Polynesian Society

From its earliest days, the society published the quarterly Journal of the Polynesian Society, which became the society's principal means to publish information about the indigenous peoples of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. The journal is a rich repository of the traditions of Oceania. Its first editors were S. Percy Smith and Edward Tregear. Smith was its chief contributor until his death in 1922. The list of subsequent editors includes W. H. Skinner, Elsdon Best, Johannes C. Andersen, H. D. Skinner, C. R. H. Taylor, W. R. Geddes, W. C. Groves, Bruce Biggs, Melvyn McLean and Richard Moyle. The present editors are Judith Huntsman and Melinda Allen. The journal since December 2022 has been renamed Waka Kuaka or “Flight of the Godwit” symbolising the objective of its refocusing on connections of shared culture between Pacific peoples –just as the godwit had been known among them as a mean of finding direction exploring and settling new islands– based on the ideas of Tongan anthropologist Epeli Hauʻofa. In addition to this journal, the society has published many notable monographs, including S. Percy Smith's History and Traditions of the Taranaki Coast (1910) and The Lore of the Whare Wananga (1913–15); A. Shand's The Moriori People of the Chatham Islands (1911); Elsdon Best, The Maori (1924) and Tuhoe (1925); J. C. Andersen, Maori Music (1934); and C. R. H. Taylor, A Pacific Bibliography (1951), and two catalogues of the Oldman Collection of Māori and Polynesian artifacts (2004). Other major works include A. Ngata and Pei Te Hurinui Jones Nga Moteatea (1959–1990), a definitive four-volume collection of traditional Māori song with translations and commentaries, which has been published in a new, enhanced edition by Auckland University Press in association with the Polynesian Society. A history of the society and its journal, M. P. K. Sorrenson's Manifest Duty: The Polynesian Society over 100 years, and a Centennial Index 1892–1991 (D. Brown, compiler) were published in 1991.