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The Māori word pounamu is derived from namu, an archaic word that describes blue-green (or 'grue') cognate with Tahitian ninamu. [2] Pounamu, also used in New Zealand English, in itself refers to two main types of green stone valued for carving: nephrite jade, classified by Māori as kawakawa, kahurangi, īnanga, and other names depending on colour; and translucent bowenite, a type of ...
The Māori alphabet includes both long and short vowels, which change the meaning of words. [1] For most of the 20th century, these were not indicated by spelling, except sometimes as double vowels (paaua). Since the 1980s, the standard way to indicate long vowels is with a macron (pāua).
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.
An unfurling silver fern frond Koru kōwhaiwhai patterns on a rafter from the Ngāti Maru wharenui Hotunui The koru flag. The koru (Māori for 'loop or coil') [1] is a spiral shape evoking a newly unfurling frond from a silver fern frond. [2]
Māori cultural history intertwines inextricably with the culture of Polynesia as a whole. The New Zealand archipelago forms the southwestern corner of the Polynesian Triangle, a major part of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: the Hawaiian Islands, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and New Zealand (Aotearoa in te reo Māori). [10]
A marae at Kaitotehe, near Taupiri mountain, Waikato district, 1844.It was associated with Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, a chief who became the first Māori king.. In Māori society, the marae is a place where the culture can be celebrated, where the Māori language can be spoken, where intertribal obligations can be met, where customs can be explored and debated, where family occasions such as ...
The Oxford Dictionary of English (2011) defines 'Pakeha' as 'a white New Zealander'. [8] The Oxford Dictionary of New Zealandisms (2010) defines the noun Pākehā as 'a light-skinned non-Polynesian New Zealander, especially one of British birth or ancestry as distinct from a Māori; a European or white person'; and the adjective as 'of or relating to Pākehā; non-Māori; European, white'.
Aotearoa (Māori: [aɔˈtɛaɾɔa]) [1] is the Māori-language name for New Zealand.The name was originally used by Māori in reference only to the North Island, with the whole country being referred to as Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu – where Te Ika-a-Māui means North Island, and Te Waipounamu means South Island. [2]