The ancestors of the Māori sailed to Aotearoa/ New Zealand, “the land of the long white cloud,” from Eastern Polynesia, between 1250 and 1300 CE. They had inhabited the North and South Islands of present-day New Zealand for at least three centuries before the coming of Dutch seafarer and explorer Abel Tasman in 1642. Over the years, Māori society has successfully integrated elements from different cultures, surviving the Musket Wars and the New Zealand Wars, resisting land theft, displacement, and the devastating impact of European-imported diseases.
A Note About Terminology
Linguists and historians agree that it is somewhat incorrect to use the term Māori to describe the inhabitants of Aotearoa/New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans and the establishment of a settler society of European descent with settler rules and customs. As a term, Māori began to be used only in the 1860s, when Europeans and Māori alike needed a word to distinguish the newcomers from those who had been on the North and South Islands since the 13th century.
Therefore, it is more appropriate to describe the early settlers of Aotearoa/New Zealand as “the people whose descendants became Māori” or “the ancestors of the Māori” rather than themselves Māori. In the 19th century, the term Māori entered general use alongside Pākehā. According to the Te Aka Māori Dictionary, Pākehā has several meanings.
When used as a modifier, it translates as “English, foreign, European, exotic.” As a noun, it means “foreigner, alien,” and it is today used to describe any New Zealander of European descent without any Māori ancestry. The word Māori, on the contrary, translates as “normal, usual, natural, common, ordinary,” as well as “native, indigenous, fresh.”
Māori describe themselves as tangata whenua, the Indigenous people of New Zealand, or, more poetically, “the people of the land.” Interestingly, according to Te Aka, as a noun, tangata whenua can also be translated as “people born of the whenua,” where whenua means both “land” and “placenta.” Hence, tangata whenua are the people born “of the placenta and of the land where the people’s ancestors have lived and where their placenta are buried.”
The Settlement of Aotearoa/New Zealand
When discussing the settlement of Aotearoa/New Zealand, there are two perspectives to consider. One is the Western view, based on science and archaeological studies. The other is the body of legends and stories that the Māori have passed down from generation to generation.
Archeologists and anthropologists have been able to determine that the first East Polynesian settlers deliberately landed on the East Coast of the North Island over 700 years ago, between 1250 and 1300. They were skilled navigators who used the stars as their guides. A new wave of ocean-going canoes arrived at various landing places on the coast of the North Island shortly afterward, while other sailors continued their journey along the coastline and up the Tāmaki River, mapping and exploring their future home. A few weeks later, they sailed on their waka houruas, their large twin-hulled canoes, to the South Island, which they called Te Wai Pounamu, “greenstone valley” or “river of greenstone.”
But where in East Polynesia did they come from? Some believe that they were sailors from Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands, while others suggest that they came from Raiatea, in the Society Islands. Interestingly, Kupe, the legendary Polynesian sailor credited with first discovering Aotearoa, was the son of a woman from Raiatea and a man from Rarotonga. Although details about his life and deeds vary depending on which tribe (iwi) is telling his story, it is generally believed that he sailed from Hawaiki on Matawhourua, his (wife’s) canoe, which could carry around 25 people.
Hawaiki, the Māori’s mythical “ancient homeland,” appears in several stories across Polynesia. It was probably an island group, possibly the Marquesas, the Society Islands, or even the southern Cook Islands. Upon sighting New Zealand, Kupe thought it was a long white cloud: hence, New Zealand’s Māori name, Aotearoa, which translates as “the land of the long white cloud.”
Kupe’s crew landed at what is now Hokianga Harbour and eventually sailed down the coast reaching present-day Wellington Harbour. Kupe then sailed back to Hawaiki, where he told his people he had discovered an island inhabited only by birds.
Some Māori legends also tell the story of a great fleet comprising seven canoes, which sailed from Tahiti and Rarotonga in 1350 and brought the ancestors of the Māori to Aotearoa/New Zealand. Various Māori tribes still trace their origins to the navigators of the seven canoes, as well as from their common ancestor, Māui. According to some legends, Māui fished the North Island out of the ocean and named it Te Ika-a-Māui, “the fish of Māui.” The South Island’s Māori name is Te Waka-a-Māui, “Māui’s canoe.”
