Of Ngàti Wàhiao, Te Arawa, and Pàkehà descent, Maggie Papakura had a revered ancestry and was therefore raised by senior members of her mother’s family and educated in Màori knowledge and customs during her most impressionable years. From the age of nine she was educated in English, and developed a love of literature as well as a distinctive and elegant writing style. She worked as hostess and guide at Whakarewarewa, guiding the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York during their 1901 visit. In the early 1900s she formed a choir and later a concert party, and in 1910 the group set out for Sydney and London for the coronation festivities of King George V. In 1912 she married an Oxfordshire farmer, taking with her a carved house from Whakarewarewa, along with artefacts and ornaments which would enable her to describe all aspects of traditional Màori life. In 1924 she settled at Oxford University and began to assemble her material to document Màori life and customs. She established quite a salon with her beautiful Màori taonga, and regularly hosted colonial scholars.

In 1926 Makereti Papakura returned to her family in Whakarewarewa to check her manuscript notes with the kaumatua, ready to complete a thesis for a Bachelor of Science. However, just weeks before her thesis examination in 1930, she died. Her work, The Old Time Màori, was published posthumously and remains a significant scholarly reference source, illuminating the knowledge from a Màori perspective. Makereti charmed all who met her by her scholarship, curiosity, and willingness to share her heritage.