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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]
Māori participate fully in all spheres of New Zealand culture and society, leading largely Western lifestyles while also maintaining their own cultural and social customs. The traditional social strata of rangatira , tūtūā and mōkai have all but disappeared from Māori society, while the roles of tohunga and kaumātua are still present.
Measles, typhoid, scarlet fever, whooping cough and almost everything, except plague and sleeping sickness, have taken their toll of Maori dead". [63] A korao no New Zealand; or, the New Zealander's first book was written by missionary Thomas Kendall in 1815, and is the first book written in the Māori language.
European New Zealanders are a European ethnic group. It includes New Zealanders of European descent, European peoples (e.g. British, Irish, Dutch, German, Russian, Italian, Greek), and other peoples of indirect European descent (e.g. Americans, Canadians, Australians and South Africans,). Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand.
The human history of New Zealand can be dated back to between 1320 and 1350 CE, when the main settlement period started, after it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture.
The culture of New Zealand is a synthesis of indigenous Māori, colonial British, and other cultural influences.The country's earliest inhabitants brought with them customs and language from Polynesia, and during the centuries of isolation, developed their own Māori and Moriori cultures.
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern tales of supernatural events relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pre-European Māori, often involving gods and demigods.
The group of people performing a haka is referred to as a kapa haka (kapa meaning group or team, and also rank or row). [14] The Māori word haka has cognates in other Polynesian languages, for example: Samoan saʻa (), Tokelauan haka, Rarotongan ʻaka, Hawaiian haʻa, Marquesan haka, meaning 'to be short-legged' or 'dance'; all from Proto-Polynesian saka, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian sakaŋ ...