A classic account of traditional Māori life in Aotearoa New Zealand, written by Makereti Papakura, a renowned Māori scholar and chieftainess of the Arawa people.Drawing on her intimate cultural knowledge and lived experience, Makereti offers a rare Indigenous perspective on Māori society before widespread European influence. Both scholarly and deeply personal, The Old-Time Maori explores the social structures, customs, and everyday practices of the Māori, ...

Originally published in 1928, this book is a comprehensive study of the Maori people and their inner lives, customs and beliefs, written by one who lived amongst them during a time before modern western civilisation had much altered their existence. This book is a fascinating read, and is highly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in other cultures and societies. Many of these earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now ...

Here are the best short stories and novel extracts from the Pikihuia Awards for Maori writers 2013 as judged by Sir Mason Durie, Hana O'Regan and Reina Whaitiri. The book contains the stories from the finalists for Best Short Story written in English, Best Short Story written in Maori and Best Novel Extract. For over ten years, the Maori Literature Trust and Huia Publishers have organised this biennial writing competition to promote Maori stories and writers. The awards and the publication...

A wonderfully surprising, inventive and deeply moving riff on fact and fiction, history and imagination from one of New Zealand's finest and most memorable storytellers. There has never been a New Zealand novel quite like The Parihaka Woman. Richly imaginative and original, weaving together fact and fiction, it sets the remarkable story of Erenora against the historical background of the turbulent and compelling events that occurred in Parihaka during the 1870s and 1880s. Parihaka is the p...

This is the first volume of Witi Ihimaera's enthralling, award-winning memoir, packed with stories from the formative years of this much-loved writer. Witi Ihimaera is a consummate storyteller — one critic calling him one of our ‘finest and most memorable’. Some of his best stories, however, are about his own life. This honest, stirring work tells of the family and community into which Ihimaera was born, of his early life in rural New Zealand, of family secrets, of facing ...

Gritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War II.Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has s...

Out of this deep respect for nature Aborigines have learned to live in remarkable harmony with the land and its animals.Here are a few stories, which relate to a culture we can all learn from. If we try harder we can all live in harmony with planet earth.

The internationally acclaimed author of The Weather Makers crafts a love letter to his native land and one of its most unique inhabitants: the kangaroo.Drawing on three decades of travel, research, and field work, Tim Flannery shows us how the destiny of the extraordinary kangaroo is inseparable from the environment that created it. Along the way he uses encounters with ancient aboriginal cultures, eccentric fossil hunters, farmers, scientists, kangaroo ad...

In keeping with his commitment to revisit his first five pieces of fiction, Witi Ihimaera has reworked the original text of this much-loved classic. The matriarch is a woman of intelligence, wit, beauty and ruthlessness, and has become a mythical figure through her fight to repossess the land and sustain her people against the ravages wrought by the Pakeha. Priestess of the Ringatu faith, she has been virtually a law unto herself. In his search for the truth behind the legends su...

Paphos Publishers offers a wide catalog of rare classic titles, published for a new generation.Maori Religion and Mythology is a fascinating, quick overview of the Maori's beliefs.

For the first time, the world of the tohunga – which up until now has lain carefully concealed for centuries – is brought out into the open. Subject matters ranging from natural healing to modern life offer an exclusive insight into the realm of a great tohunga. This book is indispensable for anyone with an interest in customary Maori life, and provides a unique perspective on the work of a great tohunga at the height of his powers.