Over the course of the long nineteenth century, Māori produced thousands of pages of written work, a large selection of which lies on shelves in libraries and other archival institutions in Aotearoa-New Zealand and around the world. Genres include correspondence, whakataukī (proverbs), biography, historical accounts, travel journals, and descriptions of customs, religious beliefs, and more. This collective body of work is written almost exclusively in te reo Māori, the Māori language, and scholarly work has tended to focus on its translation into English. The emphasis on translation is not surprising given the sustained and systematic violence wreaked upon Māori by European colonisation, and later perpetuated by assimilatory ideology and government policy that severely undermined the health of the Māori language. Despite efforts to revitalise the Māori language, it remains today in a critically endangered state. Translations are, however, products of their own time, place, and context. Reading the texts in the language in which they were first written, in their own idiom, and with their own turns of phrase, tone, meter, and style enables unparalleled access to the first literature of Aotearoa-New Zealand – to Māori literature. Due to the ruptures caused by ongoing colonial processes, reading early Māori literature often involves intensive upskilling in language proficiency as well as detective work as we follow leads, peel back layers, explore, search, and rediscover that which has sometimes been right in front of us the whole time.

In June 1852 Hakaraia Kiharoa wrote down the words of some sixty-nine waiata (songs) filling eighty-five pages of manuscript. Written into the age-worn pages are examples of all the major types: waiata tangi (laments), waiata aroha (love songs), and oriori or pōpō (lullabies); waiata that form a class of their own such as ‘tangi tamaiti’ (laments for children), as well as waiata that defy classification altogether. The waiata refer to ancient conflicts, contemporary events, and religious beliefs. They explore the lacerating grief of love lost, and mourn the passing of great rangatira (chiefs). Line upon line spill over the pages in a continuous stream of imagery, metaphor, simile, and all other manner of Māori poetic ornament. Kiharoa writes in clear, slanted, thin, carefully formed and flourished letters of black ink.