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The earliest period of Māori settlement is known as the "Archaic", "Moahunter" or "Colonisation" period. The eastern Polynesian ancestors of the Māori arrived in a forested land with abundant birdlife, including several now extinct moa species weighing between 20 kilograms (44 lb) and 250 kg (550 lb) each.
The Gisborne District or Gisborne Region has a deep and complex history that dates back to the early 1300s. The region, on the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island, has many culturally and historically significant sites that relate to early Māori exploration in the 14th century and important colonial events, such as Captain Cook's first landfall in New Zealand.
Mātauranga was traditionally preserved through spoken language, including songs, supplemented carving weaving, and painting, including tattoos. [10] Since colonisation, mātauranga has been preserved and shared through writing, first by non-Māori anthropologists and missionaries, then by Māori.
Aztec warriors led by an eagle knight, each holding a macuahuitl club. Florentine Codex, book IX, F, 5v.Manuscript written by Bernardino de Sahagún.. Before Europeans set out to discover what had been populated by others in their Age of Discovery and before the European colonization, Indigenous peoples resided in a large proportion of the world's territory.
The impact of the Maori people had an adverse impact on the land. They hunted the flightless moa to extinction and cleared large swathes of forests, both to make way for settlements and to light fires in order to more easily hunt birds. Approximately half the native forests of New Zealand were destroyed within the first several hundred years.
While the threat of general French colonisation never materialised, in 1831 it prompted thirteen major chiefs from the far north of the country to meet at Kerikeri to compose a letter to King William IV asking for Britain to be a "friend and guardian" of New Zealand. [21] It is the first known plea for British intervention written by Māori. [22]
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.
The effects of European infectious diseases, [4] the New Zealand Wars, and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to European ownership, and Māori became impoverished. The colony gained responsible government in the 1850s.