2425965	example, the coat of arms, the Defence Force, and the prefix Her Majesty's New Zealand Ship. The flightless kiwi has been used as a symbol of New Zealand since the early 1900s. For example, in 1905 The Westminster Gazette" printed a cartoon of a kiwi and a kangaroo (representing Australia) going off to a colonial conference. Today "Kiwi" is a nickname for New Zealanders. New Zealand has two national anthems of equal status, "God Save the Queen" and "God Defend New Zealand" – the latter of which is often sung with alternating Māori and English verses. Arts. The definition of  the arts by the New Zealand government covers six areas, visual arts, craft and object art, performing arts, literature, Pacific arts and Ngā toi Māori (Māori arts). Government funding is provided principally through, Creative New Zealand. Heritage New Zealand and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage are national bodies that assist with heritage preservation. Most towns and cities have museums and often art galleries, and the national museum and art gallery is Te Papa ('Our Place'), in Wellington. Kapa haka. Kapa haka,(kapa means 'rank' or 'row') is the 'cultural dance' component of Māori performing arts. Kapa haka is an avenue  for Māori people to express heritage and cultural identity through song and dance. It has undergone a renaissance, with national competitions held yearly and kapa haka used in many state occasions. The haka (often mistaken as "always" being a war dance or ritual challenge) has become part of wider New Zealand culture, being performed by the All Blacks as a group ritual before international games and by homesick New Zealanders of all races who want to express their New Zealandness. Visual arts. When Settlers arrived, they brought with them Western artistic traditions. Early Pākehā art focused mainly on landscape painting , although some of the best known Pākehā artists of the 19th century (Charles Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer) specialised in Māori portraiture. Some Māori adopted Western styles and a number of 19th-century meeting houses feature walls painted with portraits and plant designs. From the early-20th-century Āpirana Ngata and others began a programme of reviving traditional Māori arts, and many new meeting houses were built with traditional carving and tukutuku woven wall panels were built. A longstanding concern of Pākehā artists has been the creation of a distinctly New Zealand artistic style. Rita Angus and others used the landscape to  try and achieve this while painters such as Gordon Walters used Māori motifs. A number of Māori artists, including Paratene Matchitt and Shane Cotton have combined Western modernism with traditional Māori art. Performing arts. Drama. New Zealand drama, both on stage and screen, has been plagued during much of its history by cost and lack of popular interest in New Zealand culture. Despite this Roger Hall and, more recently, Jacob Rajan are two playwrights to achieve considerable popular success. The number of New Zealand films significantly increased during the 1970s. The highest-grossing New Zealand films are "Hunt for the  Wilderpeople", "Boy", "The World's Fastest Indian", "Whale Rider", "Once Were Warriors" and "The Piano". The country's diverse scenery and compact size, plus government incentives, have encouraged some producers to shoot big-budget productions in New Zealand, including "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" film trilogies, "Avatar", "The Chronicles of Narnia", "King Kong", "" and "The Last Samurai". Music. New Zealand music has been influenced by blues, jazz, country, rock and roll and hip hop, with many of these genres given a unique New Zealand interpretation. Hip-hop is popular and there are small but thriving live music , dance party and indie music scenes. Reggae is also popular within some communities, with bands such as Herbs, Katchafire, 1814, House Of Shem, Unity Pacific all reflecting their roots, perspectives and cultural pride and heritage through their music. A number of popular artists have gone on to achieve international success including Lorde, Split Enz, Crowded House, OMC, Bic Runga, Kimbra, Ladyhawke, The Naked and Famous, Fat Freddy's Drop, Savage, Alien Weaponry, Flight of the Conchords, and Brooke Fraser. New Zealand has a national orchestra and many regional orchestras. A number of New Zealand composers have developed international reputations. The  most well-known include Douglas Lilburn, John Psathas, Jack Body, Gillian Whitehead, Jenny McLeod, Gareth Farr, Ross Harris, and Martin Lodge. Comedy. In recent decades New Zealand comics have risen in popularity and recognition. In the 1970s and 1980s Billy T James satirized race relations, and McPhail & Gadsby lampooned political figures, especially Robert Muldoon. John Clarke aka Fred Dagg joked about rural life. From the 1990s onwards the Naked Samoans expressed a Polynesian sense of humour to the nation, and Raybon Kan is a prominent Asian comic and columnist. The Topp Twins are an off-beat comic/country music duo , and Flight of the Conchords have gained a cult following throughout the English-speaking world for their self-effacing show. Literature. New Zealand's most successful early writers were expatriates such as Katherine Mansfield. From the 