Really interesting collection of Maori mythology, updated and reissued from its original 1963 edition. It does suffer, however, from lack of accuracy - and in fairness, the introduction takes pains to point this out. Much of the collected material was drawn from earlier sources that were not always accurate in themselves, and so the editor suggests that, for serious scholarship, original sources be consulted. This is all the more necessary as some of the stories in this book are choices, or conglomerations, for there are often multiple versions of the same myth come from different iwi. Still, as a layperson's overview, this collection holds value.

I do wish, however, that the editor had chosen to use footnotes instead of endnotes. Those endnotes are many and detailed, and having to keep flipping to the back of the book (often up to several times a page) to get more understanding of the context or the translation became really irritating. If a reader has to use more than one bookmark to keep track of your argument you've over-complicated things, in my opinion.