The Aotearoa History Show - Episode 2 | Tangata Whenua
Summary
TLDRThe video traces the journey of ancient Polynesian explorers who developed advanced sailing technology and navigated across the Pacific Ocean, eventually discovering and settling New Zealand around 1280 AD. It depicts how the first Maori adapted to the new land, relying on now-extinct giant birds for food until unsustainable hunting led to the birds' demise. As a result, Maori society transformed - agriculture became vital for survival, tribes fought over resources and became more territorial, yet also developed a rich culture centered on concepts like mana and tapu that tied them to the land.
Takeaways
- 😊 The story begins with ancestors of Polynesians leaving Southeast Asia around 5,000 years ago and slowly migrating across islands
- 🚣♂️ Polynesians developed advanced ocean-going canoes and navigation techniques that allowed long open sea voyages
- 🗺️ Over hundreds of years Polynesians explored across the Pacific as far as Hawaii, Easter Island and possibly South America
- 🛶 New Zealand was the last major landmass settled by humans, first reached around 1280 AD by Polynesian voyagers
- ❄️ NZ's much colder climate was a major challenge - tropical crops struggled and new food sources were needed
- 🐥 Flightless NZ birds like the moa were easy prey and many were hunted to extinction within first few centuries
- 🔥 Forests were burned deliberately to flush out last remaining birds as food sources dwindled
- 🥝 More permanent agriculture-based settlements emerged, with fortified pa sites built for defense
- 📜 Intricate Māori social concepts like mana, tapu and utu developed to enable cohesive community living
- 🚢 1642 marked first encounter with Europeans, foreshadowing massive upheaval to come
Q & A
When did the Polynesian ancestors first start making voyages by sea?
-Around 5,000 years ago, a group of people from the coast of Southeast Asia started traveling across the sea. These were the ancestors of the Polynesian people.
What technology allowed the Polynesians to make longer voyages across the open ocean?
-The Polynesians invented ocean-going canoes called waka which were more stable and could be sailed long distances. This allowed them to explore islands across the Pacific over hundreds of years.
Why was New Zealand most likely the last major landmass inhabited by humans?
-Researchers think the prevailing winds made it extremely difficult to sail back to Eastern Polynesia from New Zealand. So most of the people who arrived were stuck there for good.
How did the moriori and Maori peoples relate to each other?
-Genetic and linguistic evidence shows the moriori and Maori both descended from the same original Polynesian explorers. The myth that the moriori were a separate indigenous group wiped out by the Maori is racist and colonial.
Why did the Polynesian settlers struggle to adapt to the climate of New Zealand?
-New Zealand's climate was much colder than the tropical islands the Polynesians came from. It took a lot of experimentation to keep growing tropical crops like kumara in the harsh winters.
What impact did the Polynesian settlement have on New Zealand's native birds?
-Hunting and habitat destruction drove 32 native bird species to extinction within a few hundred years, including all 9 species of moa - a group of large, flightless birds.
How did concepts like mana, tapu and utu shape Maori society?
-These interlocking spiritual concepts encouraged social cohesion, protected people from harm, and ensured debts were repaid. However, Maori society was not a perfect utopia.
What evidence links the Maori oral histories to the islands of Eastern Polynesia?
-Fragments of oral histories, along with climate data, language analysis and DNA sequencing confirm the Maori ancestors came from islands around modern-day Tahiti.
By the 1500s, how had Maori society changed from that of their Polynesian ancestors?
-Maori had developed distinct traditions adapted to life in New Zealand, with unique styles of art, dialects of language, more reliance on agriculture and increased warfare over resources.
What was the estimated Maori population around 1600 AD before European contact?
-Estimates range between 80,000 to 200,000 people, mostly living in the warmer North Island where crops were easier to grow. Average life expectancy was about 28 years.
Outlines
😀 Early Polynesian explorers set out on epic voyages across the Pacific
The paragraph discusses the origins of Polynesian explorers about 5,000 years ago. It talks about how they started voyaging from Southeast Asia, potentially escaping issues like famine and war or seeking adventure. It then describes how they traveled and settled islands over thousands of years, inventing advanced canoe technology that allowed longer voyages. This enabled them to ultimately discover and settle the islands of Polynesia.
