"The Mana of the Maori is by water. No one, here, carrying the same thing that I'm carrying today." --Titi Tihu In living memory, before the Whanganui River became a tawny mass seeming to flow upside down, the river bed was clean stone and the water of the river "tasted like kowhai. The trees used to grow over the river and drop into the water, and the water tasted like kowhai." This is a book of many river people--a "hidden" prophet, living with over a thousand followers at a place now deserted; a Pakeha-Maori, making gunpowder using charcoal made from willows grown from cuttings taken from Napoleon's grave; a riverboat magnate, building a fiefdom on 'the Rhine of Maoriland'; a highly decorated soldier, fighting as a kupapa yet fighting for tino rangatiratanga; arsenic and flour poisoners--and always, the river itself.

In this collection of essays, writers explore the construction of history within a political process: the changing impact of the Treaty of Waitangi. Judith Binney looks at Maori oral narratives from colonial times, and Angela Ballara reinforces the importance of using Maori language sources.

" 'The mana of the Māori is by water. No one, here, carrying the same thing that I'm carrying today' TITI TIHU" "In living memory, before the Whanganui River became a tawny mass seeming to flow upside down, the river bed was clean stone and the water of the river '... tasted like kōwhai. The trees used to grow over the river and drop into the water, and the water tasted like kōwhai.' This is a book of many river people - a 'hidden' prophet, living with over a thousand followers at a place now deserted; a Pākehā-Māori, making gunpowder using charcoal made from willows grown from cuttings taken from Napoleon's grave; a riverboat magnate, building a fiefdom on 'the Rhine of Maoriland'; a highly decorated soldier, fighting as a kūpapa yet fighting for tino rangatiratanga; arsenic and flour poisoners - and always, the river itself. ' Ngā toa pohe e ngari to hoe' "--BACK COVER.