Members of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa Tribe claim to be the descendants of Ngātoro-i-rangi, who arrived in New Zealand on the Te Arawa canoe. The men and women of the Ngāpuhi Tribe, on the contrary, believe that Rāhiri, a descendant of Kupe, is their founding ancestor. In contrast, the Ngāti Porou Tribe claims to have several foundation canoes, including the Nukutaimemeha, Horouta, Tereanini, and Tākitimu. To quote from Te Ara, “some people believed these accounts were literally true. Others have seen them as poetic imaginings. The reality is likely to be somewhere in between. These traditions contain information about distantly remembered voyages, but have been enriched over time.”
Becoming Māori
Radiocarbon dating of moa eggs has enabled archeologists to determine which island was settled first by the Māori’s ancestors. They appear to have landed first on the southern part of the North Island, which throughout the colonial period remained the last island to be permanently settled (or invaded) by Europeans. Only later did the ancestors of the Māori consistently colonize the eastern half of the South Island and eventually present-day Hawkes Bay and Wellington.
The islands making up Aotearoa/New Zealand were way colder and larger than the Polynesian islands of their ancestors, and this forced the newcomers to adapt their customs and diet to survive the more temperate climate. And adapt they did, applying and perfecting traditional Polynesian crafts and cooking techniques to local resources, climate, and food availability. Indeed, many of the fruits they were accustomed to died or barely tolerated the new environment.
To ensure the survival of sweet potatoes (kūmara), the people whose descendants became Māori built insulated underground storage pits. They also kept the soil warm with gravel. Their diet consisted mainly of moa, seals, and other large birds.
Early Māori were probably moa hunters and the cause of their extinction. Archeologists and settlers began to discover the bones of these giant prehistoric flightless birds in the rivers’ shallows, among heaps of shell and sandbars, already in the 19th century. Although European settlers have continued to report sightings of moa in New Zealand’s most remote areas well into the 19th century, it is generally accepted that between the 1450s and the 1600s, all moa had become extinct. So had their main predator, the huge Haast’s eagle.
Historians believe that by 1500, that is, around 200 years after their arrival, the practices of Polynesian settlers had finally reached a point where they could be described as a clearly defined set of Māori laws, cultural practices, art forms, and oral stories. The inhabitants of Aotearoa were now building longer and narrower canoes because the larger boats and canoes of their ancestors were useless for navigating the island’s rivers and coasts.
Around 1500, they were probably speaking one single language (with several dialects), and building more elaborate wharenui, the traditional Māori meeting house. In some cases, their houses reached 10 meters (32 feet) in length and were decorated with elaborate wood carvings. In between the carvings, they often placed tukutuku wooden panels that consisted of vertical stakes and horizontal rods. In less than 200 years, the Māori had successfully transformed the landscape and had been transformed by it.
Māori Against Māori
In New Zealand, the 19th century was marked by wars — among Māori society and between Māori tribes and the British. The Musket Wars first and the New Zealand Wars later redefined tribal boundaries, Māori warfare, and the Māori’s place in New Zealand’s society. They led to the displacement of thousands of people and to a redistribution of power among Māori tribes, which in turn paved the way for the permanent settlement of Europeans.
The Musket Wars ravaged the North and South Islands from the early 1800s to the 1840s. As the name suggests, they were marked by the widespread use of muskets, introduced among Māori tribes by Chief Hongi Hika of the Ngāpuhi Tribe, after a successful trip to Sydney in 1821, where he obtained over 300 muskets. Although intertribal warfare involving muskets continued, to a lesser degree, after 1840, the Musket Wars were followed by almost two decades of peace.
Then the so-called New Zealand wars broke out, a series of battles and clashes between government forces and various Māori tribes, especially on the North Island, where Māori still retained most of their lands. They lasted more than a decade, from 1860 to 1872. It would be incorrect, however, to frame the New Zealand Wars as a conflict exclusively between Māori and Pākehā. There were other forces at play. Government forces, for instance, included troops from the Australian mainland and England.
Secondly, some Māori tribes allied themselves with British troops against other Māori. Once again, Māori society was torn apart. The New Zealand Wars also saw the emergence of Māori prophetic movements and the establishment of the Kīngitanga (Māori King movement), a pan-tribal movement unifying tribes under one king that the Māori believed could match the power of Queen Victoria.
The Impact of Colonialism on Māori Society
By 1860, Pākehā outnumbered the Māori. By the 1890s, the Māori population had fallen by more than half. Although not exclusively through violence, as happened in mainland Australia and particularly in Tasmania, in the 1890s the New Zealand Māori were gradually dispossessed of their lands, deprived of the means to survive, and often underpaid and discriminated against.
