Māori

Mā te Atua me te wāhi ngaro tātou e tiaki e manaaki.   (May God and the origin which all things come from, bless and keep us)

 -Sir Apirana Ngata

## Tāngata Māori

* Aotearoa's
* People

Credit to Atlantic TV and Cliff Whiting (now passed), below

## Religion or Spirituality

Aotearoa: Irrreligion (53.5%) Traditional Religion, Ringatū, Rātana, Presbyterianism.

## Related Ethnic Groups

Polynesians, Austronesians

The **Māori** /ˈmaʊri/, Māori: [ˈmaːɔɾi] are the indigenous [[Polynesian]] people of New Zealand (*Aotearoa*). Māori originated with settlers from the Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuans, and Tahitians, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed their own distinctive culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. While all Maori are divided into iwi, the Maori of the Chatham Islands are separated as the Moriori.

Maori unofficial anthem, sung by Maisey Rika from St. Joseph's Maori Girl's College.

## Etymology (Mataitanga ā-Ihu)

In the Māori language, the word *māori* means "normal", "natural", or "ordinary". In legends and oral traditions, the word distinguished ordinary mortal human beings—*tāngata māori*—from deities and spirits (*wairua*). Likewise, *wai māori* denotes "fresh water", as opposed to salt water. There are cognate words in most Polynesian languages, all deriving from Proto-Polynesian \**ma(a)qoli*, which has the reconstructed meaning "true, real, genuine".

## History (Hītori)

No credible evidence exists of pre-Māori settlement of New Zealand; on the other hand, compelling evidence from archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology indicates that the first settlers migrated from Polynesia and became the Māori. Evidence indicates that their ancestry (as part of the larger group of Austronesian peoples) stretches back 5,000 years, to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan.

There may have been some exploration and settlement before eruption of Mount Tarawera in about 1315, based on finds of bones from Polynesian rats and rat-gnawed shells, and evidence of widespread forest fires in the decade or so prior; but the most recent evidence points to the main settlement occurring as a planned mass migration somewhere between 1320 and 1350. This broadly aligns with analyses from Māori oral traditions, which describe the arrival of ancestors in a number of large ocean-going canoes (*waka*) in around 1350. The earliest period of Māori settlement, known as the "Archaic", "Moahunter" or "Colonisation" period, dates from c. 1300 to c. 1500. The early Māori diet included an abundance of moa and other large birds and fur seals that had never been hunted before. This Archaic period is known for its distinctive "reel necklaces", and also remarkable for the lack of weapons and fortifications typical of the later "Classic" Māori. The best-known and most extensively studied Archaic site, at Wairau Bar in the South Island, shows evidence of occupation from early-13th century to the early-15th century. It is the only known New Zealand archaeological site containing the bones of people who were born elsewhere.

Factors that operated in the transition to the Classic period (the culture at the time of European contact) include a significantly cooler period from 1500, and the extinction of the moa and of other food species.

The Classic period is characterised by finely-made *pounamu* (greenstone) weapons and ornaments; elaborately carved war canoes and *wharenui* (meeting houses). Māori lived in autonomous settlements in extended hapū groups descended from common iwi ancestors. The settlements had farmed areas and food sources for hunting, fishing and gathering. Fortified pā were built at strategic locations due to occasional warfare over wrongdoings or resources; this practice varied over different locations throughout New Zealand, with more populations in the far North. There is a stereotype that Māori were 'natural warriors' however warfare and associated practices like cannibalism were not a dominating part of Māori culture.

Initial contact between Māori and [[Europeans]], starting in the 18th century, ranged from beneficial trade to lethal violence; Māori actively adopted many technologies from the newcomers. With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the two cultures coexisted for a generation. Rising tensions over disputed land sales led to conflict in the 1860s, and massive land confiscations, to which Māori responded with fierce resistance. After the Treaty was declared a legal nullity in 1877, Māori were forced to assimilate into many aspects of Western society and culture. Social upheaval and epidemics of introduced disease took a devastating toll on the Māori population, which fell dramatically. By the start of the 20th century, the Māori population had begun to recover, and efforts have been made, centering on the Treaty of Waitangi, to increase their standing in wider New Zealand society and achieve social justice.

