Te Matorohanga’s Nga Mahinga a nga Tupuna

Record summary

Nga Mahinga a nga Tupuna is associated with the tohunga Te Matorohanga and the preservation of Māori cosmological, genealogical, and ritual knowledge. It became important in later discussions of Māori esotericism because some writers treated it as a repository of pre-Christian sacred teaching, while scholars have questioned its dating, compilation, and the extent to which surviving versions reflect nineteenth-century recording or later editorial shaping. The lead is useful for comparing indigenous ritual knowledge with European categories such as mythology and occult wisdom, but its textual history remains contested.