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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
Maori Settlement of New Zealand: How Polynesians Reached Aotearoa
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For millions of years, the islands of New Zealand remained a pristine wilderness untouched by human footprints. That changed in the 13th century when the world's greatest mariners executed one of history's most incredible feats of navigation. Guided by the stars and ocean swells, the Maori arrived with a great fleet of double hulled canoes, completing the final chapter of Polynesian migration. From the extinction of the giant Moa bird to resistance to the British, the Maori established a legacy that endures to this day. Learn more about the Maori settlement of New Zealand on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. Spring is right around the corner and for many of you that means firing up the grill and having cookouts. If you're going to barbecue, do so only with the best meats and seafoods. For over a decade, Butcherbox has led the industry with antibiotic and hormone free meat and seafood independently verified because when it comes to fueling your body, quality isn't extra, it's everything. Clean, whole protein means better support for strength, metabolism and that steady all day energy. And those of you who are longtime listeners know that I I'm a longtime Butcherbox customer and have used it for everything from steaks to ground beef for my scotch eggs and meat donuts. As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice between chicken breast or top sirloin for a year or ground beef for life plus $20 off when you go to butcherbox.com everything that's right, your choice of chicken breast or top sirloin for a year or ground beef for life plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com everything don't forget to use the link so they know I sent you.
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The arrival of the Maori people in New Zealand was the last stage in the Polynesian migration across the South Pacific. Using double hulled Wakahura vessels, Polynesian mariners sailed by reading the stars, employing a mental star compass to stay on course and interpreting ocean swells to sense land hundreds of miles away. This was a topic I covered in a previous episode on Polynesian Navigators. Braving enormous distances in challenging conditions, the Maori reached a land that they called Aotearoa, meaning land of the long White cloud. In the 13th century, traveling in up to nine of the large double hulled canoes, the first settlers landed on the North Island. Maori tradition credits a single navigator. Kupe was setting out from the mythical land of Hawaiki. Coupe pursued a giant octopus across the Pacific and eventually sighted the long white Cloud. Kupe's most significant achievement was not just discovery. He also was said to have accurately mapped the coastlines. Upon returning to Hawaiki, he provided precise sailing directions, including details on specific stars and ocean swells, which paved the way for the great fleet. While New Zealand was the last of the islands settled by the Polynesians, it was arguably also the best. The land area of New Zealand is over 10 times that of all other Polynesian islands combined. New Zealand's first settlers face daunting challenges. They came from the Society islands, which lie 4,100 km or 2,550 miles to the northeast. These Society Islands are part of what is today French Polynesia and include modern Bora Bora and Tahiti. This planned colonization set the Maori journey apart from accidental discovery. The Waka were located with supplies, including crops from Hawaiki, to establish new settlements. This preparation shaped both their approach and their navigation of the challenges ahead. They introduced sweet potato as one of their crops. This crop originated in South America and was likely brought to them through earlier Polynesian voyages, probably from Easter Island. The first problem the pioneer population in New Zealand faced was adapting their agricultural methods to a drastically different climate. The majority of the Society Island's staple crops, such as coconut and breadfruit, could not survive in New Zealand's cooler climate, resulting in their failure. With many of the crops they brought with them failing, the Maori shifted to a high protein diet. This dietary change in turn had major consequences for the island's ecosystem. New Zealand certainly provided the capacity for the Maori to maintain their expertise as fishermen. As the archipelago hosts some of the world's most prolific fisheries. The island was also home to an enormous flightless bird known as the moa. Moa varied widely in size, with some reaching 12ft or 4 meters tall and more than 500 pounds or 230 kilograms. The MOA on the south island were actually much larger than those on the North Island. And because of their size and slow pace, moa were easy prey for Maori hunters and provided abundant meat. The fossil record suggests that the moa survived for roughly 150 years after the arrival of the Maori in the 13th century. It remains one of the fastest human induced extinctions in world history. The extinctions of the moa not only affected food resources, but also caused ripple effects throughout the island's food chain. The islands were home to an apex predator known as the haast eagle. This eagle was shockingly large, Nearly twice the size of a modern eagle. It weighed up to 40 pounds or 18 kilograms. And the primary source of food for the eagle was the moa. The extinction of the moa led to the extinction of the host eagle. The islands offered no mammalian life to support it, and as it was unable to fly to other islands due to the distance the the host eagle went extinct within 50 years of the moa's extinction. In response to these environmental changes, the Maori adapted their traditional cooking methods to suit the New Zealand climate. The Maori perfected the hangi, a large pit filled with white hot river stones and layered food directly on them. By dousing the rocks with water and burying the pit under wet earth, they created an underground pressure cooker of intense steam. In some areas, a hangi wasn't necessary. The Maori took advantage of geothermal pockets from the island's volcanic activity and used the intense heat and natural steam to cook their food. Beyond changes in food and climate, New Zealand's ecosystem provided the Maori with a diversity of timber, Something that the society islands lacked. This access to abundant hardwoods transformed Maori craftsmanship in daily life. New Zealand's forests offered some of the most valuable hardwoods on the planet, and the Maori used these hardwoods to hone their abilities as master woodworkers. Maori homes, called wirrupuni, Were large wooden structures that housed extended families. Because they had an abundance of wood, the Maori utilized it extensively for storytelling. Lacking a written language, the Maori communicated their histories and narratives through pu pu. These large, intricately carved wooden poles served as pillars in Maori meeting houses displaying visual stories. The pole's primary function was to record Maori lineage. Remembering genealogy, or wakapapa, is crucial to Maori culture and identity. Maori values are