Hallvard+K+-+Maori

Maori – The indigenous people of New Zealand. By Hallvard K Nordmark

What indigenous is Indigenous people are the ones that lived in a country first. They lived in these countries much earlier than any other. Maybe they have lived there as much as 40 000 years before anyone else came there. The indigenous people often have some kind of nature religion and there are many similarities between the different indigenous people of the world. Some examples of indigenous people are the Aborigines, the Maoris, the American Indians and the Sami people from Scandinavia. Before and under the colonisation The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. They immigrated to New Zealand from 700-1300, they had than travelled from island to island all over the pacific, and originated from Polynesia. The Maori settled in the warm north island of New Zealand.

Their society was divided into many different tribes. These tribes were not always friends, and there were many wars between the tribes. The Maori was not a very peaceful people. Luckily the Maori did not have so effective weapons and were mostly using Stone Age weapons, so the wars were not so bloody and effective. The whole Maori society was pretty Stone Age like, and they were a nomadic people that were moving around to find food. They were mostly in-land in the summer and hunted, and on the coast fishing in the winter. They were mostly hunting giant birds that could not fly, these birds had not had any natural enemy before the Maori came. The Moa bird 20-250 kg was an easy target and was extinct very fast.

(How the Maori came to New Zealand)

The Maoris did not live like a country does today, and was not at all a united people. The Maori society was departed into tribes that was called iwis. The iwis was big groups of people witch ancestors shall apparently have arrived New Zealand in the same canoe. But this was the only connection in a tribe. For a tribe was also departed into many hapus, the hapus was what we would call a village. It was about 500 people that lived together on the same place, and bough hunted and grew food together. These hapus had a chief that was called an ariki. The ariki was not very powerful, but he had the last word in all cases. The hapus was also departed into different families, these families was the smallest part of the society. Every family also had a leader, this leader was often the oldest man in the family.

New Zealand was not explored by the Europeans before 1640 when the Dutch came. After this many whale hunters travelled to New Zealand to hunt whales. These whale hunters soon established a village where they could rest and get supplies. These hunters started to sell western things as guns to the Maoris. The Maoris that got their hands on this new weapon started to attack other Maori tribes, many tribes was crushed because the enemy tribes had superior weapons.

At the same time the Maoris were also weakened by the new diseases from the vest, they could die of flu and usual cold. Around 1840 settlers from Britain started to by land from the Maoris, but different views of owning land and Maoris that refused to move started a long line of conflicts. Maori warriors armed with guns fought long wars with the British, and the Maori warriors were actually superior to the immigrants. Those as much as 10000 soldiers were sent from Britain to stop these conflicts. The superior number of British soldiers managed to defeat the Maoris, but with heavy losses.

(Maori cheaf armed with a gun)

After these conflicts the Maoris lost a lot of their land to the British. The diseases, wars, and lost of land had made the Maori population sink to its bottom, and in 1890 only 40-50 000 Maoris were left, and they had lost almost all their land. At the other hand had the western population in New Zealand reached about 700 000 because of immigration from Britain and Europe, and were now the totally dominating people of New Zealand.

The Maoris today In the 1900 century most of the Maoris became a part of the western inspired New Zealand society. Whole iwis started to move into the bigger cities and they became a more and more modern people. This had bough bad and good sides, some of the bad things was the same as happened to many other indigenous people all over the world. Especially drinking problems and racism made the more modern life hard for the Maoris. The good thing was that this change made the Maori closer to the European New Zealanders. Some Maoris married people with European background, and many Maoris went to western schools. As the Maoris became a part of the New Zealand society they became more important than before. Some Maoris even started with politics, and it was some Maoris in the parliament.

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Today 7 seats in the New Zealand parliament are for Maoris (People with Maori relations since there are now full blooded Maoris left). This is so the Maoris can have a chance to get true their political cases even though they even today are outnumbered many times. It is today around 700 000 part blooded Maoris, something witch is more than 10 more than in 1890 Also the Maori language is today once again an official language of New Zealand together with English. The kids also learn about bough western and Maori culture and history on many schools. The Maori culture has also been introduced to the whole world true the New Zealand rugby team that performs a Maori war dance before every game they play. Another thing that have spread the Maori culture out in the world are the famous Maori tattoos. Their style of tattooing have become very popular in the western world, but the tattooing is not done in such a painful way as before the old Maoris way; When they used bones and knives to make their tattoos. Another big difference between the modern tattooing and the old Maori way is that they do not put the tattoos in their faces, but on other parts of their bodies.

(Maori face tattoo)

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