Māori people
Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. The Māori are descended from East Polynesian settlers who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed a distinct culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands, where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori.
Early 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 subsequent land confiscations, which Māori resisted fiercely. After the Treaty was declared a legal nullity in 1877, Māori were forced to assimilate into many aspects of Western culture. Social upheaval and epidemics of introduced disease took a devastating toll on the Māori population, which fell dramatically, but began to recover by the beginning of the 20th century. The March 2023 New Zealand census gives the number of people of Māori descent as 978,246, an increase of 12.5% since 2018. Of those identifying as Māori at the 2023 census, 366,015 people identified as of sole Māori ethnicity while 409,401 people identified as of both European and Māori ethnicity.
Efforts have been made, centring on the Treaty of Waitangi, to increase the standing of Māori in wider New Zealand society and achieve social justice. Traditional Māori culture has 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 than other New Zealand ethnic groups. They suffer higher levels of crime, health problems, imprisonment, poverty and educational under-achievement. A number of socio-economic initiatives have been instigated with the aim of "closing the gaps" between Māori and other New Zealanders. Political and economic redress for historical grievances is also ongoing.
Māori are the second-largest ethnic group in New Zealand, after European New Zealanders. In addition, more than 170,000 Māori live in Australia. The Māori language is spoken to some extent by about a fifth of all Māori, representing three per cent 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.
Naming and identification
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. Likewise, wai māori denotes 'fresh water', as opposed to salt water. There are cognate words in most Polynesian languages, all deriving from Proto-Polynesian *maqoli, which has the reconstructed meaning 'true, real, genuine'.Early visitors from Europe to New Zealand generally referred to the indigenous inhabitants as "New Zealanders" or as "natives". The Māori used the term Māori to describe themselves in a pan-tribal sense. Māori people often use the term tangata whenua to identify in a way that expresses their relationship with a particular area of land; a tribe may be the tangata whenua in one area, but not in another. The term can also refer to the Māori people as a whole in relation to New Zealand as a whole.
The official definition of Māori for electoral purposes has changed over time. Before 1974, the government required documented ancestry to determine the status of "a Māori person" and only those with at least 50% Māori ancestry were allowed to choose which seats they wished to vote in. The Māori Affairs Amendment Act 1974 changed this, allowing individuals to self-identify as to their cultural identity. Until 1986, the census required at least 50 per cent Māori ancestry to claim Māori affiliation. Currently, in most contexts, authorities require some documentation of ancestry or continuing cultural connection ; however, there is no minimum ancestry requirement.
History
Origins in Polynesia
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 stretches back 5,000 years, to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Polynesian people settled a large area encompassing Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaiʻi, Easter Island – and finally New Zealand.The date of first arrival and settlement is a matter of debate. There may have been some exploration and settlement before the eruption of Mount Tarawera, based on finds of bones from Polynesian rats and rat-gnawed shells, and evidence of widespread forest fires in the decade or so prior. One 2022 study using advanced radiocarbon technology suggests that "early Māori settlement happened in the North Island between AD 1250 and AD 1275". However, a synthesis of archaeological and genetic evidence concludes that, whether or not some settlers arrived before the Tarawera eruption, the main settlement period was in the decades after it, 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 as a planned mass migration.
There is definitive archaeological evidence of brief settlement as far south as Enderby Island, but there is no evidence of travel further south into Antarctic waters despite occasional speculation.
Early history
The earliest period of Māori settlement, known as the "Archaic", "Moahunter" or "Colonisation" period, dates from the time of arrival to. 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 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 weapons and ornaments, elaborately carved war canoes and wharenui. 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 dominant part of Māori culture.
Around the year 1500, a group of Māori migrated east to the Chatham Islands and developed into a people known as the Moriori, with pacifism a key part of their culture.
Contact with Europeans
The first European explorers of New Zealand were Abel Tasman, who arrived in 1642, Captain James Cook, in 1769, and Marion du Fresne in 1772. Initial contact between Māori and Europeans proved problematic and sometimes fatal, with Tasman having four of his men killed and probably killing at least one Māori, without ever landing. Cook's men shot at least eight Māori within three days of his first landing, although he later had good relations with Māori. Three years later, after a promising start, du Fresne and 26 men of his crew were killed. From the 1780s, Māori also increasingly encountered European and American sealers, whalers and Christian missionaries. Relations were mostly peaceful, although marred by several further violent incidents, the worst of which was the Boyd massacre in 1807 and subsequent revenge attacks.European settlement in New Zealand began in the early 19th century, leading to an extensive sharing of culture and ideas. Many Māori valued Europeans, whom they called "Pākehā", as a means to acquire Western knowledge and technology. Māori quickly adopted writing as a means of sharing ideas, and many of their oral stories and poems were converted to the written form. The introduction of the potato revolutionised agriculture, and the acquisition of muskets by Māori iwi led to a period of particularly bloody intertribal warfare known as the Musket Wars, in which many groups were decimated and others driven from their traditional territory. The pacifist Moriori in the Chatham Islands similarly suffered massacre and subjugation in an invasion by some Taranaki iwi. At the same time, the Māori suffered high mortality rates from Eurasian infectious diseases, such as influenza, smallpox and measles, which killed an estimated 10 to 50 per cent of Māori.
By 1839, estimates placed the number of Europeans living in New Zealand as high as 2,000,
and the British Crown acceded to repeated requests from missionaries and some Māori chiefs to intervene. The British government sent Royal Navy Captain William Hobson to negotiate a treaty between the British Crown and the Māori, which became known as the Treaty of Waitangi. In 1840, starting on 6 February at Waitangi and by the end of the year at about 50 other events around the country, this treaty was signed by the Crown and over 500 rangatira Māori. The Treaty gave Māori the rights of British subjects and guaranteed Māori property rights and tribal autonomy, in return for accepting British sovereignty and the annexation of New Zealand as a colony in the British Empire. However, disputes continue over aspects of the Treaty of Waitangi, including wording differences in the two versions, as well as misunderstandings of different cultural concepts; notably, the Māori version did not cede sovereignty to the British Crown. In an 1877 court case the Treaty was declared a "simple nullity" on the grounds that the signatories had been "primitive barbarians".
Nevertheless, relations between Māori and Pākehā during the early colonial period were largely peaceful. Many Māori groups set up substantial businesses, supplying food and other products for domestic and overseas markets. When violence did break out, as in the Wairau Affray, Flagstaff War, Hutt Valley Campaign and Wanganui Campaign, it was generally limited and concluded with a peace treaty. However, by the 1860s rising settler numbers and tensions over disputed land purchases led to the later New Zealand wars, fought by the colonial government against numerous Māori iwi using local and British Imperial troops, and some allied iwi. These conflicts resulted in the colonial government confiscating tracts of Māori land as punishment for what were called "rebellions". Pākehā settlers would occupy the confiscated land. Several minor conflicts arose after the wars, including the incident at Parihaka in 1881 and the Dog Tax War from 1897 to 1898. The Native Land Court was established to transfer Māori land from communal ownership into individual title as a means to assimilation and to facilitate greater sales to European settlers.