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Angelica Parker

Professor Daugavietis

Cultural Geography

15 December 2008

Maori Culture

Why do raindrops fall from the sky onto the earth? Legend says that the sky father and

the earth mother united and had six children together. Unfortunately, the children and their

parents were far too close together in the darkness. As a result, the children planned their own

spaces to live. One of the six children suggested putting his father, the sky father, away out of

the darkness. The sky above the earth was created when the sky father left his family. The

people say that the raindrops in the sky are actually the tears that sky father weeps for his “Papa”

or earth mother (Theunissen 43). This old oral history is just one of the many legends that the

traditional Maori cultural group of New Zealand believes today. Estimated to have come to the

islands of New Zealand over 1,500 years ago, the Maori people struggle today to maintain their

remaining cultural distinctions (Theunissen 4).

The current total population of the Maori people living in New Zealand is estimated at

642,900 for all age groups, with a median age of about twenty-three years old (Maori

population). The total estimated population for the North and South Islands of New Zealand is

4,035,461 (Kurian 1730). The Maori people make up about fifteen percent of the total

population in New Zealand today (Theunissen 5). The arrival of the Europeans, war, and disease

significantly dropped the Maori population numbers. All of these factors contributed to “the

Maori population [falling] from about 200,000 to just 42,000” in the start of the 1900’s

(Theunissen 20). However, today the “the most significant minority group is the Maori” who
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believe that their ancestors migrated to the North Island over a thousand years ago (Kurian

1730).

Many different stories have been told regarding the arrival of the Maori culture to the

North and South Islands, and historians still debate over them today. The Maori people hold to

their own oral history that states, “that the Maori migrants left to escape warfare and the

demands of excessive tribute” (Gall 489). The Maori people believe that the first Maori came

from the island of Hawaiki in seven canoes. Those first Maori inhabitants are believed to have

landed in the northeast coast of the North Island in New Zealand (Theunissen 14). Today,

Wellington the capital of New Zealand is located on this North Island along with the largest city

of the two Islands called Auckland (Theunissen 7). For the first couple hundred years upon

arrival of the Islands, the tribal people were “living around the top and bottom of the North

Island and along the coasts of the South Island” (Theunissen 17).

In these two islands, the Maori spoke their own distinct Maori language but then changed

over the years as the Maori today speak English. The language family that their language is from

is called the Austronesian language family; the Maori is a part of the Tahitic branch of Easter

Polynesian. Before the Europeans reached the Islands, the Maori spoke in two different dialects.

The two dialects were different for the North and South Islands, the South Island dialect now

unfortunately being lost. However, the dialect that is remembered today has been used to “[pass]

down stories, songs, myths, and legends from generation to generation over hundreds of years”

(Theunissen 40). The Maori language was admitted as an official language in 1987 in the Maori

Language Bill (Kurian 1730). The impact of globalization and human contact has caused, “all

present-day speakers of Maori also speak English” (Gall 490). The Maori language and English

are among the national languages of New Zealand today (Theunissen 40).
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Among the stories and legends that have been passed down by the Maori, language is

their distinct set of religious beliefs. The Maori were polytheistic before European contact

through missionaries, priests and present day globalization. Multiple gods such as the god Tane

who was the god of forests and trees and Ragi the god of the sky were just two of their gods. In

addition, legend says, “some gods were friendly, but all of them were capable of awesome

displays of anger” (Theunissen 42). Their gods along with ancestor worship became important

in their traditional religion. Signs that any of their gods were unhappy with the Maori were

displayed when the people would suffer from any sickness, accident, or death.

However, European contact brought about Christianity and “the first English missionaries

arrived in New Zealand in 1814” (Theunissen 43). “Today, the Maori belong to a variety of

Christian denominations, the largest of which are the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, and

Mormon churches” (Jones 5682). The Anglican religion is strongest form of Christianity in New

Zealand today as approximately twenty-four percent of the population practices it. Fifteen

percent of the population is accounted for the Roman Catholic belief (Kurian 1730). As a result,

some of the Maori prophets have mixed Christianity and Maori beliefs to create their own new

religions. Religions such as Pai Marire (Good and Peaceful) and the belief of Rua Kenana who

built a religious community at Maungapotau have developed since (Theunissen 43).

Although their belief in polytheism may not be distinct, the Maori people are very

distinct in terms of their traditional dancing, tattooing, and greeting. Dancing and singing both

go along together in their culture. “The Maori [have] songs for every occasion- love songs,

chants and prayers to the gods, songs to welcome visitors” (Theunissen 38). Maori action songs

are known as “haka,” and those action songs are “one of the best-known cultural traditions” of

the culture today (Gall 492). The message of the song is relied using “hands, feet, legs, bodies,
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tongues, and even eyes” (Theunissen 39). Often, the dancers will break out in chants that

“[recount] genealogies or the exploits of ancestors” (Gall 492).

