1. What do we call the canoes that early Polynesian voyagers sailed to reach Aotearoa?
Waka
Waka is the Māori word for canoe, and early voyaging waka were large enough to cross the open ocean.
2. What is a whānau?
A family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins
Whānau is the word for family, usually meaning an extended family rather than just parents and children.
3. What is a marae?
A communal meeting ground with a meeting house at its centre
A marae is a community's meeting place, with the wharenui, the carved meeting house, standing at its heart.
4. What is a pā?
A fortified Māori village, often on a hill
A pā was a defended settlement, often built on a hill or headland with banks, ditches and fences for protection.
5. What was the moa?
A giant flightless bird, now extinct
The moa was a huge flightless bird found only in Aotearoa. Several species existed, and all are now extinct.
6. In what year was the Treaty of Waitangi first signed?
1840
The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed at Waitangi, in the Bay of Islands, on 6 February 1840.
7. What date is Waitangi Day?
6 February
Waitangi Day, 6 February, marks the anniversary of the Treaty's first signing in 1840.
8. Which explorer's ship was the first European vessel known to reach New Zealand, in 1642?
Abel Tasman
The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642, though he never landed.
9. Which explorer charted much of the New Zealand coastline for Britain, arriving in 1769?
James Cook
James Cook mapped much of the New Zealand coast during his 1769 voyage, more than a century after Tasman's visit.
10. What were prospectors searching for during the Otago gold rush?
Gold
Gold was discovered in Otago in 1861, and thousands of prospectors rushed to the region hoping to strike it rich.
11. What tropical root vegetable did early Māori bring with them and learn to grow in New Zealand's cooler climate?
Kūmara
Kūmara, a kind of sweet potato, came from tropical Polynesia and had to be carefully stored over winter to survive New Zealand's cooler weather.
12. What is a hapū?
A group of related whānau, sometimes called a sub tribe
A hapū is made up of several related whānau. Many hapū together make up an iwi.
13. What is an iwi?
A large group of related hapū, often translated as 'tribe'
An iwi is the largest of the traditional Māori kinship groups, made up of several hapū who share a common ancestor.
14. Which ocean did early Polynesian voyagers cross to reach Aotearoa?
The Pacific Ocean
Aotearoa lies in the South Pacific, and its first people arrived after generations of voyaging across the Pacific Ocean.
15. Without modern instruments, how did early Polynesian navigators find their way across the open ocean?
By reading the stars, ocean swells, winds and bird flight paths
Polynesian navigators read the sky and sea itself, using the position of stars, the direction of swells and currents, and the flight paths of birds to find land.
16. What did early Māori mainly hunt the moa for?
Food, along with feathers and bone for tools
Moa were hunted for meat, and their feathers and bones were used to make tools and ornaments.
17. What eventually happened to the moa after Polynesian settlers arrived in Aotearoa?
It was hunted to extinction within a few hundred years
Moa had no natural predators before people arrived, so hunting and habitat loss wiped them out within a few hundred years of settlement.
18. Where was the Treaty of Waitangi first signed?
At Waitangi, in the Bay of Islands
The Treaty was first signed at Waitangi, on the shore of the Bay of Islands in Northland.
19. Who led the British side at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi?
William Hobson
William Hobson represented the British Crown and signed the Treaty on its behalf.
20. Roughly how many Māori rangatira, or chiefs, signed the Treaty of Waitangi during 1840, as copies were carried around the country?
About 500
Copies of the Treaty travelled around New Zealand through 1840, and around 500 rangatira added their names or moko to it.
21. What did European sealers, whalers and traders commonly exchange with Māori in the early 1800s?
Muskets, tools and blankets, in return for food, flax and timber
Early trade between Māori and European visitors swapped muskets, metal tools and blankets for food, flax and timber.
22. What sparked the Otago gold rush of 1861?
The discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully, near Lawrence
Gabriel Read found payable gold at Tuapeka, known as Gabriel's Gully, in May 1861, and word of it triggered a rush of prospectors.
23. Which city grew rapidly because of the Otago gold rush?
Dunedin
Dunedin boomed as the port and supply town for the Otago goldfields, and for a time became New Zealand's largest and richest town.
24. What was one of the hardest daily tasks facing early European settler families in New Zealand?
Clearing dense native bush to make room for farms and houses
Much of New Zealand was covered in dense forest, and settler families spent long, hard years felling trees and clearing land before they could farm it.
25. What is a wharenui?
The carved meeting house at the centre of a marae
The wharenui is the large carved meeting house that stands at the heart of a marae, often named after an ancestor.
26. Around what period do most historians and archaeologists say the first Polynesian settlers reached Aotearoa?
Around the 1300s
Most current evidence points to the first Polynesian settlers arriving in Aotearoa sometime around the 1300s, making it one of the last major landmasses on Earth to be settled.
27. Was the Polynesian voyage to Aotearoa most likely an accident or a planned journey?
A deliberate, planned voyage
Evidence of skilled navigation, and the plants and animals carried along, shows this was a deliberate voyage of discovery and settlement, not an accident.
28. Where did Abel Tasman's crew have a violent encounter with Māori in 1642?
Golden Bay, in the north of the South Island
Tasman's ships anchored off Golden Bay, where a clash left several of his crew dead. He then sailed away without landing.
