Ko Nga Mahinga a Nga Tupuna Maori

Sir George Grey, Ko Nga Mahinga a Nga Tupuna Maori. London: George Willis, 1854.

1854

1854

W.260, Williams Collection

Hocken Library

Tupuna Maori contains 31 Maori legends of cosmological, mythological and historical significance in three parts (wahi). Although an important publication, it was the English language edition of Polynesian Mythology, published a year later, which gained a much wider readership and promoted things Maori. The preface of the English edition revealed Grey's notions on the collecting of indigenous languages: 'I felt unwilling that the results of my labours should be lost…' and it was completed with the 'same sense of duty which made me originally enter upon the study of the native language.'