"[The book] presents the complex web of Maori belief, tribal rituals and discipline which existed at the time of the voyages of Captain James Cook. [It] is set in the late 1700s, about 600 years after the great canoes from the [central] Pacific had arrived in New Zealand. Here, ... in what is now known as the Bay of Plenty, the peiople settled and prospered and here Maori society reached thye zenith of its power and development. Then, as the people multiplied, the question of survival became inextricably interwoven with the concepts of mana and tribal honour. The delicately posied balance of power was easily upset, so that ... warfare, cannibalism and slavery prevailed. Yet there was time for love and learning, and the highest regard for valour and chivalry. ..."--Book flap.