Over the previous decades, European-introduced flora and fauna had severely curtailed their economy, and new infections, especially tuberculosis, influenza, and sexually transmitted diseases, had weakened the population. At the turn of the century, Māori society was extremely vulnerable to premature death, especially among children, as well as to European-imported diseases and extreme poverty.
By the turn of the century, while the Pākehā population was seeing rising child survival rates, Māori children were dying en masse from respiratory infections and poor living standards. The loss of their ancestral lands was closely linked to a decline in resources, as many family groups relied on the land and the sea for survival. It also had an impact on mental health. Indeed, for many tribes, land loss meant a loss of power and prestige.
Sometimes, deciding not to sell the land to European buyers turned out to be the worst choice. P. M. Smith writes that hapū, that is, kinship groups, “who kept land suffered too because multiple owners shared blocks that were too small for everyone and were often uneconomic.” Overall, the success of Pākehā men and women depended on Māori land loss and, to quote again from P. M. Smith, “settler New Zealand was young, vigorous, and suddenly dominant.”
Reclaiming Māori Agency
Lake Taupō, in New Zealand’s North Island, is sacred to the Ngāti Tūwharetoa tribe, the owners of a large area across the central plateau of the North Island. In the years following the New Zealand Wars, instead of opposing European settlement along the shores of their lake, which they probably understood to be inevitable, the Ngāti Tūwharetoa demanded to oversee the settlement and any timber milling development to share in the economic revenue.
The Lake Taupō case is emblematic of the Māori’s approach to colonization. Tribes across the South and North Islands gradually embraced literacy and used it against the Pākehā to demand a recognition of their rights. Other Māori tribes recognized the importance of sharing their resources with the newcomers, as happened in 1880 at Rotorua.
An important geothermal region in the Bay of Plenty Region of the North Island, Rotorua was known for its hot mud pools and geysers. It had been inhabited by the Ngāti Whakaue Tribe since the 14th century. When, in the 1880s, Sir William Fox (1812-1893) argued that the entire region should be transformed into a national park, the local Māori community suggested the establishment of a town around the Rotorua hot springs that would attract tourists from all over the world. Rather than selling them, they leased their geysers and the surrounding lands (overall 50 acres) to the Crown.
Although one year later, with the passing of the Thermal Springs District Act, the government was granted exclusive rights to purchase and lease the hot springs lands, it was a bold move on the side of the Ngāti Whakaue and a testimony to Māori’s ability to adapt to a changing world.
The pan-tribal Kotahitanga movement was particularly active in resisting Pākehā claims over Māori lands through the actions of its separate parliament. From 1897, it also ran its newspaper, Te Puke ki Hikurangi. The 6th sitting of the Kotahitanga Parliament was convened in 1897 at Pāpāwai, near Greytown, where Māori leaders met with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Richard Seddon (1845-1906). The establishment of the Kotahitanga Parliament expanded on the actions of Te Kauhanganui, the Māori parliament established by the Kīngitanga.
While Kīngitanga called for the coming together of Māori tribes in the Waikato-Tainui region in the western central region of the North Island, the Kotahitanga Parliament wanted the union of all Māori tribes. From 1897, the Youth Māori Party, led by James Carroll (1857-1926) and Āpirana Ngata (1874-1950), further advanced Māori claims.
Being Māori Today
According to the 2023 census, almost 1 million New Zealanders are Māori. New Zealanders of Māori descent, that is, those who have Māori whakapapa, make up 19.6 percent of the total population, with an 18.5 percent increase in the last quinquennial, between 2018 and 2023. One in five people in New Zealand today are of Māori descent.
By contrast, New Zealanders who identify as Māori (or, to put it in another way, people who affiliate with the Māori as an ethnic group) make up about 17.8 percent of the population, with a 12.5 percent increase in the last quinquennial. New Zealanders who identify as Pākehā or European comprise 67.8 percent of the population. Today, the Māori population is on average more than ten years younger than its Pākehā counterpart, with the largest Māori communities living in the Auckland region, followed by Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.
Today, the Māori are actively engaged in revitalizing their culture and language. In 1987, the Parliament of New Zealand passed the Māori Language Act, which gave official language status to te reo Māori, the Māori language, conferred its speakers the right to use it in any legal proceedings, and established the Māori Language Commission (Te Taura Whiri I te Reo Māori). The term Māori has been written without macrons for decades. Today, such an omission is considered disrespectful.
More than three centuries after contact, Māori men and women continue to play a vital role in shaping New Zealand’s politics, culture, sports, and national identity while retaining and honoring the stories and practices of their East Polynesian ancestors.