🚣♂️ Settling Aotearoa presented huge challenges for the Polynesians
This paragraph focuses on the challenges faced by Polynesians settling Aotearoa (New Zealand), which was the last major landmass settled by humans. It describes theories about what prompted the voyage there around 1280 AD, potentially crop failures and warfare as resources dwindled. It then highlights the difficulties adapting to the much colder climate compared to other Pacific islands. There are also various oral traditions about discovering Aotearoa.
🏝️ Māori culture and traditions developed in adaptation to life in Aotearoa
The paragraph examines how Māori culture emerged distinctly from earlier Polynesian roots after settling Aotearoa. It emphasizes the rich oral traditions connecting tribes to the land, as well as critical concepts like mana, tapu, and utu that structured society. There is also an overview of the organization of Māori life into whānau, hapū and iwi groupings. It notes that Māori society had hierarchies and conflicts, but functioned effectively overall through these traditions.
🕰️ 500 years of Māori history in Aotearoa before European arrival
This final paragraph summarizes Māori history in the 500 years between settling Aotearoa and the first European encounters. It conveys the diversity of Māori tribal groups and traditions across regions. It also highlights major historical events like warfare, migrations, famines and disasters that shaped Māori society. By 1642, the Māori population had grown substantially, though faced many hardships and a low life expectancy by modern standards.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Polynesia
💡waka
💡moa
💡kumara
💡pa
💡mana
💡tapu
💡tohunga
💡utu
💡Pākehā
Highlights
The ancestors of the Polynesian people left their homes over 5,000 years ago and started traveling across the sea
Polynesians invented advanced ocean-going canoes called waka that allowed them to make much longer voyages across the Pacific
Every group of Polynesians who settled on Pacific islands developed its own distinct culture but shared common roots
Aotearoa New Zealand was the last major landmass inhabited by humans - probably settled around 1200-1250 AD
Maori oral histories say their ancestors were forced to leave their islands by increasing warfare over limited food
Myth that pacifist Moriori people were wiped out by Maori is racist and colonial - debunked by evidence Moriori and Maori share ancestry
Arriving in uninhabited NZ, early Polynesians encountered bizarre flora and fauna unlike anything in tropical Pacific islands
Within hundreds of years, hunting and habitat destruction drove 32 bird species to extinction - a lasting cultural scar for Maori
From 1500s onward Maori focused more on agriculture and sustainable management of resources as key food sources disappeared
Fortified villages called pa were built as permanent settlements to defend valuable croplands from attack
Oral traditions and art forms like carvings and moko encoded connections between tribes, land, resources and ancestors over generations
Concepts of tapu (sacredness), mana (power) and utu (balance) were central principles regulating economic, social and spiritual life
Slavery, cannibalism and endemic warfare coexisted with sophisticated oral histories, artforms and agriculture
By 1800, Maori population reached 80-200K after 500 years adapting to life in Aotearoa on their own terms
In 1642 the first European sails appeared on the horizon - a encounter that would profoundly impact both cultures
Transcripts
tim Moana Nui Akira the Pacific Ocean
this body of water is so huge you could
drop every piece of land on earth inside
it and still have some room around the
edges
the ancient Polynesian people who first
explored this ocean were pretty
extraordinary and we still don't know
how or why they did it one thing we do
know is that this land were on now was
the final discovery adapting to life and
our CEO might have been the biggest
challenge Polynesians had ever faced and
today we're going to look at how they
did it
call William r18 a magma
McLaughlin seal a welcome to the Optio
history show
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
this story starts about 5,000 years ago
somewhere on the coast of Southeast Asia
a group of people left their homes and
started traveling across the sea these
were the ancestors of the Polynesian
people we don't know for sure why they
started these voyages maybe they were
trying to escape famine or war maybe
they just wanted to see what was on the
other side of the horizon at first these
were short trips using rafts or small
canoes to reach nearby islands like
Taiwan Indonesia the Philippines Papua
New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for a
few thousand years these people traveled
around those islands exploring trading
forming relationships with local
indigenous people and somewhere around
