Maoris

Hi, this is Kiri, a Maori from Kaikoura. Welcome to the island of the south of Aotearoa.

Maoris are Polynesian. We come from Hawaikii, a mythical place situated right in the middle of the Polynesia triangle, and it comprises the islands of Pasqua, New Zealand and Hawai. Officially, however, we are thought to come from the Cook Islands and Society Islands, and our arrival date to Aotearoa is set around the year 1000 d.C.

Family is the basement in our society. It is structured through a 3 level hierarchy: family, sub tribe and tribe. Social field of influence is formed by chiefs, the people and the slaves. Anthropologists have baptised our structure in the Hawaiian relatives, which takes into account the ancestors, the gender and the generation. Like this, the women in a family are mothers, the men are fathers and the next generation will be sisters and brothers, whoever their parents are. On the other hand, it is not strange that the prestige of one group or another is based on the winners of tribal confrontations, since Maoris have always been warriors.

Even when in our stories we have taken orally from generation to generation, art has also had its relevance in transmission. This is why statues have been sculpted and tikis (sacred amulets) created, have wood outlined and painted the walls of the maraes (meeting houses, where also pagan and sacred celebrations take place), all this in order to explain our traditions. Just like that, tattoos explain the hierarchy that the tattooed person occupies. Maori men began to tattoo their faces in order to scare of enemies and win more battles. Women, however, can only tattoo the area of their moko (chin) and only the ones of an important hierarchy.

As a difference with our northern brothers (Hawaii and the French Polynesia) our dances are more masculine and warriors. The most clear example for that is the Haka, which even though it is a welcoming dance and a sign of hospitality, it's also a war dance. Nowadays is commonly known because it's danced before every game of the All Blacks, national rugby team.

Just to finish, on our tables nowadays we have plenty of staff, fruit and vegetables, meat and fish. What we like the most is seafish, kumara (sweet potato), tamarillo (a small tomato) and the best pavlova, our traditional dessert. Except for the dessert, we like things cooked on the Hangi, traditional Maori oven, which consists of a hole made in the floor where food is introduced and covered by heated stones that will slowly cook the food.