Te Ao O Te Maori looks at the first New Zealanders who came in canoes from an ancestral home somewhere in the Pacific called Hawaiki. With their oral traditions and their closeness to their ancestors they can be called ‘Nga Tamariki a Maui’ – the children of Maui.

New Zealand was very different to Hawaiki. In New Zealand nga tamariki a Maui had to make many social changes. They had to work out a partnership with the land which gave them everything they needed to survive. They came to be the tangata whenua – the people of the land.