1950s, Frank Sargeson, Janet Frame and others had (non lucrative) writing careers while still living in New Zealand. Until about the 1980s, the main New Zealand literary form was the short story, but in recent decades novels such as Alan Duff's "Once Were Warriors", Elizabeth Knox's "The Vintner's Luck" and others have achieved critical and popular success. Māori culture is traditionally  oral rather than literate, but in recent years Māori novelists such as Duff, Witi Ihimaera and Keri Hulme and poets such as Hone Tuwhare have shown their mastery of literary forms. Austin Mitchell wrote two "Pavlova Paradise" books about New Zealand. Barry Crump was a popular author who embodied and expounded the myth of the Kiwi larrikin and multi-skilled labourer. Sam Hunt and Gary McCormick are well-known poets. James K Baxter was an eccentric but admired author. Maurice Gee is also a household name for his novels about New Zealand life. New Zealand cartoonist David Low became famous  during World War II for his political satire. Gordon Minhinnick and Les Gibbard were also witty political observers. Murray Ball drew a widely popular syndicated daily strip Footrot Flats, about farm life. Sports. The sports that most New Zealanders participate in are rugby union, cricket, basketball, netball, association football (the most popular sport amongst children), rugby league and hockey. Also popular are golf, tennis, cycling and a variety of water sports, particularly sailing and rowing. The country is known for its extreme sports, adventure tourism and strong mountaineering tradition, as seen in the success of notable New Zealander Sir Edmund  Hillary. The national rugby union team is called the All Blacks and has the best winning record of any national team in the world, including being the inaugural winners of the World Cup in 1987. The style of name has been followed in naming the national team in several other sports. For instance, the nation's basketball team is known as the Tall Blacks. Horseracing was also a popular spectator sport and became part of the "rugby, racing and beer" culture during the 1960s. Many New Zealanders either play or support their local rugby team and the All Blacks are  national icons. Some have argued that rugby is a national religion. Religion. Pre-colonial native Māori religion was animistic. One of its major features was tapu (sacred and/or forbidden), which was used to maintain the status of chiefs and tohunga (priests) and also for purposes such as conserving resources. Some of the earliest European settlers in New Zealand were Christian missionaries, mostly from the Church of England but also from Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church. From the 1830s onwards, large numbers of Māori converted. Throughout the 19th century a number of movements emerged which blended traditional Māori beliefs with  Christianity. These included Pai Mārire, Ringatū, and in the early-20th century, Rātana. They typically centred on a prophet-leader. These churches continue to attract a substantial following; according to the 2013 census, 50,565 people are Rātana believers, and another 16,419 are Ringatū. 1,689 people stated that they followed Māori religion. Many Māori members of mainstream churches, and those with no particular religion, continue to believe in tapu, particularly where the dead are concerned, although not to the same extent as their ancestors. Pākehā have become steadily less religious over the course of the 20th century. In the 1920s there was  still a reasonably high level of sectarianism and anti-Catholic prejudice, but this has since died down and the major churches generally co-operate with each other. The churches and religious lobby groups have little political influence where Pākehā are concerned. The vast majority of religious Pākehā are Christian, but a small number follow non-Christian religions, particularly Buddhism. The Scottish (Presbyterian) English (Anglican) division can still be seen in the religious distribution of some cities and suburbs. It has also been evidenced that New Zealand's lack of religion correlates with income and income correlates with urban location; in  Auckland, for example, the richest suburbs are the least religious. A wider range of immigrant groups in recent decades has contributed to the growth of minority religions. Newer immigrants are more religious and more diverse than previous groups According to the 2013 census, the number of people who affiliated with a Christian denomination (including Māori Christian) decreased to 1,906,398 (48.9% of all people who stated their religious affiliation), down from 2,082,942 (55.6%) in 2006. Affiliation to non-Christian religions has increased since the 2006 census. , the number of Hindus numbered 88,919, Buddhists 58,404, Muslims 46,149, and Sikhs 19,191. The number  and proportion of people indicating they had no religion increased between 2006 and 2013. In 2013, 1,635,345 New Zealanders (41.9%) reported they had no religion. Class in New Zealand. The 'classless society'. Until about the 1980s it was often claimed that New Zealand was a 'classless society'. The evidence for this was the relatively small range of wealth (that is, the wealthiest did not earn hugely more than the poorest earners), lack of deference to authority figures, high