Traditional Māori culture has thereby enjoyed a significant revival, which was further bolstered by a Māori protest movement that emerged in the 1960s. However, disproportionate numbers of Māori face significant economic and social obstacles, and generally have lower life expectancies and incomes compared with other New Zealand ethnic groups. They suffer higher levels of crime, health problems, and educational under-achievement. A number of socio-economic initiatives have been instigated with the aim of "closing the gap" between Māori and other New Zealanders. Political and economic redress for historical grievances is also ongoing (see Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements).

In the 2018 census, there were 775,836 people in New Zealand identifying as Māori, making up 16.5 percent of the national population. They are the second-largest ethnic group in New Zealand, after [[European New Zealanders]] ("Pākehā"). In addition, more than 140,000 Māori live in Australia. The Māori language is spoken to some extent by about a fifth of all Māori, representing three percent of the total population. Māori are active in all spheres of New Zealand culture and society, with independent representation in areas such as media, politics, and sport.

## Beliefs (Ngā Whakapono)

Traditional Māori beliefs have their origins in Polynesian culture. Polynesian concepts such as *tapu* (sacred), *noa* (non-sacred), *mana* (authority/prestige) and *wairua* (spirit) governed everyday Māori living and there were many Māori deities. Many Māori people still observe spiritual traditions such as *tapu* and *noa*. Certain objects, areas, or buildings are *tapu* (spiritually restricted), and must be made *noa* (unrestricted) by ceremonial action. It is common practice, for instance, to remove one's shoes before entering a *wharenui* (meeting-house) in token of respect for the ancestors who are represented and spiritually present within the *wharenui*. Another spiritual ritual is *hurihanga takapau* (purification), practised when fishing to ensure there is no *tapu* on the fish.

## Music (Pūoro)

Songs (*waiata*) are sung solo, in unison, or at the octave. Types of songs include lullabies (*oriori*), love songs (*waiata aroha*), and laments (*waiata tangi*). Traditionally all formal speeches are followed by a waiata sung by the speaker and their group of supporters. Some of the smaller wind instruments are also sung into, and the sound of the *poi* (raupo ball swung on the end of a flax cord) provides a rhythmic accompaniment to *waiata poi*. Captain Cook, who visited the New Zealand archipelago in the late-18th century, reported that the Māori sang a song in "semitones".

Others reported that the Māori had no vocal music at all, or sang discordantly. In fact, the ancient chants, or mōteatea, to which Cook was referring, are microtonal and repeat a single melodic line, generally centred on one note, falling away at the end of the last line. It was a bad omen for a song to be interrupted, so singers would perform in subgroups to allow each subgroup to breathe without interrupting the flow of the chant. Mervyn McLean, in "Traditional Songs of the Maori", first notated the microtonality in a significant number of mōteatea in 1975.

A karanga is a formal, ceremonial call and response at the start of a pōwhiri (welcome ceremony) and is common on a marae. Karanga are carried out almost exclusively by women and in the Māori language. It is a special role and there are guidelines around who is best placed to carry out the karanga that are dependent on the protocols of each pōwhiri. Woman performing the call are called kaikaranga, the call comes from the host group and also from the visitor group, a name for the person from the visitor group is also kaiwhakautu. Skilled kaikaranga encapsulate important information about the group and the purpose of the visit.

Taonga pūoro are traditional musical instruments that previously fulfilled many functions within Māori society including a call to arms, dawning of the new day, communications with the gods and the planting of crops. They are significant in sacred ritual and also fulfill a story-telling role. Many of the sounds of the instruments and tunes are imitations of the sounds of nature, including the wind, the seas and the natural world of birds and insects.

