This extraordinary book – unsettling, harrowing, and ultimately redemptive – is based on the time the author spent with the Tuhoe tohunga, Hohepa Kereopa. It plunges deep into a cultural landscape that has almost vanished, bringing to light insights that are enriching and sometimes shocking. The work climaxes with a staggering oral history that has never appeared in print until now, and which reveals one of the most tragic and distressing events in the country's colonial era.