 When missionaries, officials, anthropologists or ethnologists collected and published these accounts, they inevitably changed their nature.By fixing forever on paper what had previously been subject to almost infinite variation, they fixed as the authoritative version an account told by one narrator at a given moment.In New Zealand, the writings of one chief, Wiremu Te Rangikāheke, formed the basis of much of Governor George Grey's "Polynesian Mythology", a book which to this day provides the de facto official versions of many of the best-known Māori legends.