this time they invented a new technology
the ocean-going waka this technology
probably evolved in stages first you
have your basic worker then you add an
outrigger to make it more stable then
you go double hulled which adds even
more stability finally you add a sail so
you don't have to pedal anymore
ocean-going waka allowed early
Polynesians to make much longer voyages
and they developed all kinds of
techniques to navigate across the open
ocean over hundreds of years they
explored all the way from Hawaii in the
north to Rapa Nui in the West some
researchers think they might have even
made it as far as South America every
group of Polynesians who settled on one
of these islands went on to develop its
own distinct culture but you can still
see their shared roots LT at all was the
last group of islands to be discovered
by Polynesians actually it was the last
major landmass anywhere in the world to
be inhabited by humans our biscuits is
this probably started around twelve
eighty or ninety that's based on a
combination of climate data radiocarbon
dating and oral histories one theory is
that the voyage to all Tierra was kicked
off by a gigantic volcanic eruption in
Indonesia in 1257 which called the
entire globe and caused crop failures
all over the Pacific and this lines up
with Maori oral histories mini e we say
their ancestors were forced to leave
their home islands by increasing warfare
maybe people were fighting over a
limited food supply according to one
tradition new
was discovered by the great Explorer
Cooper and his wife he needs our hanging
the worker was chasing wiki and the two
Danny a giant octopus who had been
stealing the fish but in the middle of
this chase they stumbled across a giant
Island he met chaperone he named it all
Tarawa after the long white cloud she
saw hanging over the land this is one of
many traditions about discovery and
naming and these traditions have changed
over time for example LT Ottawa probably
originally referred to what we now call
the North Island but the name has now
expanded to include all of the islands
of New Zealand there were probably
several waves of migration to our T at
or somewhere between 12 or 25 Walker
carrying at least a hundred and fifty
people Maori oral traditions refer to
fleets of walker coming to Ottawa from a
place called Hawaii Hawaiki is deeply
significant to Modi we talk about it all
the time there's a spiritual place a
researchers have been debating for a
very long time about where exactly
Hawaii was but they now mostly agree
that it refers to several different
islands around modern-day Tahiti in that
ultimate this is based on stuff like
language analysis climate studies in DNA
sequencing it's also backed up by
fragments of oral histories for example
these are very old waka Toki which says
according Oh a little hikakin or eatery
am i eating here i shall never be lost
for i am a seed scattered from gangie
atiyah now Rainey adds here is the Maori
name for I am an island near Tahiti so
there might be one of the islands Maori
referred to as Hawaiki researchers like
Ethel Anderson think prevailing winds
would have made it extremely difficult
to sail back to Eastern Polynesia from
our Teodoro mostly the people who
arrived here was stuck for good
Maori eventually abandoned long-distance
sailing one of the final voyages was a
small group of people who sailed from
mainland New Zealand to settle and riku
the Chatham Islands these people called
themselves moriori
and they developed a unique culture
based on the local environment it was
too cold to grow crops so they relied
almost entirely on comb
why not for food there wasn't much good
timber stone for carving so instead they
created Rocco amore carvings and living
trees around the Year 1500 a prominent
warrior chief Nuno Kufra newer ended
into tribal conflict among the moriori
and outlawed killing warfare and
cannibalism
from that point on the moriori became
strictly pacifists right now in the
comment section of this video someone is
writing something about how the moriori
were the real indigenous people of our
Teodoro
who were wiped out by the maori that's
you please just don't these are real
people who are still around today and
they're sick and tired of being told
they no longer exist yes that's a racist
colonial myth that's been around since
the late 1800s at fit with 19th century
European ideas about superior and
inferior races it also helped Parker
feel more comfortable about their own
colonization of New Zealand after all of
Maori conquered the moriori it's okay
for us to conquer the Maori so it's not
surprising the more the audience was
very popular it was taught in schools
for most of the 20th century a lot of
people still believe it today but it's
not true
it was first to bunk by academics way
back in the 1920s
all the evidence shows Maori and more D
or D both descend from the same original
Polynesians who discovered alter or
