TitleGrey Māori Manuscripts - Descriptive CatalogueDescriptionDescriptive catalogue for the 147 series in the Grey Māori Manuscripts collection.
These manuscripts were accumulated by Sir George Grey, who had a great interest in Māori language and historical traditions. The bulk of the manuscripts were written during the 1840s and 1850s, and their authors included Māori men and women, other Pakeha collectors, and Grey who made every effort to obtain Māori language texts as he went about the country.
The collection includes waiata (song poems), korero (narrative accounts, for example of tribal history), whakapapa (genealogy), as well as letters, proverbs, legends, traditions, etc.
When Grey left Cape Town in 1861 at the end of his term as Governor, he donated his books and manuscripts to the public library, now the National Library of South Africa. After negotiation in 1922-1923, the Maori manuscripts were returned to the Auckland Public Library. The University of Waikato holds copies. PublisherAuckland City LibrariesPlace of PublicationAuckland, New ZealandNumber of Pages24Original SourceGrey Māori manuscripts : descriptive catalogue
