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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.
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.
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]
An umbrella group comprising at least 80 Maori tribes has sent an open letter to King Charles III demanding that he intervene in New Zealand politics and ensure the government honours its ...
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 ...
Polynesian oral traditions say that the spirits of Polynesian people return to Hawaiki after death. In the New Zealand context, such return-journeys take place via Spirits Bay, Cape Reinga and the Three Kings Islands at the extreme north of the North Island of New Zealand. This may indicate the direction in which Hawaiki may lie.
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.