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Māori are the second-largest ethnic group in New Zealand, after European New Zealanders (commonly known by the Māori name Pākehā). In addition, more than 170,000 Māori live in Australia. The Māori language is spoken to some extent by about a fifth of all Māori, representing three per cent of the total population.
The Māori settlement of New Zealand represents an end-point of a long chain of island-hopping voyages in the South Pacific.. Evidence from genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology indicates that the ancestry of Polynesian people stretches all the way back to indigenous peoples of Taiwan.
In New Zealand before the 1800s, Māori children would be called by one given name (simple or composite). These names were attributed to remarkable events around birth. Later in life a person might be given a new name relating to subsequent events. [1]
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]
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]
Te Raekaihau Point – Te Rae-kai-hau – The literal meaning of the name is ‘the headland that eats the wind’ (see Best, 8, Pt.5, p. 174) Te Waipounamu (the South Island) – the greenstone water or 'the water of greenstone' where 'wai' can also refer to rivers or streams or other bodies of water. It has been surmised that the name evolved ...
In Māori and in many other Polynesian languages, iwi literally means ' bone ' [8] derived from Proto-Oceanic *suRi₁ meaning ' thorn, splinter, fish bone '. [9] Māori may refer to returning home after travelling or living elsewhere as "going back to the bones" — literally to the burial-areas of the ancestors.
On Easter Island, the name of the home country in oral tradition appears as Hiva. According to Thor Heyerdahl, Hiva was said to lie east of the island. Sebastian Englert records: He-kî Hau Maka: "He kaiga iroto i te raá, iruga! Ka-oho korua, ka-û'i i te kaiga mo noho o te Ariki O'Hotu Matu'a! Translation: "The island towards the sun, above!