skeletal evidence language analysis and
DNA so all on the same page dealt with
that we didn't move on yeah for early
pollination explorers arriving in all
Tarawa would have been busy one thing it
was huge the islands of New Zealand a
ten times bigger than all the other
islands of Polynesia combined in this
Lim was full of stuff Polynesians had
never seen before snow-covered mountains
bubbling mud pools
enormous trees and gigantic birds the
biggest difference was the climate it's
way colder here Polynesians brought
crops with them from the Pacific tar or
paper mulberry and kumara it took a lot
of experimentation to keep those
tropical plants alive through a New
Zealand winter luckily they didn't need
those crops to avoid starving because
I'll tell was jam-packed with Chi the
forests were
all of flightless birds which had no
experience dealing with predators on
land archeologists have found the rubber
stamps of early Maori and they are
overflowing with bones of flightless
birds particularly more bones more
essential to the lives of Maori for more
than a hundred years they ate them the
bones were carved into fish hooks and
ornaments the feathers were woven into
cloaks to protect against the cult the
word Moore is actually the same word
Maori originally used for chicken but
there's a big difference between a more
and a chicken
your average chicken can lay up to 300
eggs a year you can kill and eat a lot
of chickens and the population will
bounce back pretty quickly you can't do
the same thing with more more only laid
one or two eggs a year this made them
very vulnerable to extinction and Maori
don't seem to have realized this until
it was too late
within a few hundred years of humans
arriving in our territory
32 species of bird were driven to
extinction including all nine species of
more plus several other flightless birds
like the Advil the native New Zealand
goose and Pelican this wasn't just down
to hunting and the extinctions were also
driven by introduced rats and dogs which
ate birds eggs archeologists and
geologists have found layers of ash
which suggest huge fires ripped through
New Zealand's Bush around this time they
were probably looked deliberately to
flash the last few birds out of hiding
these extinctions left a lasting
impression on Maori 300 years later when
Europeans arrived in Antigua Maori still
had a worker toki mourning the loss of
the moor well not all Peter eaten at all
or to moi
gone as the more is gone is a similar
saying in English dead as a dodo from
the fifteen hundreds on Maori had to
find different sources of Chi they
focused less on hunting birds and more
on agriculture in came one there was
more emphasis on kaitiaki Turner the
sustainable management of natural
resources there was also an increase in
warfare as people fought over the best
sources of kite before this point
Maori had mostly lived in small camps
which only lasted until the local food
sources were exhausted but now they
needed
more permanent settlement so they could
stick close to their crops and defend
them from outsiders this is the point
where Marty started building Parr
fortified areas which people could
retreat to if they were attacked and
he's that's what happened to the North
Island
most of the South Island was too cold
for growing crops so tribes down south
still had to keep moving harvesting
seasonal sources of Chi over time moldy
developed oral traditions which
reinforced connections to the land which
sustained the tribe often these
traditions referred back to the arrival
of their to Poona in Antigua for example
when the waka te arawa arrived in the
Bay of Quinte tamatekapua who kept and
sprang up and pointed out to the
headland which juts out into the sea at
mockito and said that point there is the
bridge of my nose it said that by
claiming the land to be part of his body
he made it sacred in the claim was
recognized by everyone on board
connections to land and ancestry were
also encoded in visual art forms these
patterns were carved into Wordle pounamu
or even directly into the skin through
tarmac or over time Maori developed
their own traditions and way of doing
things different from their Polynesian
ancestors
that stuff's really important for
understanding Marty history from this
point on so it's time for a super quick
tikanga Maori crash course the basic
unit of Maori life is the one oh the
family group then there's the hapu
the tribe this was a network of families
who usually live together in the same
village finally there's the e we this is
a confederation of hapu who orders him
from the same worker or foundational
ancestor these connections told Modi who
they were and where they'd come from who
they could reach out to for help both in
peace and war time within Marty society
there were divisions based on class at
the bottom level were the slaves Tory
carrucha but this wasn't slavery like we
