The Maori

The Maori, indigenous people from Polynesia, are the natives of New Zealand. There are different theories about the origin of them, but the most known is that they came from other polynesian island, travelling in big canoes or Pahi, like 1000 years ago. This people are very known because of their culture. All present in the nature is sacred: the mountains, some animals, etc; all the things has spirit, that they call Mana; they are polytheistic (believe in more than one God); they have a war dance: the Haka (respresented a lot nowadays in Rugby, by New Zealander players); and have temples call Marae, where they meeting to celebrate, weddings or speciffic dates.

The discovering of New Zealand and the Maori were in 1576, but was in 1769 when the first british man went to the island, and that man was James Cook.
After his arrival, starts to come in a lot of ships, all of them attacted by the maori people. The maori didn't give up and they still fighting for them lands and for the brittish people was hard to stop them, so that is why was created the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. The maori kings and the representenses of the UK firmed this treaty where they recieve protection and that they still being the owners of their lands and will have the same rights of the british people.

The reaseon tha I search for the Maori was because for me, they are very insteresting, they have a lot of culture, they are brave and reminds of the Mapuche cause. The Mapuche people resist the conquist of the european till the end and nowadays they still fighting for their rights.

Also all this things reminds me of a book (my favourite book): Un viejo que leía novelas de amor by Luis Sepúlveda (Chilean). I didn't remember a lot of what was about, but I'll always remember what left me inside: never forget your roots, where you came from and always have respect of all the things you have around you... people, nature, food, EVERYTHING