## Sports (Hākinakina)

*Kapa haka* is a Māori performance art that originated in the 1880s to perform to tourists including some groups travelling out of New Zealand to perform. It was used in the First World War to raise money for the Maori Soldiers’ Fund encouraged by Apirana Ngata. A *haka* is often performed in a *pōwhiri* (welcoming ceremony). Since 1972 there has been a regular national *kapa haka* competition, the Te Matatini National Festival, organised by the Aotearoa Traditional Māori Performing Arts Society. There are *kapa haka* groups in schools, tertiary institutions, and workplaces, and it is performed at tourist venues across the country.

*Whare tapere* (entertainment houses) were a site of story-telling, dance, and puppetry in pre-European Māori culture. Kī-o-rahi is a ball sport played in New Zealand with a small round ball called a 'kī'. It is a fast-paced game incorporating skills similar to rugby union, netball, tag rugby and touch. Two teams of seven players play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target. The game is played with varying rules (e.g. number of people, size of field, tag ripping rules etc.) depending on the geographic area it is played in. A process called Tatu, before the game, determines which rules the two teams will use. Tapu ae (also known as Tapuwai and Tapuwae) is a traditional Māori ball game. It is an adaptation of ki-o-rahi to a court game, and was formalised about 1900. Today it is played on a hard surface such as a netball or basketball court. The court consists of two sides where players pass the ball to each other, aiming to knock the wooden block in the middle of the circle on each of the two sides over. There are different types of Tapu ae, which range from using the formally known wooden block as a defense, and the other using cones with tennis balls.

## Food (Kai)

The Māori are an island people and gather most of their food from the sea, collecting seaweed and watercress from the shore and ocean animals from under the waters, various types of fish as well as scallops, sea urchins, mussels, oysters and crayfish. Forraging on land also proved useful for the Māori as thistles, barks, potatos and insects have sustained them for thousands of years. The Māori prefer a near ocean life but birds and other inland animals are also eaten, less commonly so.

## Sexuality (Tōkaitanga)

Joseph Banks, a scientist on board Cook’s ship the *Endeavour*, recorded that one of the sailors had been with a Māori family and had paid them to have sexual relations with a young woman. The ‘young woman’ who retired with him turned out to be a boy. He returned and complained and was given another ‘young woman’ who turned out to also be a boy. When he complained again the family laughed at him. Banks was not sure whether this was evidence of homosexuality, or sharp trading.

There are a number of recorded examples of new settlers cohabiting in same-sex relationships with Māori. The most well-documented example is the Reverend William Yate, an English missionary, who lived with his male companion for two years in the Māori village of Waimate, before being expelled to England for homosexual behaviour. His relationship seems to have been accepted by the Māori community but it was frowned on by his religious peers. An investigation into allegations that Yate had engaged in sexual acts with Māori youths illustrates that there was a more open attitude by Māori to sexuality. Richard Davis observed that ‘[they] showed no shame. They simply declared that they were unaware of any sinfulness in such practices and that Yate had not initiated them.

Māori society, like society in general, has come to acknowledge and accept sexual diversity. In the early 2000s the Māori Sexuality Project, run by Auckland University, researched sexual attitudes and experience among Māori. Many gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and intersexual Māori women and men have adopted the word takatāpui to describe themselves, which identifies them by both their sexuality and their culture.

## Language (Reo)

Since about 1800, the Māori language has had a tumultuous history. It started this period as the predominant language of New Zealand. In the 1860s, it became a minority language in the shadow of the English spoken by many settlers, missionaries, gold-seekers, and traders. In the late 19th century, the colonial governments of New Zealand and its provinces introduced an English-style school system for all New Zealanders. From the mid 1800s, due to the Native Schools Act and later the Native Schools Code, the use of Māori in schools was slowly filtered out of the curriculum in order to become more European. Increasing numbers of Māori people learned English.

