The history of New Zealand is very interesting and is full of amazing stories.

New Zealand is a country that is rich with beautiful land and nice people, and visitors often have lots of praise for the “kiwi” people they meet while they are here.
New Zealand has a North Island and a South Island with the small Stewart Island at the bottom of the South Island.

Maori people are dark skinned, dark haired, thick lipped race of people who wore grass skirts and lived a primitive life in the small country called New Zealand that is not too far from Australia, around 2,587 miles/4,163 km. The native Maori people mostly have either brown or black eyes. Is is believed that no full blooded Maori people are alive today due to their mixing with the many other human races in New Zealand and breeding.

There have been some noticeable differences between the different Maori tribes, some members tribes were tall (over 6 feet in height) while others were known (about one hundred years ago) to be short in stature.

Some other small differences have been noted over time such as some tribes having almost oriental eyes (Northern Maori) and some with flat noses while other with stout or pointy noses.
Some Rotorua Maori have been known to have Jewish features and in general it has been noted that some Maori customs have Hebrew similarities.
Also different tribes had different ways of pronouncing some words in the Maori language. For instance South Island and North Island Maori have language differences.

Maori tribes of over one hundred years ago had many different shades of brown with some being so light that a blush can be seen and others so dark it was hard to see the tattoo on their faces and body.

The reasons for the differences between Maori tribes is not known (at least I have not found any information about this) although it seems strange since Maori legend states that the Maori came from another place to New Zealand in different canoes yet they are all supposed to be from the same country.
Some people suggest that the Maori people may have had relations with other races after landing in New Zealand and this could very well be true and it would also easily explain the differences between the tribes.
Some Maori have been born with red or orange hair and some history books even mention Maori people with blue eyes and blonde hair.

According to history the only people in New Zealand before or around the same time as the Maori people were the Mori Oris, recent discoveries are suggesting that  another race of people could have been in New Zealand as well.
This has been discussed as far back as in the 1800’s.
The New Zealand governments refuse to (publicly) accept this and as soon as any human remains found that date back a few 100 years and further are immediately given to the local iwi (tribe).

The Maori (Polynesians) say they came to New Zealand in canoes from a land they called Hawaiki, many people have tried to figure out where Hawaiki is and even the modern day Maori people do not know.
It has been said that the Maori were great navigators back in those days, very fit and rowed and walked long distances.

Recent New Zealand governments in an effort to bring the Maori people up to modern times have started a huge push for young and old Maori to go back to their culture, learn the Maori language, songs etc.
Some of the Maori past has always been hard to trace simply because the Maori people did not have any real written language and this makes it hard to put together a “true” account of what really is happened in the past.

Tapu has played a very important part of the Maori lives in the past and in some cases even now, things that were considered Tapu were seen to be sacred, prohibited, restricted, protected, holy, set apart, forbidden.
The Maori person who placed the Tapu also could remove it.
Things and people were made Tapu. When the first fish were caught for the season it was Tapu and Maori chiefs and priests bodies and even slaves that attended to chiefs and many other things.

The Maori people kept slaves and the slaves normally came from wars or battles with other Maori tribes after they were captured. When a chief died slaves were killed so that they could attend to the chief in the next world.

Some items and people could be made temporarily Tapu and the Tapu could be removed at some future time.

Tapued objects were marked with hair, a piece of old mat or a Maori carving made of wood, this was so others would know not to touch or go near something that was Tapu and this system worked well.
If a person violated a Tapu they were punished (according to Maori belief) by the gods who sent sickness and death or by the Maori themselves. The punishment by the Maori people was death, expulsion from the Maori society and loss of property.
The Maori people were very much in fear of what the gods would do to them if they violated a Tapu because the gods could see all and the guilty person could not escape from the view of the gods or the gods themselves.
Different Maori tribes could go to war if one tribe desecrated another tribes Tapu.

Gods

Rangi – Heaven.
Papa – Earth.

Rangi and Papa 6 children:

Tangaroa – God and the father of fish and reptiles.
Tumatauenga – God and father of war.
Haumiatikitiki – God and father of food of men that comes without cultivation.
Tane – God and father of the forests and birds.
Tawhiri-ma-tea – God of the winds and the storms.

All except Tawhiri-ma-tea ended up conspiring against their parents according to myth.

Food:
Fish – many different kinds of fish were eaten by the Maori and shell fish
A certain fern root was popular and nice to eat
Birds – It is said that the Maori wiped out the Moa and the New Zealand eagle by eating them, mutton birds are popular.
Fungi
Taro
Sweet potatoe – first the thin long finger shaped sweet potato and then the bigger sweet potato which was introduced to New Zealand in 1819 by an American whaler.
Seals
Whales
Mosses
Worms
Berries
Vegetable caterpillars
Gourds
Rats – from what I have read only the rat that came with the Maori to New Zealand
Some reptiles
Dogs – this includes the Maori dog they brought to New Zealand
Chrysalises
Insects
Some sea weeds
Eels – fresh water eels
And later on all the foods introduced by Captain Cook and other visitors and settlers.

In places like Rotorua where boiling springs can be found food was cooked in the boiling water, they would throw a live pig in and remove it when it was cooked for eating.

An interesting trick was used to open shell fish and this was to place red hot stones into water that had shell fish in it and then the shell fish would open when the water got hot.
Food has always been a major part of the Maori peoples lives and often huge feast were held and large amounts of food eaten at these feasts. The Maori today are very fond of food and many are overweight because of this.

The Maori people were terrified of some animals like lizards and going outside at night.
They believed that the lizards were ancestors and they were very scared of them.
James West Stack wrote of a Maori friend falling to the ground and having “fits” of terror when he saw a lizard the James Stack had caught for preserving, many other stories have been mentioned in many New Zealand history books about the way the Maori people reacted when they were confronted with lizards.

It has been said that one of the original canoes to arrive here with Maori people on it was burned by the Kawhia settlers, the canoe was the Arawa. It is not clear why this happened but the result was war.

The Maori people made fortified villages and when Captain Cook arrived in New Zealand he found that the Maori people were living like this he said that New Zealand was one big battlefield due to the many different Maori tribes at war with each other.
The Maori people had many reasons for war some of the reason were violating Tapus, adultery personal injuries, insults and in some cases the need for food etc.

The Haka was performed before a war between tribes, both tribes would work themselves up into a frenzy with threat  and dancing the haka and then they would rush at each other with load screaming yells of hatred.

These conflicts were short and the tribe that lost would be chased by the victors.
After the battle the winners would gather their dead and mark the spot were they died with a spear and they also carried their own wounded away.

When the victors returned to their tribes they brought with them the heads of their dead chiefs and the heads of the enemy, the enemies heads were placed on the end of spears.
The heads of the dead chiefs were preserved in an amazing way and these heads were used on future occasions to inspire or excite the warriors to revenge their deaths.

These Maori pas (forts) were on great strength with 2 rows of fences that protected the pa from all sides a deep ditch was between these fences to hinder attack.

All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
8th of March, 2021.