Tattooing was a strong tradition among both the men and women of the culture and is still

practiced by some today. “Both men and women wore ‘moko’, or face tattoos” these face tattoos

were worn by warriors on their whole faces, buttocks and thighs (Theunissen 35). The most

popular “moko” designs included spirals and curves that would appear in various places on the

body for men. The women tattooed only their chins and lips while the men tattooed their whole

faces. The “moko” designs “were made with dye, carved into the skin with small chisels made

of bird bones” (Theunissen 35). A few of the Maori of today still paint themselves with the dye

in their traditional moko designs (Theunissen 35).

Traditional “moko” facial designs were sometimes met face to face by the pressing of

noses in the traditional Maori greeting called “hongi.” “To press noses together is to ‘hongi,’”

according to the Maori (Macdonald 29). The Maori consider this greeting much friendlier in

comparison to the kiss on the check or handshake. The gretting is also used at the end of a

welcome where “people shake hands and press noses” (Macdonald 29).

The traditional “hongi” greeting may be a polite gesture for the Maori but perhaps the

non-natives in New Zealand do not understand it. The modern economy for the culture is

struggling to stay above water as far as employment rates go for the people. According to

statistics, “the average Maori family earns $10,000 less per year than the average non-Maori

family” (Theunissen 24). The Maori culture struggles today with poverty although the people

hold jobs in areas like factories, construction, political areas, doctors, teachers, police officers,

actors, and etcetera.

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These job opportunities have proven to not necessarily be effective for the Maori, with

the exception of the farming industry. However, the young generation of Maori people does not

necessarily find the farming industry jobs to be ones they would want. Author Adreanne

Ormond agrees in her journal article titled, “The Life Experiences of Young Maori: Voices From

Afar,” stating, “young people know the job opportunities that the farming industry offers and do

not like them” (Ormond 7). Ormond interviewed many young Maori who stated in reference to

the farming employment opportunities “those don’t last” and “only old people do those”

(Osmond 7). In addition, Ormond writes, “although farming is a large part of their indigenous

community the young people worry about how their location within an isolated rural farming

community limits their employment opportunities” (Ormond 8). So, perhaps the people have

hope in the farming industry but the next generation does not want to participate and their

location is a factor as well.

Not only is willingness to participate in the farming industry absent, but as globalization

reached the people so did machines that take the place of the farming jobs. In addition, finding

that money to start up and develop farms is scarce. The Maori people find it difficult “to make a

living in the country because farms began to use more machines and there was less work for

Maori laborers” (Macdonald 30). As a result, the already disinterested young people feel isolated

by their living location and “there are places where almost all the young people moved south to

find work in Auckland during the 1960’s” (Macdonald 30). Maori people are given hope for

their families as they move out of their isolated areas into the populous urbanized cities of New

Zealand (Macdonald 31).

In addition, to there being hope for the Maori people in populous cities, the New Zealand

government has also stepped in to help by providing programs, new businesses and opportunities
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in the tourist trade. One of the programs that the New Zealand government provided is called the

Closing the Gaps program that helps the “Maori people achieve the same living standards as

non-Maori” (Theunissen 24). The government helps the Maori by helping start their own

businesses in things like tourism, fishing, and dairy farming. Also, the Maori have been able to

start up their own new businesses by using money the New Zealand government gives to the

people. “As a result of these payments, many tribes have large sums of money to invest” and

“some tribes have started new Maori-owned businesses” (Theunissen 25). Finally, the tourist

trade has proven to be profitable for the Maori people as “tourists in New Zealand are eager to

learn about Maori culture” (Theunissen 25). All of these government opportunities have aided

the Maori culture in finding the jobs necessary to live on.

In a culture of distinct traditions and people, that faces some economic hardships the

Maori culture group remains today. The current 642,900 people that still inhabit the North and

South Islands of New Zealand keep their traditions alive (Maori population). Oral traditions that

have been passed down to the culture like their language, polytheistic religion, dance, and way of

greeting one another remain. Today, the people have found a way to connect themselves to their

country and the growing globalization epidemic through tourism. And although the Maori

people may have suffered a huge population loss in the 1900’s, author William Schaniel believes

that the Maori did actually end up profiting from the Europeans in the long run. He states in his

article “European technology and the New Zealand Maori economy: 1769-1840,” “though the

Maori rejected European techniques, eventually they did adopt two European agriculture

implements, the hoe and the spade” (Schaniel 1). It is only though these tools that the Maori

people have developed hope and ways of flourishing their economy. In a world of “moko”,

“haka”, and “hongi,” the Maori culture still holds on to hope and their traditional history.