Here is an authoritative and accessible introduction to tikanga Maori. It is essential reading for all who seek to understand the correct Maori ways of doing things as they were in the past, as they are in the present--and as they may yet be.

In this wide-ranging book Hirini Moko Mead explores the creative arts and interactions between older and newer social groupings such as iwi and urban Maori authorities; he develops approaches to problems such as violent crime and substance abuse; and he surveys the ways that tikanga guides relationships between people, with the Gods and the...