Te Ao O Te Maori looks at the first New Zealanders who came in canoes from an ancestral home somewhere in the Pacific called Hawaiki. With their oral traditions and their closeness to their ancestors they can be called ‘Nga Tamariki a Maui’ – the children of Maui. New Zealand was very different to Hawaiki. In New Zealand nga tamariki a Maui had to make many social changes. They had to work out a partnership with the land which gave them everything they needed to survive. They came to be the tangata whenua – the people of the land.

Later waves of immigrants came to settle in New Zealand in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many came here from societies where life was often harsh, especially for the poor and landless. They wanted to better themselves and they wanted to own land. Settler groups came from places like China, India, Dalmatia, Bohemia, Holland, Scandinavia and the Pacific. But most were from Britain. The social organisation they brought was very different to the ways of the tangata whenua – the people already here. To distinguish them from the tangata whenua these later immigrants are known as the Tauiwi – the settler groups of the 19th and 20th centuries. The impact they have had on New Zealand has been far-reaching.