levels of class mobility, a high standard of working class living compared to Britain, progressive labour laws which protected workers and encouraged  unionism, state housing, and a welfare state which was developed in New Zealand before most other countries. New Zealanders' egalitarianism has been criticised as discouraging and denigrating ambition and individual achievement and success. New Zealanders tend to value modesty and distrust those who talk about their own merits. They especially dislike anyone who seems to consider themselves better than others even if the person in question is demonstrably more talented or successful than others. This attitude can manifest itself in the tall poppy syndrome or crab mentality, which refer to 'cutting down' of those thought to have risen above the  general mass of people. It has been argued that in New Zealand ethnicity takes the place of class, with Māori and other Polynesians earning less, having a lower standard of living and less education, and working in lower status jobs than Pākehā. New Zealand's claims to be a classless society were dealt a fatal blow in the 1980s and 1990s by the economic reforms of the fourth Labour government and its successor, the fourth National government. A cultural shift also took place due to the economic and social impact of international capital, commerce and advertising. New Zealanders were exposed  to a previously unknown array of consumer goods and franchises. Aided by overseas programming, commercial radio and TV stations enjoyed rapid growth. Local manufacturing suffered from cheap imports, with many jobs lost. These reforms led to a dramatic increase in the gap between the richest and poorest New Zealanders, and an increase in the numbers living in poverty. Recent appreciation of real estate values increased the wealth of a generation of landowners while making housing unaffordable for many. Some are concerned that a New Zealand property bubble may burst, potentially wiping out considerable wealth. Travel. It is very common for  New Zealanders to travel or live overseas for extended periods of time, often on working holidays. These are usually referred to as the 'OE' or 'overseas experience', and are most commonly taken by people in their 20s. The three most common destinations are Australia, Great Britain and mainland Europe, although recently trips to Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan to teach English have become increasingly popular. The east coast of Australia and London both have sizeable expatriate New Zealand communities. The OE to Europe is usually self-funded, and tends to occur a few years after university graduation , when the traveller has saved up enough for airfares and living expenses. The length of the visit can range from a few months to the remainder of the visitor's life; since many New Zealanders have British ancestry or dual citizenship (sometimes as a result of their parents' OE), the restrictions on working in Britain do not apply to a substantial percentage of them. Working holidays in Asia are more likely to occur shortly after graduation, and many agencies specifically target graduates for these trips. Because Australia is relatively close to New Zealand and has no restrictions on New Zealanders  working there, the New Zealanders working in Australia are more diverse than those in other countries, with a significantly higher proportion of Māori and working-class people. Since the signing of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement in 1973, New Zealanders have had the right to live and work in Australia on equal terms with Australian citizens. Until the 1970s New Zealanders had similar rights in relation to Britain. Changes to British immigration law in this period required New Zealanders to obtain visas to work in Britain or live there for extended periods, unless they had recent British ancestry. New Zealand  has a number of reciprocal working holiday agreements, allowing people in their 20s to live and work overseas, usually for up to a year. Such agreements are in place with: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. National stereotypes. The Kiwi male. The stereotypical New Zealand male is essentially a pioneer type: he is perceived to be rural, strong, unemotional, democratic, has little time for high culture, good with animals (particularly horses ) and machines, and is able to turn his hand to nearly anything. This type of man is often presumed to be a unique product of New Zealand's colonial period but he shares many similarities with the stereotypical American frontiersman and Australian bushman. New Zealand men are supposed to still have many of these qualities, even though most New Zealanders have lived in urban areas since the late-19th century. This has not prevented New Zealanders seeing themselves (and being seen) as essentially country people and good at the tasks which country life requires. Attitudes. Social conservatism and progressiveness. New Zealand  social policy has tended to oscillate between social progressiveness and conservatism. Social reforms pioneered by New Zealand include women's suffrage, the welfare state, and respect for indigenous peoples (through the Treaty of Waitangi and the Waitangi Tribunal). Having led the (non-communist) world in economic regulation