This is a book about the meeting between Maori and Pakeha from 1642 to about 1840a process of mutual discovery, contact and encounter. In this meeting place, Maori and Europeans re-evaluated cultural priorities, adapted the customs of the other people that they found useful and sometimes went native as they fell over into the other culture.

• Contents: First encounters. Becoming Māori, becoming Pākehā. Before the middle ground – Tasman and the time of mutual incomprehension. Cross-cultural travels : Cook, Banks and Tupaia in Aotearoa. The French connection : Jean-François Marie de Surville in Tai Tokerau. ‘The tribe of Marion’ : Marion du Fresne’s bloody encounter
• Strangers landing in strange lands. Kāwana Kingi and the Norfolk Island connection. A native abroad : Savage and Moehanga. A tragic liaison : George Bruce and Atahoe. Deepsea whalers and Māori. Clashing cultures : the burning of the Boyd. A regal visit : Hongi Hika in London and the aftermath of Kupe’s journey
• On the middle ground. Importing missionaries. Ruatara and Marsden. The missionary challenge. Saving souls abroad : Tuai and Titere in England. Southern sealers and whalers. Middle New Zealand : early interactions in the Cook Strait region and further north. Jumping ship : further European settlement in the north. Learning to get along with one another : the nature of Māori and Pākehā relationships before 1840
• Trading relationships : the commercial frontier. Commerce and gift exchange. Trade and agriculture. Selling services. New wants and needs. Ownership and use rights. ‘Tuku whenua’ and land dealings
• Sex on the frontier. Sex and sailors. The sexual politics of the frontier
• Subverting conversion? Religious encounters. Understanding Māori ‘conversion’. A unique form of Christianity?. Tapu and other customs
• The political world of Aotearoa before 1840. The evolving role of rangatira in the pre-Waitangi era. Taua muru. Rūnanga and komiti. A dying people?
• The impact of cultural encounter on the New Zealand frontier
• The end of the middle ground.
• Maori (New Zealand people) — History.  |  Maori (New Zealand people) — First contact with Europeans.  |  New Zealand — Race relations — History.  |  New Zealand — Ethnic relations.  |  New Zealand — History — To 1840.  |  Modern history (c 1788-1914) (New Zealand)  |  Maori studies (New Zealand)  |  Indigenous peoples (New Zealand)

viii, 284 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 23 cm. #181221