Sudan Kay Bennick. age 9.

Who are the Maoris?

The Maoris are the aborigines ‑ the original people ‑ of New Zealand. They arrived there in canoes many hundreds of years ago. Several groups arrived at widely separated times. They had paddled their canoes across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean. Their original homes were the scattered islands of the Pacific.

The Maoris are Polynesians. Like their distant relatives on other Pacific isles they are tall. golden‑skinned. handsome and athletic. When discovered by Europeans. they were very fond of taiboing themselves.

History records some of their adventurous voyages. In the year 1150. or thereabouts. a Polynesian chieftain named Toi was searching the seas for his lost grandson. He arrived at last in New Zealand and settled there. A very large settlement arrived about 150 years before Columbus discovered America. They introduced dogs and yams to New Zealand.

The Maoris speak a dialect of the Polynesian language as used in Hawaii and Tahiti. They also have many customs which could only have come from these places. For these and other reasons. it is almost certain that the Maoris once came from these islands.