from the 1930s, in the 1980s and 1990s the reforms of the Labour Government led the world in economic de-regulation. New Zealand was the first country to have an openly transgender mayor, and later member of parliament, Georgina Beyer. Same-sex marriage has been legal in New Zealand since 19 August 2013 . In contrast to this, New Zealand has a history of some very conservative social policies. Most notably, from World War One until 1967 pubs were required by law to close at 6pm. Until the 1980s most shops were banned from opening on weekends, and until 1999 alcoholic beverages could not be sold on Sundays, known as blue law. In a rare occurrence, the 1981 Springbok Tour saw the two extremes very publicly clash with each other on a nationwide scale. Attitudes to authority. In general, New Zealanders have faith in their democracy. New Zealand is perceived to have very  low levels of corruption although some question whether those perceptions are entirely warranted. Turnout for parliamentary general elections is typically above 80%, which is very high by international standards and occurs despite the absence of any law requiring citizens to vote. However local government elections have much lower turnout figures, with an average of 53% in 2007. New Zealanders, both those of Pākehā and Māori roots, have been described as an individualistic people, who take intrusion very personally, especially when it occurs onto private land (but also sometimes in a wider sense). According to psychologists, this is rooted respectively in  the 'frontier' image of the European settler culture, but also mirrored amongst the Māori, for whom land holds a lot of spiritual value in addition to its commercial use. Attitudes to multiculturalism. New Zealand has for most of its modern history been an isolated bi-cultural society. In recent decades an increasing number of immigrants has changed the demographic spectra. In the larger cities this change has occurred suddenly and dramatically. There has been an increasing awareness of multiculturalism in New Zealand in all areas of society and also in politics. New Zealand's race relations has been a controversial  topic in recent times. The political party New Zealand First has been associated with an anti immigration policy. The Office of the Race Relations Conciliator was established by the Race Relations Act in 1971 for the purposes of "promoting positive race relations and addressing complaints of discrimination on grounds of race, colour, and ethnic or national origin", and was merged with the Human Rights Commission in January 2002. Food. Māori cuisine. Māori cuisine was historically derived from that of tropical Polynesia, adapted for New Zealand's colder climate. Key ingredients included kūmara (sweet potato), fern root, taro, birds and fish . Food was cooked in hāngi (earth ovens) and roasted, and in geothermal areas was boiled or steamed using natural hot springs and pools. Various means of preserving birds and other foods were also employed. Before the arrival of European settlers, Māori did not drink alcoholic beverages. Following the arrival of British settlers, the Māori adopted many of their foods, especially pork and potatoes, the latter of which transformed the Māori agricultural economy. Many traditional food sources became scarce as introduced predators dramatically reduced bird populations, and forests were cleared for farming and timber. Traditional seafoods such as toheroa and whitebait  were over-harvested. Present day Māori cuisine is a mixture of Māori tradition, 19th century British cookery, and contemporary dishes. In everyday life the two foods of Māori origin are "the boil up" (meat and vegetables boild in a broth and sometimes thickened with flour), and the hāngi which is associated with special occasions. Pākehā cuisine. Since the majority of Pākehā are of British descent, Pākehā cuisine is heavily influenced by British cuisine. During the 19th century, a major difference between British and New Zealand cuisine was that meat was more readily available to all social classes in New Zealand . A meat-rich remains a part of Pākehā culture, although red meat consumption has dropped in the last few decades. Savoury pies, which may be filled with meat or fish, sausage rolls, and fish and chips are popular, as are roasts. Pākehā are also fond of sweet foods such as biscuits, cakes, slices and pavlova. In recent decades international cuisine, including Chinese and Indian, has become popular, and as in many other countries 'foodie' culture has emerged. New Zealand chefs such as Peter Gordon played a major part in the creation of fusion cuisine. Café culture has grown to be  a major element of New Zealand cuisine. Cafés and a high standard of espresso coffee making have become common throughout the country. Other cuisines. New Zealanders increasingly come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, and many immigrants to New Zealand have tried to reproduce their native cuisines or national dishes in New Zealand. International restaurants have served as community meeting places and have also given other New Zealanders a chance to try different cuisines. Culture of New Zealand The culture of New Zealand is a synthesis of home-grown and imported cultures. The country's earliest inhabitants brought with them