Second edition. "Mr. W.O. Oldman of London was for many years a dealer in curios and artefacts fabricated by primitive peoples, and ended by becoming a connoisseur of such matters, with an extremely fine private collection selected from all that passed through his hands. It probably surpasses almost any other collection in quality, if not extent, and the Council of the Polynesian Society, recognizing this, set out to record a large group from the two series [the other being his collection of Polynesian artifacts]…" (Preface). The material collected in this volume originally appeared as a series of papers in the Journal of the Polynesian Society before being compiled as a separate "Memoir" volume, reprinted here due to demand a year after first publication.

Second edition. "Mr. W.O. Oldman of London was for many years a dealer in curios and artefacts fabricated by primitive peoples, and ended by becoming a connoisseur of such matters, with an extremely fine private collection selected from all that passed through his hands. It probably surpasses almost any other collection in quality, if not extent, and the Council of the Polynesian Society, recognizing this, set out to record a large group from the two series [the other being his collection of Polynesian artifacts]…" (Preface). The material collected in this volume originally appeared as a series of papers in the Journal of the Polynesian Society before being compiled as a separate "Memoir" volume, reprinted here due to demand a year after first publication.

Two years after this publication the New Zealand government purchased the collection, and it is now housed in major New Zealand museums, notably Te Papa, ensuring these treasures returned to their community of origin.