Frederick Maning settled among the Māori of the far north in the 1830s and lived as a Pakeha Maori, a white man adopted into tribal life, and here he recalls those days with comic relish: what a white man was worth to a chief, trading, tapu, war parties and hospitality. The book closes with a history of the 1845 war in the North against Heke, told in the voice of an old chief.
A classic of New Zealand writing, humorous and shrewd, though its view of Māori life is very much a settler’s of the 1860s. Download the free EPUB.