The Maori

During sea days, free presentations about ports and other subjects are frequently available on a Princess cruise, and many cover the history and culture of an area. We learned a little about the Maori while cruising to New Zealand.

Just as Australia was inhabited by Aborigines and North America was inhabited by native tribes when Europeans arrived, so New Zealand was inhabited by the Maori. These Polynesians apparently settled in New Zealand between about 1100 to 1300 AD. According to legend, they came from a place called Hawaiki, which might refer to an Underworld, and consensus is they came from East Polynesia.

The lecturer mentioned that when Captain Cook was exploring the South Pacific, a prominent theoretical anthropologist predicted there must be a large land mass inhabited by millions of people there, which Cook and others were always looking to find. Could mythical Hawaiki be a South Pacific version of the lost continent of Atlantis, with some cataclysmic disaster having dispersed it citizenry in different directions?

Maori means ordinary or natural, so they considered themselves the natural people, as opposed to wairua, or spirits. They were hunters and gatherers, eating fish, shellfish, seals and birds, but their main food upon arrival was the Moa, a large, flightless bird that looked similar to an OSTRICH. (Have you ever noticed how things you focus on seem to keep showing up in your life?)

The largest Moas were 12 feet tall with their necks stretched and weighed over 500 pounds. Before the arrival of the Maori, their only natural predator was the Haast's Eagle, the largest known raptor with a wingspan of almost 10 feet and which could fly 50 miles per hour. It must have seemed like “Land of the Lost” to the Maori when they arrived.

With only primitive weapons, the Maori hunted the Moas to extinction. Without their natural prey, the Haast's Eagle also became extinct around 1400 AD.

The Maori wore Hei Matau, a necklace with a fish hook pendant made of jade or bone. The shapes of the fishhooks represent positive qualities like strength, peace, good luck, determination, prosperity and good health. In addition to being nice jewelry, they were practical, because the Moahunter could catch a fish meal while on his search for bigger game by simply untying his necklace and using the pendant to fish.

The Maori civilization went into decline upon the arrival of the Europeans in the late 18th Century due to epidemics and superior weaponry of the later human arrivals, but they have staged something of a comeback, adapting to the new reality.