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Use digital tools to visualize flooring in your space and find everything you need, from tubs to toilets and all the tile in between to bring your vision to life. The Home Depot Dream Baths built here. It's a drizzly October day in 1975 in New Zealand's capital, Wellington. A teacher in her 50s pulls a shawl tight round her shoulders as she strides down a street, part of a procession thousands strong after an epic journey. They're almost at their destination. The parliament building's a short distance away. The teacher is weary, but she beams, her eyes alive with a sense of achievement. Cars fill the roads as the marchers pass, many honking their horns in encouragement on the pavements. Members of the public gather, craning their necks to take in the sight or shouting words of support, because this march is to protest the colonial laws that for well over a century have stripped Maori communities of their ancestral lands and other rights. And next to the teacher, right at the front, is the leader of the march, the beloved Maori civil rights campaigner Fina Cooper. Although she is fast approaching her 80th birthday, her energy is infectious, and she cuts a striking figure in her traditional feather cloak. It was a month ago, back on 14 September, that the procession began its long journey from Te Hapua at the top of New Zealand's North island, some 600 miles from where they now stand at the island's southern tip. Alongside Cooper, the teacher had been among about 50 intrepid activists who set out that day. But as the march wended its way through remote rural areas and urban sprawls, hundreds and then thousands more joined them. Cooper has demanded a civilized march. Alcohol has been prohibited, and the protesters do not even wave placards. They carry only a white flag and a traditional Maori carved wooden post representing the ancestral Maori connection to the land. Now the rain begins to fall, and from somewhere in the group someone starts to sing. Soon the other marches women, men and children are joining in the traditional Maru songs. Caught up in the moment, the teacher even briefly forgets the pain in her blistered feet and the ache in her tired joints. Then, at last, Parliament comes into view. Ahead of them, the grand pillars of its facade, flanked at one side by the cylindrical building called the Beehive, still under construction, the concerto of car horns intensifies and the rhythm of feet upon the road hastens. As they approach their final stop, some 5,000 souls fill up the grounds around the buildings. There are calls for quiet, and the buzz of the crowd gradually subsides. Even this close to her, the teacher has to strain to hear Cooper over the cascading rain. But as the address draws to a close, she applauds enthusiastically along with the others. Camera crews flit around her, capturing the action. There is no doubt that this is a moment the Maori experience taking center stage for once. And when a reporter now announces on a piece to camera that a petition known as the Memorial of Rights and signed by 60,000 people has been handed over to the prime minister, bill rolling, there is another round of cheering. Those settlers from Europe have been eroding their primacy for two centuries now. The Mori are fighting back, demanding equality and recompense. It will be a struggle, but from the moment the first Maori ancestors arrived in these lands, they've never shirked a challenge. The Mori have had a presence in New Zealand for at least 800 years. For much of that time they lived in imperfect harmony with the natural environment, developing a social and cultural system distinctly their own. But the age of European exploration from the 17th century changed all that. Over a period of centuries, their traditional claims to lands were eroded and their population became dwarfed by that of the settlers, until the voices of activists grew loud enough to challenge the new status quo. So who were the first Maori? Just how did the arrival of Europeans impact them? What sparked their revival? And what challenges do they still face? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is a short history of the Maori. The term Maori, translating roughly as ordinary people, is used to refer both to those descended from the original settlers of New Zealand and to their culture. It is widely accepted that these first settlers traveled to the uninhabited territory from Polynesia, a roughly triangular region of the Pacific Ocean incorporating over a thousand different islands. They come in ocean going canoes called Woka from the east of this ancestral homeland known as Hawaiki. The dating of their original arrival and subsequent settlement continues to occupy academics today as they attempt to reconcile the latest cutting edge research with myth, legend and long held misunderstandings until into the 20th century. It is widely thought that first landfall perhaps occurs in the 9th century and that subsequent navigators follow until the arrival of what becomes known as the Great fleet in the mid14th century. The problem is there is scant archaeological evidence for human habitation going back as far as the 9th century. Not even close. And while the artifacts since Recovered, such as fish hooks made from bone and stone cutting tools suggest that habitation begins around the mid to late 13th century. It's now believed that settlers arrive in continuous waves instead of one single major influx. Dr. Peter Mehana is senior lecturer of history at Massey University in New Zealand and identifies the Rangitani as his primary Mori tribal group.
