page_title: Māori culture
section_title: Cultural concepts
hierarchical_section_title: Māori culture / Cultural concepts
caption_attribution_description: English: The remains of the sacred dead and all connected therewith were highly tapu and anyone who had been engaged in handling the dead or bones of the dead would be extremely tapu (sacred/forbidden) and would not dare to touch food with the hands. Consequently such persons like the Tohunga shown had to be fed in the manner shown in this picture.
context_page_description: Māori culture involves the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture also forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture and, due to a large diaspora and the incorporation of Māori motifs into popular culture, is found throughout the world. Within Māoridom, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori culture, the Māori-language suffix -tanga being roughly equivalent to the qualitative noun-ending -ness in English. Māoritanga has also been translated as "[a] Māori way of life."
  Four distinct but overlapping cultural eras have contributed historically to Māori culture:
  before Māori culture had differentiated itself from other Polynesian cultures
  before widespread European contact
  the 19th century, in which Māori began interacting more intensively with European visitors and settlers
  the modern era since the beginning of the twentieth century
context_section_description: Some of the fundamental cultural concepts of Māoritanga are present throughout Polynesia, but all have been altered by New Zealand's unique history and environment.
caption: A tohunga under tapu could not eat with their hands for an extended period.[56]
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