Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke, c. 1815–1896

Abstract

Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke was the author of more than eight hundred pages of manuscript in Māori, which encompass features of Māori language, genealogies, legends, traditions, contemporary history, political commentary, customs, proverbs, songs, literary commentary, and autobiographical material. The manuscripts were the source of most of the prose material in the appendices to Sir George Grey’s Ko Nga Moteatea me Nga Hakirara Maori [Poems, Traditions and Chaunts of the Maoris] (1853), and much of the material for his Ko Nga Mahinga a Nga Tupuna Maori [The Deeds of the Maori Ancestors] (1854), and hence of its translation, Polynesian Mythology(1855). Thus Te Rangikāheke’s writings became the major part of the earliest accounts of Māori history and culture.