The Polynesian Society

The Polynesian Society is a non-profit organisation based at the University of Auckland dedicated to the scholarly study of the history, ethnography, and mythology of Oceania.

The Society was co-founded in 1892 by Stephenson Percy Smith and Edward Tregear largely in response to a conviction, widely held at the time, that Māori and other Polynesian peoples were a dying race. Smith and his friends hoped that it would help to preserve the traditional lore of the Māori before it disappeared and provide scholars with a forum for learned discussion of their ethnographic research.

The Society also publishes the quarterly Journal of the Polynesian Society, a journal that publishes information about the indigenous peoples of Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. The present editors of the journal are Judith Huntsman and Melinda Allen.