The Maori and His Religion

Record summary

Elsdon Best’s The Maori and His Religion compiled Māori religious concepts, ritual practices, traditions, and cosmological narratives from oral accounts and earlier records. The book is a useful lead for examining how Māori traditions were presented as evidence in debates over migration, ancient knowledge, and supposed survivals from a remote civilization. It should be read as a colonial-era ethnographic compilation, not as a verbatim ancient document. Comparisons with Māori-language sources, community scholarship, and archaeological evidence are essential because Best’s categories and editorial methods shaped later interpretations.