This collection contains more than 2,500 pepeha, or "sayings of the ancestors," that were gathered and compiled from all over New Zealand over a 20-year period. More than just proverbs, pepeha include charms, witticisms, figures of speech, and boasts, and they are featured in the formal speeches heard every day on the marae and in the oral literature handed down from past generations. These expressions provide a rich source of vocabulary, using metaphor and an economy of words to show language that enriches the Maori of today.