Nga Mahi a nga Tupuna
Also known as: Ngā Mahi a ngā Tūpuna, The Deeds of the Ancestors, Ngā Mahi a ngā Tūpuna: He Mea Kohikohi Mai
A seminal 1854 Māori-language anthology of traditional narratives collected by George Grey, presenting creation accounts, divine genealogies, culture-hero exploits, and ancestral migrations central to Māori cosmology and tribal history.
Description
Compiled from kōrero tuku iho given by Māori informants, Nga Mahi a nga Tupuna records genealogies, cosmogony, and narratives of gods, culture heroes, and founding ancestors. It includes the separation of Sky Father and Earth Mother, conflicts among their divine offspring, and the shaping of the world. Culture-hero cycles—especially Māui’s feats of fishing up land, slowing the sun, obtaining fire, and confronting death—sit alongside tales of Tāwhaki’s ascent, Tinirau and Kae, Rata’s canoe, and voyages and landfalls associated with Kupe, Toi, and the waka migrations. While mediated by a nineteenth-century editor, the anthology remains a widely cited gateway to Māori mytho-historical traditions.
Historiography
Grey’s 1854 Māori text was compiled from oral recitations, notes, and manuscripts obtained across iwi, with editorial standardization and reordering for print. His 1855 English Polynesian Mythology is an adaptation rather than a literal translation, smoothing diction and occasionally conflating variants. Later reprints and scholarly critiques highlight Grey’s anonymization of sources and the colonial context of collection. The work nonetheless shaped subsequent Māori mythography and informed later comparative Polynesian studies.
Date Notes
Collected chiefly 1849–1853; first Māori-language edition printed 1854; Grey’s English adaptation published 1855 as Polynesian Mythology.
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- Māui
- Tāwhaki
- Rangi
- Papa
- Tāne
Myths
- Māui Fishes up the North Island
- Tāwhaki’s Ascent to the Heavens
- Separation of Rangi and Papa
- Kupe’s Voyaging and Landfall
Facts
- First Māori-language edition printed at 1854; English adaptation appeared in 1855.
- Grey’s Māori text is not a verbatim transcript; he edited sequence, diction, and orthography.
- The anthology preserves both cosmogony and tribal migration traditions.
- Māui’s cycle (sun, fire, fishing up land, death) occupies a central place in the collection.
- The separation of Rangi and Papa frames Māori explanations of cosmic order and weather.
- Tāwhaki’s ascent narratives link to the acquisition of knowledge and lightning.
- Tinirau and Kae exemplify utu (reciprocity and retribution) and communal justice.
- Voyaging accounts connect mythic time with remembered waka landfalls in Aotearoa.
- Later scholarship has critiqued colonial mediation while acknowledging the text’s influence.
- Grey’s work informed comparative Polynesian mythography across the nineteenth century.