A NEW ZEALAND CLASSIC

Te Ao Hou, November 1957, Page 54

A NEW ZEALAND CLASSIC Polynesian Mythology by Sir George Grey: Edited by W. W. Bird, illustrated by Russell Clark; Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.; 17/6. The old leatherbound Grey concealed a number of virtues from a popular audience, but Whitcombe's have groomed this edition for its debut from the glass-case to the bedside table. Russell Clark's dust-jacket makes a lively beginning, the spacious layout heightens the sense of quality; merely to look at this book is a pleasure. Grey's classical style, with its sinewy periods, is in the best tradition of Maori oratory. Not only is it suited to the subject, but also to the modern reader. Grey has no need now to apologize for “occasional simplicities and infelicities of expression”. Except for the standardising of Grey's Maori spelling and the improvement in order of chapters, the late Mr W. W. Bird's editing is skilfully unobtrusive. I quibble with Grey's prefix and his title, “Poly nesian Mythology”. Although he states “that probably to no other person but myself would many of their (the Maoris) ancient chants and traditions have been imparted by their priests,” it was an ex-road works foreman, Elsdon Best, who pene trated beyond the familiar myths of Grey's volum to the esoteric concept of the abstract begin nings of the earth, from darkness and negatior through stages of will and desire, into substanct Buck mildly ridicules the school of Te Matore hanga, on whom Best relied, for its inconsistencies and transcriptions from the Christian concept of creation, but he does not question the concept of lo the father, Io the fatherless, who could have n atua or image, and who had no place in the common genealogy of gods down to men, puts the Rangi and Papa creation-myth beside Adam an his ribbone…a delightful story, but little else. Yet with all due disrespect for one's elders, do not for one moment suggest that Grey's “Pol; nesian Mythology” is merely a collection of delightful stories…it is more than that, a work of scholarship, a shaft deep into the workings of Maori belief and history. Buck, even Best, fo lowed this shaft and drew much from it. Grey account of the dissensions in Hawaiki and the coming of the “fleet” should be read beside Buck version in “The Coming of the Maori”.