Paul Tapsell is professor of Māori studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin, and was formerly director Māori at the Auckland Museum. A graduate of Auckland and Oxford universities, he is a former Eisenhower fellow. His previous books are Pukaki: a comet returns (1999), a Montana Book Award winner, and Ko tawa: Maori treasures of New Zealand (2006), with photos by Krzysztof Pfeiffer.