Pre-Māori settlement of New Zealand theories

Since the early 1900s it has been accepted by archaeologists and anthropologists that Polynesians (who became the Māori) were the first ethnic group to settle in New Zealand (first proposed by Captain James Cook). Before that time and until the 1920s, however, a small group of prominent anthropologists proposed that the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands represented a pre-Māori group of people from Melanesia, who once lived across all of New Zealand and were replaced by the Māori. While this claim was soon disproven by academics, it was widely incorporated into school textbooks during the 20th century, most notably in the School Journal. This theory has been followed by modern claims of a pre-Māori settlement of New Zealand. Today, such theories are considered to be pseudohistorical and negationist by scholars and historians. Today, speculation about pre-Māori settlers may include conspiracy theories opposing academic research. Some public figures have used these theories to undermine Māori status as first settlers.

Māori oral traditions

Māori traditions speak of spirits, fairy folk, giants, and ogres living in parts of New Zealand when Māori arrived. The pale-skinned patupaiarehe are perhaps the most well-known, of which Ngāti Kura, Ngāti Korakorako, and Ngāti Tūrehu are said to be sub-groupings. In oral tradition, patupaiarehe taught weaving and net-making to the Māori, and could not come out during the day. Ponaturi were similar in that they could not tolerate sunlight, so they lived in the ocean. In south Westland, Kāti Māhaki ki Makaawhio's Te Tauraka Waka a Maui Marae is named in honour of a tradition stating that Māui landed his canoe in Bruce Bay when he arrived in New Zealand. In a myth collected from Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora, Māui threw a giant to the sea and buried him underneath a mountain to create the area around Banks Peninsula. Kupe and Ngahue were both contemporaries famous for exploring New Zealand before notable migration voyages began. The latter discovered pounamu, the former introduced the first dogs (kurī) and created Lake Grassmere / Kapara Te Hau to drown Te Kāhui Tipua – who were described as 'giants' or 'ogres' living in Marlborough at the time. Both Kupe and Ngahue returned to Hawaiki, though Ngahue came back with the Arawa after a war with Uenuku. Other Māori traditions exclude the existence of other humans in New Zealand upon their arrival. A well-known story is how Māui fished up the North Island out of the Pacific Ocean, which Te Rangi Hīroa of Ngāti Mutunga suggests might be a way to say he 'discovered' the island out of the blue, though the rest of the myth is fanciful in saying parts of his canoe became various areas of the two islands. In the traditions of Ngāi Tahu's Waitaha descendants, Rākaihautū of the Uruaokapuarangi was the first man to set foot in the South Island by digging up the many lakes and waterways and filling them with fish. He brought with him the ancestors of the groups Te Kāhui Tipua, Te Kāhui Roko, and Te Kāhui Waitaha. According to Sir Āpirana Ngata of Ngāti Porou, Rākaihautū did not go south at all, but rather his legend was brought down there. Some accounts may say he is an ancestor of Toi through a daughter that stayed behind in Te Patunuioāio, who himself is an ancestor of Kāti Māmoe, Te Kāhea, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu, and Hāwea in some tellings. Hāwea might have alternatively been a different tribe that arrived on the Kapakitua before or at a similar time to Waitaha before merging with them, with other ancient tribal groupings possibly including the Maero and Rapuwai. In Ngāi Tūhoe traditions, Toi's 'ancestor' Tīwakawaka was the first to settle the country aboard Te Aratauwhāiti, "but only his name is remembered". A man named Kahukura took Toi's own canoe, the Horouta, and returned to Hawaiki. He sent kūmara back to the new lands with the canoe.

Early European speculation

Julius von Haast suggested in 1871 that an early Polynesian people who hunted the moa preceded the Māori, who introduced agriculture and lived in small villages. Ideas about Aryan migrations became popular during the 19th century, and these were applied to New Zealand. Edward Tregear's The Aryan Maori (1885) suggested that Aryans from India migrated to southeast Asia and thence to the islands of the Pacific, including New Zealand. Two works published in 1915, Percy Smith's book The Lore of the Whare-wānanga: Part II and Elsdon Best's journal article "Maori and Maruiwi" in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, theorised about pre-Māori settlement. Their work inspired theories that the Māori had displaced a more primitive, at least part-Melanesian pre-Māori population of Moriori in mainland New Zealand – and that the Moriori of the Chatham Islands were the last remnant of this earlier race. Articles in three issues of the New Zealand School Journal in 1916 followed, saying that Moriori preceded Māori people, that they were Melanesian, and that Māori had driven them from mainland New Zealand to refuge in the Chatham Islands. Historian Michael King said that "for hundreds of thousands of New Zealand children, the version of Moriori history carried in the School Journal and other publications which drew from that source, reinforced over 60-odd years by primary school teachers, was the one that lodged in the national imagination". In 2010 three special editions of the School Journal were published to correct the inaccuracies, and the New Zealand government officially apologised for the journal's errors in settlement of the Moriori Waitangi Tribunal claim. From the 1920s, H. D. Skinner and others overturned the hypothesis about a pre-Māori people by showing the continuation and adaptation of the Archaic (early east Polynesian) culture into the Classic Māori culture. This negated the need for pre-Māori settlement in models of prehistoric New Zealand. Since this time archaeology has become a more professional and scientifically rigorous practice and the model of Polynesians arriving in an uninhabited New Zealand and adapting to its environment has not fundamentally changed.

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