Makareti Thom was born at Tarawera of a Tuhourangi mother and an English father. It was while she was a guide at Whakarewarewa that she adopted the name Maggie Papakura. In 1911 she was chosen to represent New Zealand at the London imperial exhibition celebrating the coronation of King George V. In England she met and married Richard Staples-Browne, and apart from a brief visit in 1926, she never returned to live in New Zealand. At the age of 54 she became a student of anthropology at Oxford University and she completed a valuable study of her people called Makereti - Old Time Māori. She did not live to see the book published. She died in 1930 and the book was published in 1938.
Biographical sources
- Makereti, The Old Time Māori. Ed. T. K. Penniman. London: Gollancz, 1938. Rpt. The Old Time Maori. Ed. and introd. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku. Auckland, N.Z.: New Women’s Press, 1986. Rpt. 1987.
Non-fiction
- Guide to the Hot Lakes District and some Māori Legends. Maggie Papakura. Auckland, N.Z.: The Brett Printing and Publishing Company, 1905.
- Makereti - The Old Time Māori. Ed. T. K. Penniman. London: Gollancz, 1938. Rpt. the Old Time Māori. Ed. and introd. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku. Auckland, N.Z.: New Women’s Press Ltd, 1986. Rpt. 1987.
- Te Awekotuku writes in her Introduction that this publication ‘was the first comprehensive ethnographic account by a Māori scholar, and it stands on its own as an original contribution to Māori scholarship and to the wider ethnographic record.’
Other
- "Children." The Old Time Māori. Ed. T. K. Penniman. London: Gollancz, 1938. Rpt. in The Writing of New Zealand: Inventions and Identities. Ed. Alex Calder. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1993. 148-157.
- An abridged version of the chapter in The Old Time Maori describing childhood.
- "The Way It Used To Be." The Old Time Māori. Ed. T. K. Penniman. London: Gollancz, 1938. Rpt. in Growing Up Māori. Ed. Witi Ihimaera. Auckland, N.Z.: Tandem Press, 1998. 19-29.
- "Hinemoa." The Old Time Māori. Ed. T. K. Penniman. London: Gollancz, 1938. Rpt in A Woman’s Life: Writing by Women about Female Experience in New Zealand. Ed. Anne Else and Heather Roberts. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin, 1989. 136-139.
Other
- Curtis, Tony. "Maggie Papakura." Te Kaea 5 (Feb. 1981): 24-25.
- Erai, Michelle, Fuli, Everdina, Irwin, Kathie and Wilcox, Lenaire. Māori Women: An Annotated Bibliography. Wellington, N.Z.: Michelle Erai, Everdina Fuli, Kathie Irwin and Lenaire Wilcox, 1991. 6.
- Taylor, C.R.H. A Bibliography of Publications on the New Zealand Māori and the Moriori of the Chatham Islands. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. 75.
Reviews
The Old Time Māori
- Cody, J.F. "The Life Story of Maggie Papakura." Te Ao Hou 9 (1954): 19.
- A review of The Old Time Māori.
The Old-Time Māori
- Evans, Miriama. Rev. of The Old-Time Māori, on Radio New Zealand. No details.