawa from it. The tree was felled, and thus the canoe was hewn out from it and finished...

When the canoes were built and ready for sea they were dragged afloat, the separate lading of each canoe was collected and put on board, with all the crews. Tamatekapua then remembered that he had no ...

When the Tainui and the Arawa sailed away from Hawaiki with Ngātoroirangi on board, he left behind him his younger sister, Kuiwai, who was married to a powerful chief named Manaia. Some time after the...

When Tamatekapua went with his followers to Moehau, the hill near Cape Colville, and Īhenga and his followers went to Rotorua, then Hānui, Hāroa, and Hatupatu went also to Whakamaru, to Māroa, to Tuat...

The following narrative shows the cause which led Turi, the ancestor of the Whanganui tribes, to emigrate to New Zealand, and the manner in which he reached these islands. Hoimatua, a near relation of...

The cause which led Manaia to come here from Hawaiki was his being very badly treated by a large party of his friends and neighbours, whom, according to the usual custom when a chief has any heavy wor...

And the man said to him, “Now O governor, just look round you, and listen to me, for there is something worth seeing here; that very spot you are sitting upon, is the place on which sat our great ance...

Hotunui was one of those chiefs who arrived in New Zealand from a land beyond the ocean. The Tainui was the canoe in which he arrived in these islands. He left Kāwhia, where he first settled, and came...

Kiki was a celebrated sorcerer, and skilled in magical arts; he lived upon the river Waikato. The inhabitants of that river still have this proverb, “The offspring of Kiki wither shrubs.” This proverb...

This head bewitched all persons who approached the hill where the fortress in which it was kept was situated, so that from fear of it, no human being dared to approach the place, which was thence name...

Once upon a time, a man of the name of Kāhukura wished to pay a visit to Rangiaowhia, a place lying far to the northward, near the country of the tribe called Te Rarawa. Whilst he lived at his own vil...

Te Kanawa, a chief of Waikato, was the man who fell in with a troop of fairies upon the top of Pukemore, a high hill in the Waikato district. This chief happened one day to go out to catch kiwi with h...

There was, several generations since, a chief of the Taranaki tribe, named Rangirarunga. His pā was called Whakarewa; it was a large pā, renowned for the strength of its fortifications. This chief had...

There was formerly a large fortified town upon Mount Eden; its defences were massive and strong, and a great number of persons inhabited the town. In the days of olden time a war was commenced by the ...

When Pāoa came to this country, bordering on the river Thames, Waihou and Piako, he came from the southward, from the Ngāti Kahunghu tribe; the Whaiapāoa (East Cape) was the country of his ancestors; ...

All nations, perhaps, without excepting any, have some method of expressing the more energetic emotions beyond mere speaking or acting; a sense of joy or pain, naturally calling forth ejaculations and...

Sir George Grey read the following paper at a meeting held on 8th May, 1869, at the Museum of Practical Geology, London, Prof. Huxley, President, in the chair:⁠— XXII.⁠—On the Social Life of the Ancie...

There is a beautiful poem on Rewi’s defence of Ōrākau in Mr. Bracken’s “Lays of the Land of the Māori and Moa.” The description of this noble defence there given is quite accurate. ↩ See Journal of an...