States of Oceania

Considered in some quarters to be a watery continent in its own right, Oceania starts where South-East Asia ends, to the south-east of Indonesia and East Timor. Its territory is somewhat debatable but generally consists of the waters of the Pacific Ocean dotted with some two thousand islands, some of which are independent states and others either parts of countries or colonies.

New Zealand, home of the Māori, is within the Australasia section of Oceania, which also encompasses Australia, some minor islands, and Tasmania. Some authorities include New Zealand in Polynesia, especially as the Māori are a Polynesian people.

Māori tribes and chiefdoms include the Karahaupō, Marutūahu, Muaūpoko, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Tara, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Pou, Ngāti Rāhiri, Ngāti Toa (Ngāti Toarangatira), Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Uru, Ngāti Whātua, Rangitāne, Te Arawa, Tuhoe, Waikato, and Waitaha. There is a good deal of folklore which has been written down for these tribes, and a good deal of recorded history too.

Polynesians were descended from Samoans who used canoes to settle what is now New Zealand around AD 1200-1300, during the Neolithic Oceania period. These people became the ancestors of the Māori, who were not known by that name until the arrival of Europeans.

The term Māori means 'ordinary', being used by the natives to distinguish themselves from the lighter-skinned European settlers. The people who would become the Māori spread themselves across the New Zealand islands, dividing into tribes and sub-tribes as they did so. Polynesians called the land Aotearoa, meaning 'land of the long white cloud'. Certain tribal legends name Kupe as the first Polynesian navigator to discover New Zealand.

Legendary information which was reported by Abraham Fornander (see sources, below), claims that a final Polynesian migration occurred in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, when Samoans searched for and found the legendary land of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Some back-and-forth travel followed before they settled permanently.

More recent research indicates that the settlers of New Zealand advanced in drawn-out stages, beginning in the legendary place of Hawaiki (Hawaiki-nui or Tawhiti-Nui), and then through Indonesia (perhaps specifically Sumatra or Java), followed by Fiji or Tahiti and, finally, through an unknown location after which they arrived in New Zealand.

Early inhabitants were hunter-gatherers. Their main prey were seals and the moa bird, the latter of which the Māori hunted to extinction. They also introduced the cultivation of sweet potatoes and yams. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the population of New Zealand may have reached a million persons.

The people engaged in sporadic warfare thanks to the importance of status and a reciprocal maintenance of balance both for kind deeds and evil ones, with the latter involving the seeking out of revenge. Stone tools were used, and ornaments and woodworking were talents of the Māori.

Generally, they were not organised into a monarchy. Some Māori on the North Island of New Zealand's Victorian British colony, however, decided to unite in order to resist the encroachment of European settlers. They founded the 'King (Kingitanga) Movement' in 1858. This represented a unified collection of Māori in part of the North Island but it never spread beyond that area. These Māori chose a king in 1859, and the first two of those kings remained in revolt against the British.

Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight South Island in 1642, and he charted some of its west coast. Dutch maps labelled the new discovery 'Nieuw Zeeland' (New Zealand) after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British navigator and explorer Captain James Cook in 1769-1770 mapped what would become New Zealand. In 1840, the British formed 'Colonial New Zealand' as part of the New South Wales colony. New Zealand was separated from New South Wales as a colony in its own right in 1841.

At the same time, the British concluded the Treaty of Waitangi with assembled Māori chiefs, which formalised the British relationship with the Māori. This major milestone confirmed British law in New Zealand but also guaranteed the rights of the Māori, who became subjects of the crown. It was understood, especially by the Māori, to be a sharing of power between the British and the Māori. The treaty is so significant that even today Waitangi Day is one of the most important holidays in New Zealand.

New Zealand became a self-governing dominion on 26 September 1907, now effectively independent of the United Kingdom. The country has a parliamentary democracy which is modelled on the British style, with the United Kingdom's monarch as its head of state and a governor-general who more locally represents that monarch.

According to the 2013 census, a total of 598,605 Māori live in New Zealand today, including those of mixed ethnicity. That contributes about 14.9 percent of the total population. More than eighty percent of them live in urban areas, a marked difference from the past. A Waitangi tribunal now arbitrates Māori grievances and has even restored land and rights which have been lost to Europeans. Compared to other indigenous peoples around the world, the Māori are in a relatively strong position in their dealings with the government.

Far East Kingdoms

Oceania

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