Abstract:
The status of war captives or 'slaves' in Maori society has received scant scholarly attention to date and the little that has been published suggests that the topic is subject to much confusion. There are likely to be a number of reasons for this but problems with the sources is an issue that stands out. One difficulty is the wide range of terms in Te Reo Maori which might be applied to these persons and other people of low status - a problem compounded by what appears to be a shift in the way that those terms have been used over time.