Maori History and Place Names of Hawke's Bay is a well-regarded regional history made available once more in this new edition. It represents a valuable study of Maori culture and a permanent record of people and place names in the Hawke's Bay that have always been known – but not always located – since early times. In the late 1940s J.D.H. Buchanan began studying, collecting and recording local traditions, conversations with district elders, family genealogies, early survey maps and Maori Land Court proceedings in the Hawke's Bay area. Following his death in 1961, Buchanan's notes were edited by David Simmons. Beginning form the moment Maori arrived in the area on the Takitimu, the book traces the history of local iwi including Ngati Kahungungu, Rangitane and Ngati Awa. Also featured are meticulous plans of pa sites, aerial photographs of the countryside, and a comprehensive gazetteer of place names.

"Volume One, Te Tangata me te Whenua - the people and the land, encompasses myths and legends of the region, the succession of tribes who have inhabited Te Tau Ihu o te Waka and their interactions, early encounters with Europeans, the arrival of the New Zealand Company, the Treaty of Waitangi, land transactions, and the administration of Maori Resserves." - p. 16.

This richly illustrated book explores the flowering of figurative painting in the decoration of Maori meeting houses in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Not practiced in traditional Maori culture, figurative painting developed in response to missionary criticism of Maori church decoration. Neich analyzes the theory and practice of this art and describes the figurative painting on more than eighty meeting houses.