The nature of metaphor in Maori is discussed, with emphasis on nature in Maori metaphor. Poetic metaphor is distinguished from cognitive metaphor. In nontraditional, nonanonymous poetry, the poet strives for originality. Traditional poetry, in contrast, draws on cognitive metaphor, the sorts of metaphors found in the speech of children, in terminology (especially at the forefront of science), and in early phases of pidgins. Cognitive metaphors, on the whole, serve practical purposes of communication and their basis is chiefly cognitive, with the possible exception of stylistically marked expressions where emotional factors are in the foreground. Canonical metaphors in traditional Maori poetry are inventoried, as are metaphors from nature in the exhaustive dictionary of W. H. Williams (1975). It is concluded that about half the metaphors in the Maori lexicon are drawn from nature, particularly from plants, animals, and their parts and the sea. (LLBA 1999, vol. 33, n. 4)