### Decline (Whakahē)

Until the Second World War (1939–1945), most Māori people spoke Māori as their first language. Worship took place in Māori; it functioned as the language of Māori homes; Māori politicians conducted political meetings in Māori, and some literature appeared in Māori, along with many newspapers.

Before 1880, some Māori parliamentarians suffered disadvantages because Parliament's proceedings took place in English. However, by 1900, all Māori members of parliament, such as Sir Āpirana Ngata, were university graduates who spoke fluent English. From this period greater emphasis was placed on Māori learning English, but it was not until the migration of Māori to urban areas after the Second World War that the number of speakers of Māori began to decline rapidly. Some Māori children who spoke *Te Reo* at school were beaten, which contributed to the decline in the *Te Reo* language in the 1940s to 1980s. By the 1980s, fewer than 20 per cent of Māori spoke the language well enough to be classed as native speakers. Even many of those people no longer spoke Māori in their homes. As a result, many Māori children failed to learn their ancestral language, and generations of non-Māori-speaking Māori emerged.

However, Maori is still steadily reviving, due to it's positive image.

### Revitalisation efforts (Ngā mahi whakaora anō)

By the 1980s, Māori leaders had begun to recognise the dangers of the loss of their language, and initiated Māori-language recovery-programs such as the Kōhanga Reo movement, which from 1982 immersed infants in Māori from infancy to school age. There followed in 1985 the founding of the first Kura Kaupapa Māori (Years 1 to 8 Māori-medium education programme) and later the first Wharekura (Years 9 to 13 Māori-medium education programme). In 2011 it was reported that although "there was a true revival of te reo in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s ... spurred on by the realisation of how few speakers were left, and by the relative abundance of older fluent speakers in both urban neighbourhoods and rural communities", the language has continued to decline."

## Society (Ropu)

Polynesian settlers in New Zealand developed a distinct society over several hundred years. Social groups were tribal, with no unified society or single Māori identity until after the arrival of Europeans. Nevertheless, common elements could be found in all Māori groups in pre-European New Zealand, including a shared Polynesian heritage, a common basic language, familial associations, traditions of warfare, and similar mythologies and religious beliefs.

Most Māori lived in villages, which were inhabited by several *whānau* (extended families) who collectively formed a *hapū* (clan or subtribe). Members of a *hapū* cooperated with food production, gathering resources, raising families and defence. Māori society across New Zealand was broadly stratified into three classes of people: *rangatira*, chiefs and ruling families; *tūtūā*, commoners; and *mōkai*, slaves. *Tohunga* also held special standing in their communities as specialists of revered arts, skills and esoteric knowledge.

Shared ancestry, intermarriage and trade strengthened relationships between different groups. Many *hapū* with mutually-recognised shared ancestry formed *iwi*, or tribes, which were the largest social unit in Māori society. *Hapū* and *iwi* often united for expeditions to gather food and resources, or in times of conflict. In contrast, warfare developed as an integral part of traditional life, as different groups competed for food and resources, settled personal disputes, and sought to increase their prestige and authority.
Māori whānau from Rotorua in the 1880s.
Early European settlers introduced tools, weapons, clothing and foods to Māori across New Zealand, in exchange for resources, land and labour. Māori began selectively adopting elements of Western society during the 19th century, including European clothing and food, and later Western education, religion and architecture. However, as the 19th century wore on, relations between European colonial settlers and different Māori groups became increasingly strained. Tensions led to widespread conflict in the 1860s, and the confiscation of millions of acres of Māori land. Significant amounts of land were also purchased by the colonial government and later through the Native Land Court.

#### 20th century - present (Rau tau 20 - ināianei)

By the start of the 20th century, a greater awareness had emerged of a unified Māori identity, particularly in comparison to Pākehā, who now overwhelmingly outnumbered the Māori as a whole. Māori and Pākehā societies remained largely separate—socially, culturally, economically and geographically—for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The key reason for this was that Māori remained almost exclusively a rural population, whereas increasingly the European population was urban especially after 1900. Nevertheless, Māori groups continued to engage with the government and in legal processes to increase their standing in (and ultimately further their incorporation into) wider New Zealand society. The main point of contact with the government were the four Māori Members of Parliament.

