The Aotearoa History Show - Episode 2 | Tangata Whenua

Summary

The 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

00:00

😀 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.

05:01

🚣‍♂️ 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.

10:02

🏝️ 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.

15:02

🕰️ 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.

Keywords

💡Polynesia

Polynesia refers to the islands of the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The Polynesian people originated from coastal regions of Southeast Asia before spreading out across the Pacific islands. In the video, the narrator discusses how the ancestors of the Māori people were early Polynesian explorers who discovered and settled New Zealand.

💡waka

Waka are traditional Polynesian and Māori watercraft, used for long distance voyaging. The narrator explains how early Polynesians developed advanced "ocean-going waka" that allowed them to explore across the Pacific to islands like Hawaii and Easter Island. These were essential technologies that enabled the discovery and settlement of New Zealand.

💡moa

Moa were a group of large, flightless birds unique to New Zealand. Moa were a vital food source and resource for early Māori, providing meat, bones for tools, and feathers for cloaks. However, moa were overhunted and driven to extinction within a few hundred years of human settlement.

💡kumara

Kumara is the Polynesian name for sweet potato, one of the tropical crops brought to New Zealand by the first Māori settlers. Learning to cultivate kumara in New Zealand's colder climate would have been a major challenge requiring years of experimentation.

💡pa

Pā sites refer to fortified settlements constructed by Māori tribes, especially from the 1500s onwards, as competition over resources intensified. They provided protection during times of warfare over disputed land and food sources.

💡mana

Mana is a key concept in Māori society referring to an individual's or group's prestige, authority, and spiritual power. Those with greater mana such as warriors and chieftains commanded more respect within the tribe.

💡tapu

Tapu refers to the Polynesian concept of spiritual restriction or taboo, marking a person, object or place as sacred and/or forbidden. Violating tapu risks offense to gods and supernatural harm.

💡tohunga

Tohunga formed a learned class within Māori society, similar to spiritual experts. They preserved knowledge like tribal histories, genealogies, medicine, arts and crafts, and communication with the gods.

💡utu

Utu is the Māori concept of balance, reciprocity and retaliation - the idea that gifts or offenses must be repaid in kind. It encouraged peaceful conduct as well as justifying acts of war to settle scores.

💡Pākehā

Pākehā is the Māori language term for New Zealanders of European descent. It marks a key turning point in Māori history with the first encounters and exchanges with Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and later British colonists.

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

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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

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