“Ko te Kawenata Hou o to tatou Ariki te Kai Wakaora a ihu Karaiti” - First edition of the Māori New Testament - Published in Paihia, New Zealand, 1837

“Ko te Kawenata Hou o to tatou Ariki te Kai Wakaora a ihu Karaiti”

-First edition of the Māori New Testament - Published in Paihia, New Zealand, 1837

-This copy is complete with 356 pages of text including the printed title page.

-The book is bound in its contemporary full leather binding with wear and some splitting to the spine. Internally very good.

This is the first Complete edition of the New Testament published in Māori, which came off William Colenso’s press in Paihia in late 1837. The work is significant for being the first Bible to be published in an indigenous language in the Southern Hemisphere. It had taken 10 years to translate, mostly by William Williams, and 5000 copies were produced with many copies sent to London and Sydney for binding. The work was hugely popular and Māori travelled far and wide to obtain a copy of this long-awaited work. It is considered the second "book" printed in New Zealand (the first being printed in 1835 at Paihia by Colenso)

After publication, the Bibles were well used and copies are rare today with around 40 copies recorded to have survived in Institutions. Most institutional copies are located in New Zealand and Australia (around 20 copies), with 7 in the US, 5 in the UK, and 2 each in France, Denmark and Germany. The work appears uncommonly on the private market, with the last significant copies appearing in the sales of the great 20th Century collections of New Zealand printing of Pycroft (2011) and Parr (2019), both of which were unsigned.

The First Bible published in an indigenous language in the Southern Hemisphere.  

Books In Māori 45