think about it today these were enemies
captured and battle who were sort of
absorbed into the tribe of their
captives above them with a to tour wider
the common people and then at the very
top with a rangatira the Chiefs it's
tempting to think of rangatira like
kings or Lords because their titles were
passed down from parent to child but it
was more democratic than their
I'm gonna tell ahead to consult with the
people about important decisions
unusually they respected the will of the
majority alongside the other three
classes with a tall Homer the expert
class these people were like living
spiritual libraries they passed down the
e wheeze accumulated knowledge through
tribal history in whakapapa weird a fish
or hunt how to carve away DNA how to
heal illnesses how to deal with
supernatural forces day to day life was
built around interlocking spiritual and
cultural concepts there are lots of
these concepts but we're gonna focus on
three of the major ones mana taboo and -
okay so mana is partly related to your
status it can be inherited from your
ancestors and enhanced by the way you
act in life if you were a great warrior
or a skilled weaver they would increase
your manner but if you were lazy or rude
or just generally a bit useless that
would degrade your mana mana also means
authority your respect there are stories
of Ronettes hero who had so much money
they could scare their enemies into
running away even if they were
outnumbered 10 to one next we have taboo
you could translate this as sacred or
forbidden violating taboo risks offended
the gods and they could make you sick or
even kill you finally these are - but
there is the principle of balance or
giving even if someone gives you a gift
the two demands you give them a gift in
return if someone attacks you who
demands you settle the score the two
tapu and mana were important for day to
day life
mana helped maintain social bonds at
encourage you to work harmoniously to
increase your personal manner and the
shared manner of the tribe
tapper was there to protect people from
supernatural forces and from practical
stuff like it's taboo to sit on a table
but that's also to do with hygiene and
keeping our Chi away from our bats
hitting heads is taboo because you're
here
here's your brain in it in that way when
someone dies in the river as a form of
taboo so people don't eat fish or eels
that have been feeding on human remains
yeah finally the to encourage you to pay
your debts however Maori society wasn't
a perfect utopia
our old traditions of Maori Wolfie can
be pretty horrific defeated enemies were
often eaten not because they were hungry
but as a way of absorbing their mana but
that doesn't make Maori culture
unusually barbaric or evil every culture
has skeletons in their closet also we
should be careful about seeing Maori is
all the same nobody have a lot of shared
heritage but we also have distinct
cultures and traditions different styles
of carving different legends and local
dialects of Cheadle multi like you might
notice me saying words like one Oh in
whakapapa when it's normally said as far
know into pepper I'm not saying
it wrong it's just my local dialect from
from the new Maori spent about five
hundred years developing ways of living
in this fin or it was trading warfare
Alliance betrayal feasting famine
natural disaster migration discovery the
population grew from a few hundred to
about 80 or 100,000 some estimates have
put the number as high as 200,000 most
people lived in northern parts of the
North Island where it was warmer and
easier to grow crops by modern standards
your average Marty had a pretty hard
life many people suffered after writers
from peddling waka and carrying heavy
loads on their backs they often
developed serious dental problems
because their food was full of grit and
tough fibers average life expectancy was
about 28 years and that might sound
short but it's roughly the same as
Europeans in the same time period 500
years after arriving in old Tarawa New
Zealand's largest land animals were gone
but the bush teamed with birds the
largest kahikatea trees reached 80
meters into the sky in the sea was full
of fish and unfertile this point in
history nobody in Algeria needed to use
the word Maori to refer to themselves
the word Maori literally just means
ordinary and no one had even met anybody
who didn't meet their description but in
1642 tongue in Tofino ax saw something
totally new somewhere near the northern
tip of the South Island billowing white
sails appeared on the horizon Marty
we're about to have the very first
encounter with Europeans and their
encounter was not going
to end well but that's a story for the
next episode
[Music]
[Music]
thanks for joining us on the AL Teodoro
history show produced by R&Z and made
possible by the R&Z New Zealand on air
digital Innovation Fund
Посмотреть больше похожих видео
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)