I will be immigrating to either of these countries next year and was just reading about their history & culture, and found this weird.
The Europeans arrived in NZ just about 300 years after the Māori, yet majority of the cities/towns/hamlets you see in NZ are named after Māori names, Māori culture has been well integrated with the European culture and are very well recognized/respected, for example the Haka dance done on multiple occasions by the national rugby union team, the Māori name of NZ on the passport (Aotearoa), the Māori traditions and symbols etc.
But, you don’t see the same level of cognizance for Aboriginal Australians in Australia, even though they are said be 65000 years. There are hardly any cities named after Aboriginal names, no sign of Aboriginal culture integrated into the Australian lingo or cultural practices?
So, why does this incongruity exist between both the nations?
**EDIT**: Thank you so much for the detailed answers, everyone! I appreciate it dearly. Learnt a lot of new things today 🙂
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Hello, my job involves engagement with various groups in Aotearoa NZ, so I can assist a bit.
Political expediency. One factor in the Declaration of Independence (prior to Te Tiriti) was France were sniffing around Christchurch, and the British needed to put some pen to paper. France were still lurking, and British settlers were becoming pretty feral and unruly in their towns. It secured the mutual trade and sovereignty interests of various Maori and The Crown to write Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
However, contrary to many posts in this thread, Maori are not a unified homogenous block. In my region alone there are three dialects of Te Reo (the language). Think of iwi as not ‘tribes’ but nations, and they all had their own motivations for signing, and many did not sign at all.
The British tried to walk it back as soon as they could, and kicked off the New Zealand Wars once the mask came off. The wars were won over decades through attrition and disease (often described as Britain’s Vietnam). Maori were no more resistant to European illnesses than anyone else.
Once colonial dominance was established, the usual land confiscations and forced suppression of culture commenced. Maori war veterans from WWII did not receive any benefits on return, unlike their Pakeha comrades. They became a suppressed underclass we don’t talk about and only looks good in comparison to the likes of South Africa and the US at the time.
The revival has only occurred in the past 3-4 decades, and it is a very precarious thing. The ‘certain demographic’ are as touchy about Maori being seen to get any reparations or representation as any other middle aged white person in the world are about their indigenous population.
The current government won the recent election in no small part due to bleating on about ‘Maori elites’ taking over critical water infrastructure under proposed and desperately needed reforms.
But yes, Australia are where we were in the 80s. Our current government thinks the 80s were great.
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