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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A lot of good commentary already, but an additional thing I’d point out about aboriginal Australians, is that for a long time the request has been not to integrate the two cultures, but to ‘live and let live’ – enabling indigenous communities to live as they wish, and under their own system of laws. Aboriginal culture is not compatible with European culture to say the least, and attempts to westernise aboriginal people have all failed.
It’s one of the reasons I was so disappointed in our vote on the aboriginal Voice in parliament- aboriginal culture is so unique and different from western culture that efforts to live together need to be guided by, or at least heavily informed by, the aboriginal people. I don’t really see a future where the cultures are as successfully combined as NZ has managed, but I’m all for improving relations and addressing the problems that exist in Australia in a respectful and informed manner.
17% of the New Zealand population is Maori. Only 3% of Australians are aboriginal, so they have less political weight.
While nz and oz were colonized, the Maori fought like hell and actually secured a treaty that recognized their sovere9gnty: the treaty of whaitangi.
In short the crown recognized Maori as people (not so much australian aboriginals), recognized their ownership of the land, and set up a system by which only the crown could purchase land from the Maori, and only willingly.
Of course they still tried to destroy their culture and steal their land, but the Maori had a huge advantage in that to this day there is still a legal system for Maori people to challenge land disputes, which they often win due to that treaty.
My thought is the difference is that Māori social structure allowed the chiefs to sign treaties they could enforce their people to follow their will.
The Aboriginal Australian chiefs could only persuade and those who didn’t like it could just move across to a different band.
Both peoples fought wars but where in Australia this was covered under martial law and genocidal shoot everyone militias formed by convicts lead by local landholders due to the “Terra Nullis” not recognising their farming practices . In NZ there was something the Europeans recognised and so elected for treaties.
As for the names as the people were pushed away and the land claimed in Oz, there were less first nations people around to give the name to places or correct the angelized.
An interesting comparison is that the New Zealand Wars went from 1845 to 1872, immediately after disease took the lives of 120,000 Māori from 1810 to 1840. The NZ wars death toll was about 736 British and Colonial troops, and 2254 Māori combatants over those 27 years. The result was a crown victory and punitive land confiscations and as others have said, this is where the forced cultural suppression began. The legacy continues today, with battles being fought in courtrooms. In 2003, my own tribe won back land that had been illegally confiscated, but you can imagine all the land the crown made off with as a result of no-one being able to contest claims. My father told me he was caned for speaking Māori in school and there are examples of segregation as recently as the 1960s.
In contrast, the Australian Frontier Wars went from 1788 to 1934, that cost the lives of 100,000-115,000 Aboriginal combatants alone. Another crown victory, but there was no treaty signed, indigenous people were dispossessed, with populations decimated by epidemics, killings, starvation and forced migration.
As bad as that is, you also have the American Indian Wars from 1609 to 1890, with an estimated 55 million dead Native American Indians.
Colonization is a disgusting black mark on humanity. We have a long way to go for true reconciliation and respect.
A big ELI5 factor was that the Māori tribes went to war against the colonialists resulting in a peace treaty that recognized Māori ownership of land.
Australia was declared “Terra Nullius” by the British and indigenous Australians faced a much harsher policy of eradication and many tribes were simply too scattered, trusting or unprepared (to put it simply).
Australia/Australians still have massive issues reconciling with this history and previous government stances were ignore and deny. Eg. If we never recognized it (or said sorry for it), it never happened.
The original HG Wells War of the Worlds story was written because he had read about the British arrival in Tasmania.
He said, “What would happen if some martians came to earth and just did what we had done to the Tasmanians” I.e. murder everyone with total impunity.
I remember when I first came to Australia and a friend told me they got on the wrong train and they went to Woop Woop… Took ages to work that one out
New Zealand seems to be actively leaning in to that cultural identity because it drives tourism and they don’t just want to be seen as the Lord if the rings country
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