Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sia (kumara or sweet potato, gourd, yam and taro); sources of workable stone for knives and
adzes; and areas with abundant big game. NZ has no native land mammals apart from a few
species of bat, but 'big game' is no exaggeration: the islands were home to a dozen species
of moa (a large flightless bird), the largest of which weighed up to 240kg, about twice the
size of an ostrich. There were also other species of flightless birds and large sea mammals
such as fur seals, all unaccustomed to being hunted. For people from small Pacific islands,
this was like hitting the jackpot. The first settlers spread far and fast, from the top of the
North Island to the bottom of the South Island within the first 100 years. High-protein diets
are likely to have boosted population growth.
By about 1400, however, with big-game supply dwindling, Maori economics turned from
big game to small game - forest birds and rats - and from hunting to gardening and fishing.
A good living could still be made, but it required detailed local knowledge, steady effort and
complex communal organisation, hence the rise of the Maori tribes. Competition for re-
sources increased, conflict did likewise, and this led to the building of increasingly sophist-
icated fortifications, known as
pa
. Vestiges of
pa
earthworks can still be seen around the
country (on the hilltops of Auckland, for example).
The Maori had no metals and no written language (and no alcoholic drinks or drugs). But
their culture and spiritual life was rich and distinctive. Below Ranginui (sky father) and
Papatuanuku (earth mother) were various gods of land, forest and sea, joined by deified an-
cestors over time. The mischievous demigod Maui was particularly important. In legend, he
vanquished the sun and fished up the North Island before meeting his death between the
thighs of the goddess Hine-nui-te-po in an attempt to conquer the human mortality embod-
ied in her. Maori traditional performance art, the group singing and dancing known as
kapa
haka,
has real power, even for modern audiences. Visual art, notably woodcarving, is
something special - 'like nothing but itself', in the words of 18th-century explorer-scientist
Joseph Banks.
Rumours of late survivals of the giant moa bird abound, but none have been authenticated.
So if you see a moa in your travels, photograph it - you have just made the greatest zoolo-
gical discovery of the last 100 years.
Enter Europe
NZ became an official British colony in 1840, but the first authenticated contact between
Maori and the outside world took place almost two centuries earlier in 1642, in Golden Bay
