Maori Are Not The Indigenous People Of New Zealand

November 10, 2023

By AHNZ

Trust the Australian Associated Press to gate-keep our New Zealand history for us…

“A long-held but unsupported claim that Maori are not the indigenous people of New Zealand has resurfaced on social media. The post, made to a Facebook discussion group on November 16, claims that there were “many other races” already living in New Zealand before Maori arrived. But the claim is false. “ – Australian Associated Press Factcheck (2022)

(Oh no!)

Until 1990s revisionism all New Zealanders received the knowledge that our pre-history involved multiple cultures, multiple peoples. Most books and many information panels and monuments still say that but are being redacted and expunged as Politically Incorrect.

Maori are not the indigenous people of New Zealand unless ‘Maori’ is expanded as a concept to include Moa Hunters, Moriori, Waitaha, and other groups. These days interest and research into those groups suffers because we are in a conceptual prison of Group Think that says they didn’t exist. Anything from our past that is found is automatically the preview of whichever group of Maoris most recently colonised the given area.

indigenous adjective- “used to refer to, or relating to, the people who originally lived in a place, rather than people who moved there from somewhere else” – Cambridge Dictionary

“Canterbury Museum curators are thus priming your brain to regard the object as Maori. The truth is they have no idea.” – 1501: Waitaha’s Lost Luggage?

“Everything is just ‘Maori’ now, obliterating the cultures who came before the Maoris…Maoris never were the ‘tangata whenua’ but history has been re-written so that they are.” – 1503: Frenchman’s Gully Rock Art

“To correct any misconceptions, these drawings are pre-Maori.”- Waitaha Statues “The Three Grandmothers”; hurunui.govt.nz

“Maori entered an already occupied land as their traditional stories readily attest.” – 1280: Capital at Wairau

“New Zealanders accepted a wider world view including Moa Hunter culture and other ancient inhabitants of our islands. In collections like Turangi’s there was also the evidence to support those ideas. Well, we can’t have that!” – 1971: Turangi Information Centre Museum

Why has this happened? Because there is political power to be had in ‘primacy’. Being ‘first’ and more ‘authentic’ carries power so history is made to serve this political need which grants the user control over others. All at the expense of history, or, in other words, truth.

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