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Aotearoa - New Zealand's unique Māori culture
Māori are the tangata whenua or 'indigenous people of the land' of Aotearoa New Zealand, and Māori culture is central to New Zealand's fresh, invigorating and adventurous national identity.
So, while Māori make up only about 15% of New Zealand’s population, their cultural impact is huge. There probably isn't an area of Kiwi life that's not been influenced by New Zealand's Māori side.
Māori culture places high value on the natural environment - the forests, sea, rivers, lakes and mountains - a living treasure that's unique to Aotearoa New Zealand.
Māori culture, arts and crafts
Rotorua, in the centre of the North Island, is a major tourist destination not only because of its geo-thermal activity, but also because it showcases traditional Māori culture, arts and crafts.
The lakeside city has a huge choice of interactive Māori culture tourist experiences, including the national arts and crafts centre at Te Puia.
A visit to the traditional Māori village of Whakarewarewa is one of Rotorua's unique attractions. Local Māori still live and work in the village that sits in a spectacular thermal landscape.
New Zealand's national museum Te Papa Tongarewa in the capital city, Wellington, and the War Memorial Museum in Auckland, the country’s most populous city, have rich stores of Māori stories, carvings and artefacts.
Māori marae
Māori are a tribal people and their tribes are known as iwi. Today most live in urban areas, away from their marae or tribal ground. However, many Māori gather at their marae for important occasions.
On the outskirts of most country towns, the typical marae is a collection of long low buildings distinctively decorated with ornate carvings and surrounded by a grassy or paved area. The marae is a community facility for the local Māori hapu and their extended family group.
A marae usually consists of a wharenui or whare whakairo (carved meeting house), a wharekai (dining hall and cooking area), and a marae-atea - sacred place in front of the wharenui where formal proceedings and speeches take place.
Māori hangi
Māori foods - such as the kumara (sweet potato) and traditional herbs gathered from the wild - have imparted a distinctive flavour in New Zealand's modern cuisine.
The hangi - typically pork, seafood and vegetables like kumara - is cooked in a deep pit dug in the ground and heated with hot stones. The stones are heated in a fire before food is placed in the pit and covered with leaves or mats woven out of flax. Earth is heaped over the mats to keep the heat in, and the food is left to cook slowly over several hours.
Māori heritage
Māori are a Polynesian people whose ancestors moved to New Zealand - and settled on both the main islands - about 1000 years ago from a legendary homeland in the eastern Pacific that's referred to as Hawaiki.
Kupe, the original Māori ancestor, first discovered the islands of New Zealand and gave it the Māori name - Aotearoa or ‘the land of the long white cloud’. New Zealand is often referred to as Aotearoa - New Zealand.
According to a Māori legend, the South Island was the canoe of an ancestor named Maui, Stewart Island became the canoe's anchor, and the North Island was an enormous fish he pulled from the sea.
Research by anthropologists and scholars largely confirms Māori oral history that some of the early visits were actually return trips. Guided by the stars, sea currents, wave patterns and birds, Maui returned to Hawaiki and a migration of several canoes followed.
Ta moko - traditional Māori tattoo art
In recent years New Zealand has seen a resurgence in the traditional practice of ta moko - the permanent body and face marking of the indigenous Māori people.
This unique tattoo form is being embraced by Māori men and women, as a sign of their cultural identity and a reflection of the revival of the Māori language and culture.
Unique tattoo style
Traditional ta moko is distinct from tattoo because the skin is carved using uhi or chisels rather than punctured with needles, leaving the skin with grooves rather than a smooth surface.
The resurgence of ta moko has seen both a revival in the use of uhi and an increasing number of practitioners, including women, learning the art.
Concern amongst Māori about the practice of ta moko by non-Māori has seen the establishment of Te Uhi a Mataora, a group that deals with issues surrounding the art form.
Early moko history
Ta moko was brought by Māori from their eastern Polynesian homeland. The implements and methods used are similar to those found in other parts of Polynesia.
In pre-European Māori culture, many if not most high-ranking persons received moko. Those who went without moko were seen as persons of lower social status.
Receiving moko constituted an important milestone between childhood and adulthood, and was accompanied by many rites and rituals. Apart from signalling status and rank, another reason for the practice was to make a person more attractive to the opposite sex.
Men generally received moko on their faces, buttocks (raperape) and thighs (puhoro). Women usually wore moko on their lips (ngutu) and chins (kauae). Moko was sometimes applied to other parts of the body, including the forehead, neck, back, stomach and calves.
Tattoo instruments
Originally tohunga-ta-moko (moko specialists) used a range of uhi made from albatross bone which were grafted onto a handle, and struck with a mallet.
Pigments were made from the awheto (vegetable caterpillar) for the body colour, and ngarehu (burnt timbers) for the black face colour.
Soot from burnt kauri gum was mixed with fat to make pigment which was stored in ornate vessels named oko, often buried when not in use. Oko were handed on to successive generations.
Changes evolved in the late 19th century when needles came to replace uhi as the main tools. This was a quicker less risky method, but changed the feel of the moko from traditional raised markings to smooth lines.
Moko specialists
Men were predominantly moko specialists, although a number of women during the early 20th century took up the practice. There is an account of a woman prisoner-of-war in the 1830s who was seen putting moko on the back of a chief’s wife.
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