Pip Williams, a retired pharmacist living in Northland, has spent his life observing and recording the use by local Maori of native plants for medicinal purposes. Te Rongoa Maori brings together his observations on 43 New Zealand plants and the health problems they were used to treat, colourfully interspersed with anecdotal evidence and beautifully illustrated with watercolours and engravings.
Much of the information in Te Rongoa Maori was told to the author by Ngapuhi kuia and kaumatua over 40 years ago. Maori in earlier times knew abou the therapeutic benefits derived from trees and plants for a variety of health problems, but had no knowledge of pharmacology. Consequently, Te Rongoa Maori makes no claims to being a manual of Maori medicine. However, it comprises an important and faithful record of information gleaned over a lifetime's close association with the Ngapuhi people, and of the cultureal importance of this heritage.