Old New Zealand: Being Incidents of Native Customs and Character in the Old

Maning, Frederick Edward, 1812-1883Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9

Word count: 278K words
Chapters: 28

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Old New Zealand: Being Incidents of Native Customs and Character in the OldAuthor: Maning, Frederick Edward, 1812-1883,Language: English, Class: DU: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: History of Oceania (South Seas), Release Date: Aug 3, 2010

Editor's review

Frederick Edward Maning's Old New Zealand records incidents of Maori customs and character from an eyewitness perspective, a classic note-form text in Oceanian history and the history of colonial contact. Its strength lies in its concreteness and immediacy: the author lived among Maori for years, and his pages are filled with cases, observations, and character sketches rather than systematic ethnography. Such material is valuable for understanding how nineteenth-century colonists observed and described indigenous peoples, while also requiring readers to maintain a critical distance—it records the old New Zealand seen through a "colonial gaze," with the limitations and personal stance of its time. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it is easy to access and excerpt, suitable as supplementary reading for courses on colonial and Pacific history, and as an introductory account for readers with a budding interest in Maori culture. When reading, one should place the narrative in its historical context and distinguish factual record from the author's judgments.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of New Zealand history and Pacific colonial history who need primary eyewitness material
Readers interested in traditional Maori customs and nineteenth-century colonial contact
Scholars of colonial literature or cross-cultural writing who focus on narrative perspective
Advanced readers who enjoy vivid historical notes and character sketches

Not a good fit for

Academic readers expecting systematic ethnography or rigorous anthropological analysis
Readers seeking contemporary perspectives and insider accounts of Maori culture
Those sensitive to the biases of colonial-era texts who are unwilling to read critically

Reading tips

Read the preface or introduction first to understand the author's identity and background, then proceed to the main text, avoiding treating personal observations as an objective whole.
Mark the author's value judgments and descriptive content while reading, distinguishing eyewitness record from subjective evaluation.
Read alongside modern works on Maori or Pacific history to supplement the indigenous perspectives missing from the text.
Read selectively by theme—customs,人物, and events—as material for classroom discussion or writing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a rigorous ethnography of Maori culture?

No. It is an account based on the author's personal experience, focusing on cases, individuals, and fragments of custom, lacking a systematic anthropological framework and theoretical analysis. It can be read as historical material but cannot replace modern ethnographic works; readers should note its perspective and historical limitations.

Are the book's descriptions of Maori reliable?

The book contains many specific observations of historical value, but the author was a nineteenth-century colonist, and the narrative carries a "colonial gaze" and the biases of its time; some judgments may not be objective. It is best read as a colonial-era observational text and compared with modern Maori studies rather than taken directly as established fact.

Can readers with average English read this book?

The book is an original English work in a nineteenth-century narrative style, interspersed with local vocabulary and colloquial expressions, posing some difficulty for non-native readers. Intermediate or higher English reading ability is recommended, or readers may first consult Chinese general histories for background, then use the e-text's search function to read selected passages.

As a free e-book, how should reading be arranged?

It is best read selectively by theme rather than straight through: skim the table of contents first, choose chapters on customs,人物, or specific events, and use the search function to locate keywords. For coursework or writing, take notes on specific observations and the author's evaluations as you read, for later comparison and citation.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Maning, Frederick Edward, 1812-1883 Author · New Zealander · 1812–1883

Frederick Edward Maning (1812–1883) was an Irish-New Zealand writer and judge. Public information about his early education and professional career is limited, and he is known mainly for two works depicting Maori social life. Drawing on his own experiences in New Zealand, he wrote Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times and Old New Zealand: Being Incidents of Native Customs and Character in the Old, recording Maori customs, character, and everyday order from a first-hand perspective. Memoir-like in tone and lively in style, these works are both literary and valuable as historical sources. They are representative nineteenth-century texts on Maori culture by a European settler and remain important references for the study of early New Zealand society and cross-cultural contact.