Customize - Urban Dictionary Store

Pro Customization

Create unique products with your own words and definitions

Preview

Personalize Your Design

Your Word

Your Definition

Early settlers of New Zealand, often wrongly described as 'native' or 'indigenous'. There are no people native or indigenous to the New Zealand islands. Everyone arrived by boat in [one] form or another, very recently in human and geological terms, and Maori were by no means the first.

The word "Maori" was coined by Maori themselves to [differentiate] them from [the white people] (or 'Pakeha') who arrived after them from Britain, Australia, America, and Europe. The word has been defined as meaning "ordinary" or "normal" people. It did not exist in pre-European New Zealand, where the various tribes knew themselves and one another by individual family and tribal names.

Maori are generally accepted to have been in residence in New Zealand since around 1200 - 1300 AD.

Maori are said to be a Polynesian race, although parts of their geneology have been traced to Taiwan and China, and there are other [influences] from as far away as Egypt and Sri Lanka. Some East Coast tribes from the North Island possess Portugese genetic markers.

Much of the truth of the origins of Maori is muddied by the editing of history to suit [contemporary] politics, and by the intermingling of Maori bloodlines with those of the peoples they found already living in New Zealand upon their own arrival.

Text fits

Menu

Pro Customization

Preview

Personalize Your Design

Shopping Assistant