Kōrero: History and historians

Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke of Ngāti Rangiwewehi was a highly knowledgeable scholar and chief who knew a great deal about Māori traditions. Governor George Grey was keen to document Māori history and traditions so he employed Te Rangikāheke in the early 1850s to write down much of his historical knowledge. Arguably, this made him the country’s first paid historian. Certainly Te Rangikāheke wrote 21 manuscripts himself and contributed to another 17. Grey drew on Te Rangikāheke's writings extensively in the collections of Māori tradition that he published under his own name.