also present in the expansive storytelling of the pupu. The ethos of the Maori warrior is a common theme among the narrative poles. Maori society centered its leadership and culture on the skill of its warriors. Maori children were taught the martial skills and values of the warrior. From an early age, Maori leaders were the most skilled warriors. The Maori valued a person's strength and strategic thinking as the requirements for leadership. In addition to building an artwork, access to new woods enabled the Maori to develop unique weapons. The progression from architecture and art to armaments showed how the new natural resources discovered in New Zealand influenced all aspects of life without metals. The Maui reconstructed weapons with other materials. The most significant weapon was the club or patu. A Maori potu was carved from rock, hardwood or whalebone and symbolized its owner as a warrior. Weapons were carved individually by the warrior, representing their ancestry and skill in battle. Just as important to a Maori warrior was their facial tattoo, the ta moko. The ta moko was a permanent representation of a person's lineage, ancestry, social standing and history. This powerful warrior ethos proved essential as a new era began with the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand. The encounters that followed would change Maori society in unprecedented ways. The first Europeans reached New Zealand almost four centuries following the Maori settlement. In 1642, the Dutch reached the land of the White Cloud. A Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company, Abel Tasman, thought that he had arrived in Argentina. The Dutch East India Company, always seeking wealth and treasure, stopped at the island in search of gold or spices. The Maori met the Dutch arrival with immediate violence. Tasman recorded four of his men dead. The intensity of the battle and the lack of treasure on the island led the Dutch East India Company to conclude that the islands were not worth the trouble. Europeans did not return to New Zealand for 130 years after Tasmania. When James Cook arrived in 1769, he was searching for a route to the southern continent. Cook's crew aboard the HMS Endeavour encountered the Maori in Poverty Bay in the North Island. The Maori greeted the British with the haka. The haka is a ceremonial dance that consists of deep rhythmic chanting, stomping and facial contortions while warriors perform it to unify their ranks and summon courage before battle. Communities also staged the dance to celebrate major victories and milestones. The haka holds deep historical and cultural significance for the Maori and has even been adopted by New Zealand sports teams. Today, a haka serves a wide variety of ceremonial purposes, but to James Cook and the British, it represented a call to war. While the Maori posed no actual threat to the endeavor, Cook's crew misinterpreted the haka as a prelude to an attack. In their confusion and fear, the British opened fire immediately killing a high ranking Maori chief. The stunned Maori had to pivot to defend their lands. Fortunately, Tupaia, a translator from Tahiti, stepped in to minimize the violence. Despite 500 years of separation, Tupaia's Polynesian tongue was close enough to Maori to serve as a translator between the two groups. Despite Cook's efforts to develop deeper understanding of the islands, the immediate outcome was not British settlement or colonization. The British expanded into New Zealand with caution, initially only using the islands as a station for whaling vessels. The early 19th century saw the arrival of Christian missionaries to the region, and this was a crucial turning point for the Maori. In addition to faith, the missionaries brought enhanced language skills in their effort to convert, they had to communicate in writing. Missionaries worked with the Maori to create a written version of their language. This transition to written language allowed the Maori to finally codify many of their stories and traditions. In exchange for timber and flax, the British also brought muskets, as they did in Africa. The arrival of gunpowder weapons sparked an arms race among the Maori, pitting tribes against one another. The musket wars of the early 19th century may have killed as many as 30,000 Maori. Muskets were not the only dangerous cargo carried to New Zealand. Disease spread rapidly amongst the vulnerable Maori. Europeans brought with them diseases that devastated a Maori population with no natural immunity. The Maori plummeted from an estimated high of 140,000 to 80,000 as Maori faced the same dangers as indigenous people in the Americas. After the Colombian exchange, the Maori eventually reached a settlement with the British to maintain their sovereignty and to create some separation between the two communities. In 1840, the two sides signed the Treaty of Waitangi. The two sides had competing interests and translation issues undermined the document's viability. The British hoped to use the document as a founding document for their sovereignty over the islands and to claim it before the French or Dutch. The Maori hoped to consolidate control over their territory and establish a framework to control the lawless contingents of whalers and incoming settlers. The British gathered more than 500 signatures, usually in the form of chiefs, drawing their ta moko on the document. The Maori thought that they were inviting the Queen to share responsibility for governing the unruly European arrivals. The chiefs who signed did not intend to forfeit their sovereignty. The British perspective was that the signatories had done the exact opposite, that their ta moko on the document represented a forfeiture of control to the Queen. This sparked a series of conflicts known as the New Zealand Wars. Despite the ingenuity and bravery of the Maori response, the British emerged victorious and passed the settlement act of 1863. The act was a catastrophe for the Maori as it gave the British control over vast Maori lands, including the best agricultural areas. The resistance to the Settlement act culminated in one of the most significant moments in New Zealand's history, the Battle of Oroco in 1864. Oroco saw 300 Maori hold out without food and water for days against a heavily armed British force that was five times its size. The Maori were surrounded and attempted an escape which resulted in the deaths of half the Maori warriors. Orocco became a rallying cry for the Maori, a reminder never to accept the forfeiture of their lands. The ongoing struggle of the Maori people involves both the restoration of the land lost to the British and the effort to accept their interpretation of of the Treaty of Waitangi. Maori culture isn't a relic of the past, it's a vital piece of the present. From the thundering haka performed before rugby matches to the names of places scattered across the country, the Maori remain a source of cultural pride for the entire country of New Zealand. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Joel Hermanson. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible, and I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord, as this is where everything happens outside of the podcast. As always, if you leave a review on any of the major podcast apps, you too can have it right on the show.