Eirik+-+Maori+History

History
Māori is roughly translated to “ordinary” or “natural” which is the real essence of the Māori peoples as they live with nature and what it gave them. They were also a peaceful civilization for the first centuries, but as the population raised the lack of resources led to conflicts and lots of Māori’s migrated were forced to different areas to find enough food to survive. As years past with tribes living far away from each other the different tribes developed dialects. But dialects weren’t the only thing being developed by the Māori peoples. The Māori was skilled in both dance and handwork, which through the years were perfected through generations. Haka is a famous dance used by the Māori to both intimidate the other tribes at war and to celebrate.

The dance has been made famous worldwide by the All Blacks rugby union team which has led to misconceptions, peoples think the dance is only a war dance and that it only can be performed by men. This is wrong as the dance is used in celebrations, welcome-ceremonies etc. and is often also done with women, there’s even Haka’s just for the women. The first arrival of the Europeans is unknown but as the first record of it happening is 1642 it’s believed to be around this time. As the Europeans got settled in New Zealand they started tricking the Māori peoples with contracts to sign over their lands to crazy cheap prices.

The arrival of the Europeans caused lots of problems like even worse problems with the resources, as they killed too many animals and lots of spices ended up instinct. One of which were a huge eagle that actually prayed on a bigger version of an ostrich, and as the Europeans killed this bigger version of a ostrich called moa which is six different species of these birds, and ended up instincting lots of other animals to as these birds was their main source of food. But the most serious problem the Europeans brought with them to New Zealand was the sickness, as the Māori peoples had lived in isolation since the day of arrival to New Zealand they hadn’t been effected by the various diseases that had been developed around the world and therefore not developed immunity for common diseases like a cold, which led it to be a deadly for them. And as the Europeans arrived the Māori peoples got hit pretty badly with lots of deaths.

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