ABSTRACT
As a former colony New Zealand has a shared history that includes a long indigenous Māori history and a European settler history, which dates from the 1790s, with settlement commencing formally in 1840. Māori were themselves migrants, having arrived from a now unidentifiable home, probably in East Polynesia, around 1200, although that date is still contested (King 2003: 50-51). They arrived in a series of canoes, probably seven to eight in total, which oral traditions suggest were headed by the four waka (canoes) of Tainui, Mataatua, Horuta and Nukatere. These waka landed in a variety of locations, giving rise to a diverse settlement and a social system in which each tribe traced its ancestry to one of these canoes. These ancestors (tupuna) in turn form part of an individual’s whakapapa (genealogy), which is always acknowledged as part of the present and cited when greeting visitors to any event.
