This is a reading aid for the present historical shelf, not a substitute for a Māori dictionary or the authority of speakers and communities. Macrons appear in the doorway's modern framing even though Fletcher's 1907 text retains its historical unmacronized spelling.

Aotearoa — A widely used Māori name for New Zealand. Historical usage and the scope of the name have their own histories; it should not be projected mechanically into every old source.

hapū — A kin-based political and social group, sometimes rendered inadequately as “subtribe.” Hapū relationships, land, leadership, and histories cannot be reduced to a branch in a simple ethnicity tree.

iwi — A large descent and political grouping often translated as “tribe.” Iwi is relational and historical, not merely an ethnic classification.

Māori / te reo Māori — Māori names the Indigenous people of Aotearoa and, in te reo Māori, the Māori language. The language contains regional and historical variation. Fletcher's 1907 orthography is one printed witness, not a modern norm.

mana — Authority, prestige, power, presence, or efficacy grounded in relationships and descent. English equivalents change with context and do not exhaust the term.

Mokoia — The island in Lake Rotorua to which Hinemoa swims in the narrative. Fletcher's stated 1849 recitation took place there.

Ngāti Whakaue — A Te Arawa iwi centered around Rotorua and connected in the Hinemoa–Tūtānekai relationship field. The name should not be used as a generic synonym for Te Arawa.

noa — An ordinary, unrestricted, or released condition, often discussed in relation to tapu. Neither term has one context-free English equivalent.

Pirikawau — The interpreter whom Fletcher's notes name as assisting G. S. Cooper when the Hinemoa account was recorded in 1849.

tapu — Sacred restriction, set-apart condition, or regulated relation grounded in people, things, places, and atua. “Taboo” is historically derived from Polynesian forms but is often too blunt for a particular Māori context.

taonga — A treasured thing or inheritance, material or immaterial, whose meaning arises through relationships and responsibility. Language, knowledge, and archival records can be taonga.

Te Arawa — A confederation of iwi and hapū associated with the Te Arawa waka and Rotorua/Bay of Plenty region. The Hinemoa witness on this shelf is located within Te Arawa/Rotorua tradition, not offered as a pan-Māori account.

Tūhourangi — A Te Arawa iwi with histories around Rotorua and Tarawera, associated with Hinemoa's kin field. Local affiliations should be stated carefully rather than treated as interchangeable labels.

whakapapa — Genealogy, layered descent, and the ordering of relationships among people, atua, lands, waters, and other beings. Fletcher's reader contains a printed whakapapa table, but living whakapapa is not simply data in a table.

whānau — Family and extended family, with meanings shaped by kin relationship and context.

whenua — Land and also placenta, a linguistic relationship often invoked when speaking of belonging and responsibility to place. It means more than territory or scenery.

Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke — A major nineteenth-century Te Arawa writer and source authority whose manuscripts preserve extensive traditions and histories. Scholarship connects him with early Hinemoa manuscript materials. The present Fletcher edition, however, states a different immediate recording chain, so Good Works does not silently assign its exact text to him.