Michael King, 59; Author, Leading Scholar on the Maori, Native People of New Zealand

Michael King, New Zealand’s leading historian of the indigenous Maori, has died. He was 59.

King and his wife, Maria Jungowska, were killed Tuesday when their car hit a tree and burst into flames south of the city of Auckland, police said. The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

King’s historical works ranged from biographies of noted Maori women leaders like Princess Te Puea Herangi and activist Dame Whina Cooper to studies of Maori facial tattooing, known as “moko,” and of the Moriori peoples of the Chatham Islands, several hundred miles east of New Zealand.

Unlike many non-Maori New Zealanders, King became fluent in the Maori language as he documented the culture and history of the nation’s indigenous peoples.

In the 1980s, King wrote his groundbreaking study “Being Pakeha,” the first book to examine the non-Maori ingredients of New Zealand society and culture. “Pakeha” is a Maori word for European settlers.

King most recently published the best-selling “History of New Zealand,” which he said was inescapably a history of race relations between European settlers and indigenous Maori tribes.

A native of Wellington, New Zealand, King graduated from Victoria University in Wellington and earned a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Waikato. He earned a doctorate at Victoria University.

He worked as a journalist for many years and taught writing at a number of academic institutions in New Zealand.

The couple are survived by King’s son and daughter from his first marriage. Funeral details were not immediately available.