The promise of literacy drew local Māori to Christianity in increasing numbers. By 1840, around 3,000 in the
Anglican lay missionaries arrived in Northland in 1814, followed by Wesleyans in 1822, and Catholics in 1838. Māori were fascinated by the all-powerful God, and the Bible, full of wonderful stories, was key to the desirable new arts of reading and writing.
Treaty of Waitangi
Henry Williams led missionary opposition to large-scale colonisation plans by the New Zealand Company. Missionaries promoted the Treaty of Waitangi to protect Māori land ownership. As the number of European settlers grew and more Māori land was sold, Māori lost their respect for missionaries.
25 December 1814
At Hohi (Oihi) Beach in the Bay of Islands, Samuel Marsden preached in English to a largely Māori gathering, launching New Zealand's first Christian mission. The Ngāpuhi leader Ruatara translated Marsden's sermon.
Samuel Marsden and the Church Missionary Society. A key figure in the establishment of the first Christian mission in New Zealand was Samuel Marsden. During his time in Australia as chaplain to the penal colony, he met many visiting Maori and developed a close association with the Rangihoua chief Ruatara.
Some rangatira such as Patuone, Tāmati Wāka Nene and Rāwiri Taiwhanga were baptised, and their entire tribe then did likewise. Other chiefs became eager to have missionaries in their villages. Many slaves captured in the musket wars and taken to the Bay of Islands were converted there.
Like many things at the time, Christianity – in the form of the Church Missionary Society – came to New Zealand via Australia. Historian James Belich described the Christian missionaries as the 'agents of virtue in a world of vice' – a world the British Resident, Jame Busby, described as 'frontier chaos'.
Although modern New Zealand archaeology has largely clarified questions of the origin and dates of the earliest migrations, some theorists have continued to speculate that what is now New Zealand was discovered by Melanesians, Celts, Greeks, Egyptians or the Chinese, before the arrival of the Polynesian ancestors of ...
Io Matua Kore, the supreme being; personification of light and the world of the living and the forest. Kahukura, a war god who appears as the upper bow of a double rainbow. Kiwa, one of several divine guardians of the ocean. Makeatutara, the father of Māui and guardian of the underworld.
The Maori-Polynesian religion, broadly stated, consisted in a reverence for the personified powers of nature, and a worship or propitiation of the spirits of ancestors.
Māori Christianity Until the mid-20th century, few Māori were secular. Traditionally Māori recognised a pantheon of gods and spiritual influences.
Māori Christianity
Traditionally Māori recognised a pantheon of gods and spiritual influences. From the late 1820s Māori transformed their moral practices, religious lives and political thinking, as they made Christianity their own.
Very high levels of mortality meant that the Māori population declined for most of the 19th century. The most rapid decrease occurred between 1840 and 1860, when the Māori population dropped by up to 30%. Immunity to communicable diseases gradually improved and the rate of decline slowed from the late 1870s.
Hinduism is the second largest religion in New Zealand. It is also one of the fastest-growing religions in New Zealand.
Living off the land
Māori were expert hunters, gatherers and growers. They wove fishing nets from harakeke (flax), and carved fishhooks from bone and stone. They hunted native birds, including moa, the world's largest bird, with a range of ingenious traps and snares.
The missionary movement had a huge impact on New Zealand, particularly on Māori, whose existing spiritual beliefs were either replaced by or combined with Christian ideas. The missionaries were also largely responsible for introducing Māori to the Western innovations of literacy, agriculture and trade.
The Maori people all belong to the Polynesian race. They are racial cousins to the native peoples who live on the islands within the Polynesian triangle. All these people, including the Maori, have similar customs and social life. They have similar beliefs about this world and the next.
Ngā atua – the gods. At the centre of Māori religion were the atua or gods. In Māori belief the natural and supernatural worlds were one – there was no Māori word for religion. The use of the term 'whakapono' for religion was introduced by missionaries.
In the Māori creation narrative, Papatūānuku is the first female entity, followed by Hineahuone, who was created out of clay by Tāne at Kurawaka. The next atua wahine (goddess) is Hinetītama, who fled to the underworld and became Hine-nui-te-pō after discovering that her husband, Tāne, was also her father.
Many Māori traditions tell of the Polynesian settlers from Hawaiki, who reached the coast in canoes about 700 years ago.
Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, they settled here over 700 years ago. They came from Polynesia by waka (canoe).
The Ngaitahu held that the first human was a male who was created out of earth by Tane and given the name of Tiki or Tikiauaha. The sexual parts were supplied by other gods. The Ngati Hau of Whanganui and the Ngati Tuwharetoa of Taupo say that Tiki was the first man but the brief records do not give the creator.
Hinduism is Australia's fastest growing religion. The diversity of modern Australia connects us to every part of the world, including South Asia.
Christianity was introduced to Australia by the first British settlers in the late 18th century. The Church of England (also known as the Anglican Church) began operating immediately and held a religious monopoly over the country. Eventually, other Christian denominations emerged, particularly the Catholic Church.
It remains New Zealand's largest religious group, but no one denomination is dominant and there is no official state church. Today, slightly less than half the population identify as Christian. The largest Christian groups are Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian.