Talk:Māori people/Archive 2

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Archive 2: January 2007 to December 2009

Help required: Nazi stuff

Hi, if I go to this page I see some Nazi ad, and a few remnants of the article, the article itself having disappeared. I couldn't find this stuff in the source and it also doesn't appear when going to the history and then looking at the current version. Can somebody PLEASE FIX THIS, I have no idea what's going on. I'm definitely not the only person seeing this weirdness, see http://the-breaks.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40414&p=3755068#p3755068 85.181.28.121 (talk) 12:37, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Gone now, thanks 220.244.54.228 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.28.121 (talk) 13:25, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

It was template vandalism.-gadfium 17:01, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

It's back again. 85.181.28.121 (talk) 19:14, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Use of term "indigenous"

IMO the term "indigenous" is used incorrectly here as the Maori people were early settlers and not even the original humans in New Zealand. Thoughts? --ex-parrot (talk) 10:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no credible evidence for any earlier settlement of New Zealand. Talk to any archaeologist.--118.93.41.78 (talk) 19:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Aha! Once again high-school fails me. Thanks. --ex-parrot (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you two need to attend a few university courses before you start spouting incorrect half truths. It is accepted that Moriori are the forefather of Maori - Indeed Rauru's grandfather is also the Granduncle of Kupe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.87.120 (talk) 01:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Where did the Maori originate?

Where did the Maori originate? They only preceded the Europeans by about 500 years on New Zealand, time enough to wipe out the Moa and the Harpagornis. Ortolan88

The women probably came from Taiwan via Negros Island (in the Philippines) and the north-western coastal plains of New Guinea and the Cooks - but here's an interesting book about the chinese fleet: http://www.1421.tv/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=70 that's worth a browse...Gaimhreadhan 03:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

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Have I answered this question now? -- kiwiinapanic 12:56 Dec 30, 2002 (UTC)

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The origin of Maori is still up for debate - recent DNA testing puts Maori as Chinese and Melanesian, South American (those Maori that bred with Tahitians) and possibly Incan.

Paragraphs taken from noted authoritarian on Multicultural extraction- Gavin Menzies

" Back to Maori DNA. For the past fifty years debate has raged over where the Maori came from. Some say China (Taiwan), others Indonesia. Events have recently taken a startling turn. Adele White, for the ABC television programme Catalyst (broadcast on 27 March 2003), used mitochondrial (female line) DNA to trace Maori origins back as far as mainland Asia. But where in mainland Asia? The answer came from a surprising quarter - by looking at the gene for alcohol. Adele`s supervisor, Dr. Geoff Chambers, found a match between one of the variant genes for alcohol with people from Taiwan, so it seemed the original homeland of the Maori people was Taiwan. Or was it? When Dr. Chambers` team studied the Y (male) chromosome, they found a different story. While the females came from China, most of the men came from Melanesia.

What might have happened is that a small number of Melanesians settled in New Zealand about two thousand years ago; it was they who brought the rats whose bones have been carbon dated. Zhou Man`s fleet arrived from the Antarctic (Campbell Island) in 1422/23. They landed in substantial numbers in South Island and some ships were wrecked on North Island (Ruapuke Beach). The fleets carried Chinese Tanka concubines. The Melanesians murdered the Chinese men and took the concubines as their wives. If this was the case, evidence of the Chinese visit to South Island should be there. Thanks to Cedric Bell, to whom I am indebted, that evidence has been found. We have carbon dating of wood, mortar, stone and slag as evidence that the Chinese lived on South Island and mined her minerals for five centuries before Captain Cook `discovered` New Zealand."

Go back to your history books boys and start burning them - your information is incorrect and out dated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.87.120 (talk) 01:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Maori Wars

Is "Maori Wars" the correct term to refer to those conflicts? They've always been refered to as the "Land Wars" as so far as I've noticed, except in accidemia where "The New Zealand Wars" is fashionable. The name "Maori Wars" doesn't distingish the mid/late 19th century conflicts from the Musket Wars and the pre-19th century inter-tribal fighting.

• "Maori Wars" is widely used, probably more often than "Land Wars" which could be anywhere in the world. There is a bit of confusion with the pre-European intertribal conflicts but the distinction is usually obvious from the context. I sometimes feel that the name "Land Wars" is used to gloss over the racial nature of the wars. My own preference would be "The New Zealand Civil Wars" but I suspect I am alone in wanting that alternative. ping 09:27, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have often heard the term New Zealand Wars and feel it is the most appropriate designation. Mona-Lynn 11:33, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As a maori I can tell you that we call it Te Riri Pakeha. This is often poetically translated as "The white man's anger", but more prosaically it could be termed "The Pakeha wars". Let's not forget who started the damn thing.210.48.113.6 21:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I haven't seen the wars referred to as 'the Maori wars' by anyone reputable since about the 1960s. The most common names are 'the land wars' and 'the New Zealand wars' and there is a bit of debate about which is more appropriate. I think 'the NZ land wars' is a good compromise, and doesn't confuse them with overseas stuff. --Helenalex 04:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm not well read on the issue, I've only ever heard them referred to as Land Wars of New Zeland Land Wars. I think Maori Wars is a bit offensive (I would have used a macron then but I don't know how :) 192.88.190.2 02:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Cognates of Maori

I removed edits by Meursault2004 as they referred to so-called cognates of the word Maori in Javanese and other Austronesian languages. Since the sense of the words he added is 'life' 'living' etc, rather than 'ordinary' or 'normal', they appear to be cognates not of Maori but of mauri 'life-force, spiritual essence' etc. and are therefore irrelevant and misleading in the context of this article. Kahuroa 10:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Travelling in indonesia in the 80s I was struck by the number of cognates, which also have cognates in Hindi and Sanskrit and ultimately in the indo-european languages. I can recall (somewhat vaguely I admit) examples such as do/dua/rua (do/due/deux in europe) for the number two. Langi/Rangi for sky or sky god. Mata for face or eye. There were more but forgotten now I'm afraid. In my view the Polynesians, which appear to have bottelnecked at the Lapita culture, were likely composed of a number of different enthnicities (including Winston's mitchondrial DNA from taiwan), picked up during their wanderings through asia and the pacific. There is a widespread opinion in the Philippines for instance, that I discovered during my visits, that Philippines and maoris are long lost cousins.210.48.113.6 21:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Well that's right to a degree - the Philippines speak Austronesian languages too - not that that means too much since there are hundreds of Austronesian languages, and I don't know that the Philippine languages are closer to Polynesian than the Indonesian languages are. The Indo-European cognates are false ones since the older forms are much more different than the modern forms. If you take any two languages from opposite sides of the world, you will always find some words that appear to be related (but really are not) Kahuroa 23:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your point KR but there are certainly a few co-incidences. Pure means the same in Maori as it does in Hindi and in English (The latter two are no surprise of course.) According to my Indian friends the Hindi Tike is cognate to the maori Tika. Do/Dua/Rua seems pretty coincidental. Given the vigor of the Indo-germanic push into Europe and Asia is it so unlikely that groups of Aryans may not have descended into Austronesian areas and left behind linguistic markers? Tashkop 02:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I had no idea the 'Aryan Maori' theory was still going. In the late 19th/early 20th century a theory was developed based on similarities between Maori and Hindi such as you mention. This argued that Maori are actually Aryan and that this explained why they were intelligent and industrious, rather than stupid and lazy like most non white people (according to the stereotypes of the time). The theory was still appearing in books in the 1960s, but basically it got investigated and discredited a long time ago. There is no genetic, linguistic or other evidence to support it - what you refer to are mostly coincidences, just like Maori and ancient Egyptians having the same word for the sun (Ra). In reference to the number two, there are apparently a limited number of words which are similar all over the world, including low numbers, things relating to 'mother' etc. There is a theory that these are relics of a Proto-World language, but there is debate about this. Anyway, even if a few words do have the same origin, it doesn't mean a direct or recent link between the people who speak those languages. --Helenalex 00:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Please carefully what I am saying, it is not an apologia for the 'Aryan maori' theory as you term it. It is a discussion on how language markers can move among groups. No one would claim that the development of Hinduism in Bali was a matter of parrallel evolution. It came from India - who brought it if not Aryans, deep into the heart of Austronesia? You can call it coincidence if you like, but occams razor suggests otherwise. Tashkop 05:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Occam's razor would also suggest that in the absence of any archaeological or genetic evidence of contact between Maori (or other Polynesians) and any Indo-Germanic/Aryan people before the 18th century, similar words are coincidences. I apologise for suggesting that you were a follower of the 'Aryan Maori' theory rather than someone who had come to his/her own conclusions - from a historian's point of view I was just surprised that the theory had popped up again. I think M.P.K. Sorrenson's Maori origins and migrations deals with this subject, so if you are interested and can get hold of a copy, you might find it informative. --Helenalex 22:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough - Occam's razor is it seems two-edged :)Tashkop 22:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Where did the Moriori go?

It was my understanding that the Moriori were in fact the first human settlers of New Zealand, and that this is confirmed both by archaeological evidence, Māori oral tradition, and post-Euorpean colonisation recorded history (Māori killed off the Chatham Island Moriori after having been made aware of the islands existence by European colonists). So how can this article's statement that "There is no credible evidence of human settlement in New Zealand prior to the Māori voyagers" be at all justified? I understand that the following statement that "compelling evidence from archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology indicates that the first settlers were East Polynesians who became the Māori" might be a vague reference to the fact that, yeah, there were some other polynesians there before, but they weren't different enough from the Māori to even merit a reference by name. But this is simply erroneous. Moriori culture was significantly different from Māori. I think if someone were to amalgamate all human inhabitants of New Zealand together by saying "the first settlers were East Polynesians, followed by Europeans, Asians and Indians, who became New Zealanders" it would be just as wrong. Daniel 12:08, 17 July 2006 (NZT)

Read Moriori. Moriori 00:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Noooooo, you mean I've been lied to all these years? Poo. Daniel 11:53, 18 July 2006 (NZT)

Who were the ones lying to you anyway? I know this sort of crap used to be taught in schools but I thought that died out long ago and the only ones who still believed it were the sort of people who call talk back radio or write letters to the paper without actually bothering to understand what they're talking about (who thankfully aren't in the job of educating people other then people who are dumb enough to learn stuff from talk back radio and letters to the paper, and these aren't the sort of people who can be helped anyway). Incidentally, Indians are Asians Nil Einne 19:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC) Nil Einne 19:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is there no mention of moriori in the article? It definately needs something. I've added a See Also link for it for now.125.238.77.47 02:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, so I added something. There was also a giant gap between Polynesians arriving in NZ and Europeans turning up, so I added a section. I would like people to stop thinking that stuff only happens when white people are around... --Helenalex 19:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

A great many Moriori were eaten by Taranaki Maori transported there by European Ship. TheFarg (talk) 21:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

pronunciation

It would be helpful to have a pronunciation given in the lead.--24.52.254.62 14:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, that would come in handy. I'm not sure (since Enlgish nor Māori is my mother tongue), so I'm afraid I can't help out. Any knows? --Soetermans 08:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

There is one at Māori language but it is very technical. Someone fluent in Māori could probably make it a bit easier for non-linguists to understand, and then link to it. --Helenalex 03:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

revival and definition

I'm suprised there is no mention of Ngata, Carroll, the Young Maori Party or the Maori renaissance of the 1920s and 30s. I know that they aren't considered saviours of the Maori race as they once were, but they were all fairly important. The Maori Renaissance page has similar problems - it refers only to post-war stuff, which as far as I understand it is something else completely.

Also, has anyone else noticed the incredibly dodgy 'many so-called Maori are just pretending to be Maori to get on the Treaty gravy train' bit at the start of the revival section? It might be an idea to have a bit about debates over who is and isn't Maori (ie Brash's 'there are no real Maori any more' thing), but something like this shouldn't be allowed to stand uncontested. --Helenalex 04:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking through the history it looks like someone has recently gone through most of the article and inserted a number of really debatable statements. Most of them can be turned into 'there is a debate about...' bits, with counter arguments, but they really don't need to be as long as they are, and they definetely shouldn't be presented as uncontested fact.

Funnily enough, whoever has done this didn't log in or leave a name... --Helenalex 04:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through and deleted the ones I spotted, replacing with neutral info where I can. There's nothing wrong with having debatable stuff in there, but it should be cited. "There is a debate" is weasel words if you can't cite sources. If you find an IP number for those edits, you can see what else that person has edited. --Tirana 08:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice work, Tirana. I can see what you mean about 'weasel words', but not being able to find a source for something doesn't mean the author has made it up. I think you've done a good job with neutralizing (in both senses) the dodgy edits.

Perhaps there should be a paragraph on identity, though; explaining that Maoriness used to be legally defined through blood percentages and now is generally self-defined except for things like scholarships, but some people still argue that blood percentage is relevant, ie Don Brash's 'there are no real Maori left'. The 'but (insert Maori activist's name) has a Pakeha parent so why are they so obsessed with being Maori' thing gets used quite a bit so it would be good to briefly outline the debate and explain the issues. --Helenalex 01:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree - someone who knows a bit more about the subject than I do should be able to find some nice citable sources on the subject of Maori identity. There's bound to be some academic like Walker or Mutu or Kawharu who has a nice succinct description of Maori being defined within the Maori world inclusively as anyone with Maori ancestry etc. And then "this contrasts with European concepts of blood quantum and racial percentage used in old legislation (cite) similar to that in other countries (cite, eg US Native Americans, Sth Africa etc) and still expressed today by some commentators (cite, eg Brash or Bassett or whoever)". --Tirana 21:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I found some stuff on legal definitions and so on. I'm not 100% sure about scholarships and things but I would assume that there is something in place to stop random Pakeha claiming them, and most I have seen refer to 'a person of Maori descent'. If someone could find a reference for this, and for the Brash thing (less of an issue since we all remember it), it would be helpeful. --Helenalex 03:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[1] has some information and perhaps other tribal sites. FWIW I had a teacher at primamry school ( early 80s) who was in the NZ Maori Netball team, she had no Maori blood but was married to a Maori. - SimonLyall 04:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

History of New Zealand page

I have just expanded the pre-European section of the History of New Zealand page. I'm no expert here, so I would appreciate someone taking a look and correcting any mistakes I might have made. --Helenalex 02:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Origins

Someone has added a whole bunch of stuff on Maori origins to the 'European contacts' section. I have moved this to the origins section and removed the one paragraph that actually dealt with European contact, since it just repeated the info that was already there. I think it's still too long and not always that relevant, but I will leave others to decide how much to cut out.

This guy has inserted the same block of text into a random part of the Polynesia page. I have my suspicions that the whole thing is pirated from somewhere, but Google searches of various passages have failed to turn anything up. --Helenalex 01:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I say lose it, at least in the Maori article. That's material that should be covered in the articles about Mongoloids and Australoids etc, possibly Polynesia, providing it can be cited (it should be sourced from somewhere else, but cited, otherwise it's original research). The teeming grasslands of Australasia and dingoes aren't relevant to Maori. --Tirana 04:37, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Pages needed

I don't know if there is a Project:Maori page, so I thought I'd use this to mention a few Maori-related pages which need to be created:

• Māori protest movement
• Native/Māori Land Court
• Māori Women's Welfare League
• New Zealand Māori Council
• various iwi (the Taranaki page refers to the region and doesn't even mention the iwi)
• various individuals, for example Carmen, Rua Kenana...

These are just the ones I've happened to notice are missing; I'm sure there are a lot more. Also some of the history pages are very Eurocentric. I've fixed the main History of New Zealand page, but others only mention Maori as 'before real history started Maori were here, but moving on to proper history...' or 'Maori fought the settlers and then were never relevant again'. It would be great if people could work on this stuff, and also add other pages that need creating or improving to this list. --Helenalex 00:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I've created a New Zealand place names page, which briefly goes over the general patterns of place naming in NZ. The section on Maori names is way too short, but this isn't something I know much about. Could someone add something about how Maori traditionally named places, patterns in naming and so forth? There is also a section on naming disputes that could be added to. --Helenalex 00:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The article's section on Socioeconomic Issues could also do with mention of the Māori Warden scheme (and linked to a new article on Māori wardens), as this seems to provide a valuable service in helping Māori youth keep out of trouble with the authorities. LyallDNZ 07:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

pluralization

I think we need a section on the correct pluralization of Maori since the Maori language doesn't contain "s" the plural of Maori is Maori and not Maoris as it is sometimes spelt --Yellow Onion 06:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. I also added a bit about the macron, which made me think that someone needs to say how 'Māori' is actually pronounced, if only so Americans will stop saying 'Mah-orie'. I will leave this to someone who actually speaks the language. --Helenalex 22:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Or the even more pernicious May-Orie! Mona-Lynn 01:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Maori Origin - Malaysia, Indonesia & Philippines?

Could the Maoris have originated from Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia & Philippines)? I mean they seem to share a lot of common words with the native Malaysians & Indonesians. For example, rua (two) = dua, ika (fish) = ikan. --203.15.122.35 04:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Polynesians (including the ancestors of Maori) originally came from somewhere in Asia (probably Taiwan) and then migrated to where they are now, probably via New Guinea. So its not unlikely that there is some common ancestry with the people of Southeast Asia, although this doesn't necessarily mean that Maori came from there. Its a good idea to be careful of jumping from 'these two peoples have words in common' to 'they must be related in a meaningful sense'. After all Maori have same word for sun (ra) as did the ancient Egyptians, and no sensible person would suggest that Maori originated from Egypt. Some very silly theories have resulted from people getting carried away with word comparison... --Helenalex 06:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The Polynesians, Malays, Philippines etc are all Austronesian peoples - so their languages are indeed related, and if Taiwan is the homeland, it is the homeland of all the Austronesians. Kahuroa 07:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Major edits

Some anonymous person has gone through this and re-edited pretty much the whole article. This includes the deletion of small chunks of text here and there and rewording. None of it is seriously problematic, but I can't see that it's done anything to improve the page. Unfortunately it's all been done in one go so it isn't possible to easily revert the unhelpful bits and leave the others. I'm inclined to just revert the whole lot, but if others feel that it is an improvement, or just not a problem, I will leave it. --Helenalex 01:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 16:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Waka Umanga

The section Māori#Commerce was entirely unsourced and had a longstanding "citation needed" tag. It also contained very dated statements about the legislation being due for presentation to parliament last year. I've cleaned it up a little and added a couple of references, including one to show that the bill is not dead, but there's still an uncited statement that the bill in its present form is not likely to pass. Can someone clean this up a bit more? It may be reasonable to spin this off into its own article.-gadfium 19:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Gallery

I have removed the gallery and replaced it with a link to the many pictures related to Māori on Commons. This seems to be the trend - maybe its a policy - as galleries are regarded as unencylopedic, and I could not see why the images in question were being particularly featured here Kahuroa 19:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Scouting New Zealand

Can someone render "Scouting New Zealand" and "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Māori? Thanks! Chris 05:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Ansered on his talk Kahuroa 09:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Cannibalism

Twice, this article has been added to Category:Tribal societies that have practiced cannibalism or its predecessor. I feel this is inappropriate as categories should be for defining characteristics of an article rather than incidental characteristics. Accordingly, I have removed the categorisation, and nominated the category for deletion. I have no objection to an equivalent list including Māori. Comments should go to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 April 16#Category:Tribal societies that have practiced cannibalism unless they are specifically about Māori.-gadfium 06:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is there no mention in this article about the extensive cannibalism practised by Maori? TheFarg (talk) 21:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Lego and Maori intellectual property

User:Denzth has removed a lot of material from this section, and I kind of agree - some of it went back to 2001 and I think this sort of ephemeral stuff, based on media beat-ups and not necessarily reflecting the views of all Maori, is of limited value here anyway. Kahuroa (talk) 03:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree the examples removed were ephemeral, however they were also interesting. I would argue Maori cultural copyright and intellectual property protection is unique and noteworthy (even if the examples are ephemeral). For lack of a better (article) option, I think the material should be included in this article (especially the cigarette one, where Phillip Morris apologised to all Maori people). I don't think any information in this article necessarily need to reflect the views of any Maori (it should be neutral point-of-view right?). Matt (talk) 04:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps moving it to Indigenous intellectual property is an option. I am opposed to deleting the information from Wikipedia completely. Matt (talk) 04:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fair enough Kahuroa (talk) 04:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to it being moved elsewhere. I reverted the edit because it was done without explanation (I checked that Denzth's contributions to see if they'd made an explanation here, but didn't check this page until now). If moving it, please use an informative edit summary on both pages, for GFDL compliance.-gadfium 06:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Aotearoa

This word needs to be associated with the word New Zealand in this article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.236.210.194 (talk) 22:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The two words do not mean the same thing, particularly before the 20th century. See Aotearoa.-118.93.0.191 (talk) 00:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

this is not true!

the maori tribes revival was in 1950 get it right!

this is not true!

the maori tribes revival was in 1950 get it right! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.140.34 (talk) 03:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent changes

I have reverted some changes made by two users - I thought the changes about the Moriori were a bit strong to be made without proper discussion as to how it improves the article. And I couldn't see the justification for adding the tribal cannibalism category which the user claimed as deriving from something the talk page (ie this page) . Kahuroa (talk) 08:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The category was removed per a comment above in the comments (in a section titled "Cannibalism") in anticipation of having the category deleted. There was no consensus on the delete, so the category stayed, but the cat tag on the Maori page was still gone. So, I added it back. There are a large quantity of references supporting the noteworthy practice of cannibalism by Maori. It seriously deserved a section in the article characterizing the nature of the practice by Maori. —BozoTheScary (talk) 03:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The category is not appropriate, because this is not a defining characteristic of the Māori people.-gadfium 05:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It doesn't seem appropriate for the Māori culture article either. If we had an article on pre-European Māori culture, it might fit there. -- Avenue (talk) 15:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll agree that a category is a lousy way to mention this, but it is a very noteworthy fact about the Maori people's history that needs to be mentioned in some way. If I produced a section for the article on the historical practice of cannibalism, would there be any objections to keeping it, with the standard caveats about NPOV and citations and such? —BozoTheScary (talk) 15:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Virtually every culture has practices cannibalism historically. Technically therefore, the category should include almost every ethnic group. Instead, it's restricted to cultures which no longer exist, and about which little is known other than their practice of cannibalism.

I have no objection in principal to a section such as you propose, although I think it would be a more suitable weighting to have a paragraph in the "Development of Māori culture" section rather than an entire section. Alternatively, a new section of "History" could be created, including the current sections 2-6 and a new section on the historical practice of cannibalism. It might be appropriate to make this section about war and its consequences, since as far as I know, cannibalism was part of war rather than a way of honouring your ancestors as in some other societies. Slavery should also be covered.-gadfium 19:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Some cleanup needed

The "Performing arts and sports" section could do with some cleanup. I'm not familiar enough with this subject to attempt it myself, but most of it seems simply to need some editing for encyclopedic tone, grammar, correct spelling and capitalisation, getting rid of first-person ("we see") etc. There does seem to be the occasional POV sentence, though, such as:

The willingness and determination of people today will truly enhance kapa haka, and when this is applied we will see more and more kapa haka in our society, and maybe participants will not be restricted to maori but also to the European race of new Zealand.

Obviously those need to be cleaned up or deleted as appropriate. I'm sorry I can't do much myself, but I don't feel I know enough about the subject to trust myself to delete/keep the right things. Loganberry (Talk) 23:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Removed material

User:GCaisle added some material on Māori origins that I believe presents fringe views too uncritically, so I've removed it from the article. It follows below in case it's useful for anyone attempting a more careful treatment of these claims and traditions. -- Avenue (talk) 14:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

However, there are legends among the Maori folklore of people who were in the New Zealand islands when the main migration of Polynesians arrived. A full account is found in the book Tuwahretoa (1959) by John Te Heuheu Grace, a chief of the Tuwharetoa people. The first part of the book is devoted entirely to this early episode of the Maori story, describing the appearance of the people and the extraordinary measures taken by the arriving East Polynesians after they were sunjected to a number of race murders at the hands of the original people. Another name for these earlier ancestors is Maruiwi.

The Waitaha people, one of the oldest surviving Maori iwi (tribe), claim heritage from three different races who met and mingled in the Pacific some of whom came from the West(Asia) and one group from the East (America).They also state they met the Tumatakokiri people already in Aotearoa (New Zealand) when they arrived 67 generations, or 1000 years, ago. They say that skin colour of the original people was "clear red, as the shining moon." DNA research has verified a bloodline nearly extinct, but persistent in Polynesian people including South Island Maori, which confirms genetic material only found elsewhere in the American continent. The claims of descendants of surviving ancient iwi are highly contentious and present tribal evidence at odds with official Maori history as told by the dominant Maori tribes in agreement with New Zealand Government Historians. These claims represent a significant source of debate within Maoridom and the wider academia of New Zealand as to the real origins of the Maori people, dating back 2000 years. Another source of contention is the extent to which the history and archaeology of South Island Maori is politically dominated by North Island Maori tribes, including Ngai Tahu, who invaded the South Island and devastated 200 tribes between 1700 and 1835.

This hidden layer is another story of the Maori people waiting to be heard and is a widely held unofficial viewpoint in tribal subculture. Maori who acknowledge descent from the earlier ancestors have found that it deepens their connection to New Zealand, strengthening rather than overriding the reality of the Polynesian cultural paradigm, placing it in its proper context and adding genetic diversity to the current Maori people.

Social Problems

Why are there so many social problems? They get a lot of help from the state or not? Can anyone tell me the reasons why there are so many suicides, criminals and high unemployment-rates? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.43.20.58 (talk) 10:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Cannibalism Category

I've added Category:Tribal societies that have practiced cannibalism to Categories at the bottom, because this group of people is known to have practiced cannibalism. -Ano-User (talk) 22:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Oops

I've just realized the controversy surrounding the cannibalism category. I will remove it from the Māori article...sorry about that. -Ano-User (talk) 22:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)