29. What kind of food did early Māori communities gather from the sea?
Fish and shellfish
Coastal communities relied heavily on kaimoana, seafood such as fish and shellfish, to feed their people.
30. How did most early European settlers reach New Zealand in the 1840s?
By sailing ship, on a voyage that took several months
There were no aeroplanes yet, so settlers sailed from Britain in wooden ships, a voyage that commonly took three to four months.
31. Which region had another major gold rush in the mid 1860s, a few years after Otago's?
The West Coast of the South Island
Gold was found on the West Coast in the mid 1860s, and towns such as Hokitika grew almost overnight as prospectors arrived.
32. What did missionaries hope to bring to Māori communities from the early 1800s onward?
Christianity, along with reading, writing and new farming methods
Missionaries came to preach Christianity, and alongside it taught reading, writing and new farming techniques.
33. Who held the first known Christian church service in New Zealand, at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands on Christmas Day 1814?
Samuel Marsden
Missionary Samuel Marsden held New Zealand's first known Christian service at Rangihoua on 25 December 1814.
34. What were the two written languages of the Treaty of Waitangi?
English and Māori
The Treaty exists as two texts, one in English and one in Māori, and most chiefs who signed did so on the Māori language version.
35. What kind of settlements did organisations such as the New Zealand Company set up in the 1840s, including Wellington and Nelson?
Planned towns for British settlers
The New Zealand Company organised planned settlements of British migrants, including Wellington in 1840 and Nelson soon after.
36. Many early New Zealand towns grew up around what kinds of activity?
Trading posts, mission stations, goldfields and planned settlements
A town often began life as a trading post, a mission station, a goldfield camp or a planned settlement, and grew from there.
37. What was a rua kūmara?
A storage pit used to keep kūmara through winter
Because kūmara could not survive frost, Māori dug storage pits, rua kūmara, to keep the crop safe and dry over winter.
38. In Māori tradition, who is remembered as one of the great early navigators credited with discovering Aotearoa?
Kupe
Tradition credits the navigator Kupe as one of the first to find and name Aotearoa, long before permanent settlement began.
39. What does 'Aotearoa' commonly get translated as in English?
Land of the long white cloud
Aotearoa is often translated as 'land of the long white cloud', though its exact origin is debated among scholars.
40. Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed Māori 'tino rangatiratanga', or full authority, over which things?
Their lands, forests, fisheries and other taonga
In the Māori text, Article 2 guaranteed rangatira and their people tino rangatiratanga, full authority, over their lands, forests, fisheries and other taonga, meaning treasures.
41. In the Treaty's English text, what did Māori give the Crown, described using a word with no exact Māori match?
Sovereignty
The English text used the word 'sovereignty', a concept that had no single matching word in Māori, which is part of why the two texts differ.
42. Why did missionary Henry Williams have to work through a single night before the Treaty signing?
He was translating the Treaty from English into Māori
Henry Williams and his son Edward translated the Treaty into Māori overnight, ready for the signing the next day.
43. What was harakeke, and why was it valuable in early trade with Europeans?
A flax plant, used to make rope and cloth, and traded for European goods
Harakeke, New Zealand flax, was processed into fibre for rope and cloth, and became an important trade good in the early 1800s.
44. Many prospectors who rushed to the Otago goldfields in 1861 had already been on the goldfields of which nearby country?
Australia
Many miners came across the Tasman Sea from the Australian goldfields, chasing the next gold rush.
45. Why is the exact date Polynesians first settled Aotearoa still debated by researchers?
Because archaeology, radiocarbon dating and oral tradition point to slightly different dates
Different kinds of evidence, dug up sites, carbon dating and passed down tradition, do not all point to exactly the same year, so historians describe a likely range rather than one fixed date.
46. How long after Abel Tasman's 1642 voyage did James Cook chart the New Zealand coastline?
About 127 years later
Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642, and Cook did not return to chart it in detail until 1769, a gap of about 127 years.
47. What does the name 'Waitangi' generally refer to?
Weeping waters, from a nearby stream
Waitangi is often translated along the lines of 'weeping waters', referring to a stream near the treaty grounds.
48. Which is the larger grouping, a hapū or an iwi?
An iwi, since it is made up of several hapū
A hapū is one sub group, and several related hapū join together to form the larger iwi.
49. What Māori word did the Treaty's translators use for the idea of British 'sovereignty', since no single Māori word matched it exactly?
Kāwanatanga, meaning governance
Translators settled on 'kāwanatanga', built from the word for governor, to stand in for 'sovereignty'. It is a narrower idea than the English word, which is one reason the two Treaty texts differ.
50. Approximately how many years after gold was found in Otago did a second major rush begin on the West Coast?
A few years, in the mid 1860s
The Otago rush began in 1861, and West Coast fields such as Hokitika drew their own rush only a few years later, in the mid 1860s.
51. Why did Wellington later replace Auckland as New Zealand's capital city, in 1865?
Its central location suited a country whose population and gold wealth had grown in the South Island
As the South Island's population and wealth grew, especially after the gold rushes, Wellington's central position made it a more practical capital than Auckland.
52. Beyond finding matching words, what was a genuine source of difficulty in translating the Treaty of Waitangi?
Some ideas about land and authority did not exist in quite the same form in both cultures
Beyond finding matching words, underlying ideas about land, authority and ownership were understood differently in Māori and British society, which made an exact translation very difficult.