In a recent post I mentioned Once Were Warriors, a movie about Maoris in New Zealand. Yesterday I met someone from Australia who said that the Maoris had/have an exceptionally war-like culture. They are not the same as other “native” groups, such as the American Indians or the Australian aborigines. They came to New Zealand relatively recently — from Samoa, maybe — and flourished by killing everyone who was already there. The Wikipedia entry for Maori doesn’t make this clear but doesn’t contradict it, either.
Yeah, that’s been my undrstanding too (though I’m no closer to New Zealand than you are–well, actually, I live in Sunnyvale, so I guess I’m a little closer…)
I think that’s a big part of the subtext of OWW–that the abusive husband comes from native group which had been conquered and enslaved by the Maori, and he feels inferior to his Maori wife and overcompensates violently.
jeez. In oww both are Maori. Maori arrived around 1200 and they are the native people of New Zealand, there wasn’t anyone there before them.
They had war rituals that are pretty similar to most small tribal groups anywhere in the world, old european tribes included.
The difference between the european blooded New Zealander and the european blooded Australian is the unique influence of the Maori race on the NZ culture ; and the slow realisation of its citizens, that white nzers are just late arriving “islanders” , the proud reject great great grandsons and daughters of a wave of ‘low class” european immigrants .
NZ has the potential to be a great state