Many Māori migrated to larger rural towns and cities during the Depression and post-WWII periods in search of employment, leaving rural communities depleted and disconnecting many urban Māori from their traditional social controls and tribal homelands. Yet while standards of living improved among Māori, they continued to lag behind Pākehā in areas such as health, income, skilled employment and access to higher levels of education. Māori leaders and government policymakers alike struggled to deal with social issues stemming from increased urban migration, including a shortage of housing and jobs, and a rise in urban crime, poverty and health problems.

In regards to housing, a 1961 census revealed significant differences in the living conditions of Māori and Europeans. That year, out of all the (unshared) non-Māori private dwellings in New Zealand, 96.8 per cent had a bath or shower, 94.1 per cent a hot water service, 88.7 per cent a flush toilet, 81.6 per cent a refrigerator, and 78.6 per cent an electric washing machine. By contrast, for all (unshared) Māori private dwellings that same year, 76.8 per cent had a bath or shower, 68.9 per cent a hot water service, 55.8 per cent a refrigerator, 54.1 per cent a flush toilet, and 47 per cent an electric washing machine.

While the arrival of Europeans had a profound impact on the Māori way of life, many aspects of traditional society have survived into the 21st century. Māori participate fully in all spheres of New Zealand culture and society, leading largely Western lifestyles while also maintaining their own cultural and social customs. The traditional social strata of *rangatira*, *tūtūā* and *mōkai* have all but disappeared from Māori society, while the roles of *tohunga* and *kaumātua* are still present. Traditional kinship ties are also actively maintained, and the *whānau* in particular remains an integral part of Māori life.

### *Marae*, *hapū* me te *iwi*

Whenuakura Marae in Taranaki.
Māori society at a local level is particularly visible at the *marae*. Formerly the central meeting spaces in traditional villages, *marae* today usually comprise a group of buildings around an open space, that frequently host events such as weddings, funerals, church services and other large gatherings, with traditional protocol and etiquette usually observed. They also serve as the base of one or sometimes several *hapū*.

Most Māori affiliate with one or more *iwi* (and *hapū*), based on genealogical descent (*whakapapa*). *Iwi* vary in size, from a few hundred members to over 100,000 in the case of Ngāpuhi. Many people do not live in their traditional tribal regions as a result of urban migration.

*Iwi* are usually governed by *rūnanga* (governing councils or trust boards) which represent the *iwi* in consultations and negotiations with the New Zealand government. *Rūnanga* also manage tribal assets and spearhead health, education, economic and social initiatives to help *iwi* members.

## Prominent Māori (Tāngata Māori Tūrongo)

Prominent Māori film actors include Jemaine Clement, Temuera Morrison, Cliff Curtis, Lawrence Makoare, Manu Bennett, Keisha Castle-Hughes, and Julian Dennison. They appear in films such as *Whale Rider*, *Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith*, *The Matrix*, *King Kong*, *River Queen*, *The Lord of The Rings*, *Rapa Nui*, Godzilla vs. Kong, Deadpool 2, and others, and famous television series like *Xena: Warrior Princess*, *Hercules: The Legendary Journeys*, *The Lost World* and *Spartacus: Blood and Sand*. In most cases their roles in Hollywood productions have them portraying ethnic groups other than Māori.

In the 2010s Māori actor-director Taika Waititi rose to global fame with the Marvel Cinematic Universe film *Thor: Ragnarok*, in which he played an alien named Korg, and the Academy Award-winning *Jojo Rabbit*, in which he played Adolf Hitler as imagined by a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member. Waititi's previous films include *Boy* and *Hunt for the Wilderpeople*, both of which feature young Māori protagonists.

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