Werenât the Maori also just invaders who killed the natives and brought invasive species with them? I feel kind.of ambiguous about this whole Maori fascination.
Kinda sorta. The Moriori settled in the Chatham Island (a few hundred km south of New Zealand) and were later victims of genocide at the hands of a Maori tribe during the musket wars. Previously it was assumed that the Moriori came to the Chathams in a separate wave of migration to the ones that brought the Maori, but more recent evidence seems to point to them arriving in New Zealand at about the same time, then moving south.
There were a few species that went extinct between the Maori arriving in NZ and the Europeans showing up, but expecting an ecosystem to not change when a new apex predator shows up is just ânoble savageâ BS.
The Maori were Polynesian navigators who were the first humans to settle NZ around 1300 AD. New Zealand and Hawaii were two of the last places on Earth to be settled by humans.
Then some of the Maori left from NZ and colonized the Chatham Islands around 1500. Due to their geographic isolation, they diverged culturally from the Maori, adopted a pacifist way of life, and came to be known as the Moriori.
In the mid-1800s, some Maori tribes, armed with muskets obtained from trade with Europeans, invaded the Chatham Islands and committed a genocide for nearly 30 years against the Moriori, who did not fight back because of their belief in pacifism. This is known as the Moriori genocide.
Not 100%, all surviving Moriori are a mixture of Maori and Moriori. At this point probably some European as well.
In 1870, a Native Land Court was established to adjudicate competing land claims; by this time most MÄori had returned to Taranaki. The court ruled in favour of the MÄori, awarding them 97% of the land.The judge ruled that since the Moriori had been conquered by MÄori they did not have ownership rights of the land.
Ahahahaha, wtf
Pretty much every piece of NZ had been taken off someone by force at some point, before Europeans even landed. The Maori tribes had a number of wars between each other over territory.
Nope. Not even close. Thatâs a myth used to invalidate actual MÄori history.
The âmorioriâ were a MÄori tribe on the Chatham islands who were conquered by mainland MÄori.
Fun fact: NZ is the last place on earth to be permanently settled by humans.
TL;DR: Polynesians settled New Zealand over the 13th century, slowly lost contact with polynesia and the cultures diverged.
They were genocided by mainland Maori, the islandâs inhabitants were either killed or enslaved, and forced to adopt the culture of their conquerors.
Are we just discounting that Antarctica still has no permanent residents?
It hasnât happened yet so New Zealand is last. Give it a hundred years and weâll have antarcticans
Fun fact: Easter Island was probably settled about the same time, the Juan Fernandez islands werenât settled until the late 1600âs.
ETA: Falklands/Islas Malvinas is even more recent iirc
I have a question about the fun fact. Trying to better understand it. If I were rich enough to buy an island and move to it, would that be the new last place to be settled by humans? If no, why not. And if yes, then surely thereâs at least one example of someone doing that since the 13th century.
It depends how big the island is, and whether itâs supported by something else. NZ is a very large place, a country in itâs own right, and is economically independent.
Your hypothetical island would likely be answerable to another government, and economically reliant on whatever your source of income is.
The white people being more Maori than the Maori is pretty accurate actually.
No. Itâs just that some of us PÄkehÄ actually care about preserving and supporting a people and a culture that our ancestors did their best to eradicate.
Those of us that care enough, will find out the appropriate ways to provide such support.
Auckland Airport has some (IMHO somewhat crass) token MÄoritanga in the international terminal. Theyâre quite happy to exploit MÄori when thereâs tourism dollars to be made.
You canât say no and just prove his point. Good job on the whitewashing though, phenomenal theft of their culture.
Try reading past âNo.â
Those of us that care enough, will find out the appropriate ways to provide such support.
I enjoyed the meme, but itâs still better to have folks embrace your indigenous culture than try to stamp it out or banish it to the undesirable parts of your homeland.
Youâre right, but itâs pretty cringe sometimes. Iâve seen a video call full of white people having a meeting about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with Maoridom start a meeting with a Karakira. Itâs very performative a lot of the time.
Itâs kinda hard to describe the attitude some people have.
Thereâs performative bullshit because someone gets it in their head that a karakia is some from of âsupportâ. Itâs our version of âthoughts and prayersâ. A token gesture requiring no actual effort or investment to tick a box.
IMHO one of the best things to do is just lean our actual history, and not just post European contact history: thereâs another six centuries of history before that just in NZ. Though 19th century is the most important to learn.
Unfortunately it got embraced heavily in corporate office culture not so much in everyday culture so most peoples day to day experience with maori culture is very soulless and performative. The only positive is its keeping the language alive.
Shouldâve went to Hawaii instead.
Itâs like a NZ Bollywood movie.
I flew to New Zealand and the only thing I saw on arrival was the baggage handlers throwing the suitcases so hard into the trailer that they fell off the other side.
