Maori Oral Tradition

This is an enriching contribution to popular scholarship and the conclusion makes it clear how many new pathways now lie open for further discovery. – Paul Little, North & South

“There were also ways in which they recorded the oral tradition. Carving is one example. Patterns in artworks. Aspects of the landscape speak to Māori, the names on the landscape, but mostly in the time of an oral society when there is no writing you depend on memory to pass on things that are vital to you, your knowledge and your histories and your philosophies and customs.” – Jane McRae

Jane McRae was a lecturer in M?ori language and literature at the M?ori Studies Department of the University of Auckland from 1993 to 2003; since then she has been a freelance translator and researcher of nineteenth-century M?ori literature. Among her publications are, as author, ‘Maori Literature: A Survey’, in Terry Sturm (ed.), The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature (1998) and Ng? M?teatea: An Introduction / He Kupu Arataki, translated by H?ni Jacob (Auckland University Press, 2011), and, as editor with Jenifer Curnow and Ngapare Hopa, Rere atu, taku manu! Discovering History, Language and Politics in the Maori-language Newspapers and He Pitopito K?rero n? te Perehi M?ori: Readings from the Maori-language Press (Auckland University Press, 2002, 2006).