Chatham Islands in the context of "Musket Wars"

Māori (Māori: [ˈmaːɔɾi] ) are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several centuries in isolation, these settlers developed a distinct culture, whose language, mythology, crafts, and performing arts evolved independently from those of other eastern Polynesian cultures. Some early Māori moved to the Chatham Islands, where their descendants became New Zealand's other indigenous Polynesian ethnic group, the Moriori.

Early contact between Māori and Europeans, starting in the 18th century, ranged from beneficial trade to lethal violence; Māori actively adopted many technologies from the newcomers. With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the two cultures coexisted for a generation. Rising tensions over disputed land sales led to conflict in the 1860s, and subsequent land confiscations, which Māori resisted fiercely. After the Treaty was declared a legal nullity in 1877, Māori were forced to assimilate into many aspects of Western culture. Social upheaval and epidemics of introduced disease took a devastating toll on the Māori population, which fell dramatically, but began to recover by the beginning of the 20th century. The March 2023 New Zealand census gives the number of people of Māori descent as 978,246 (19.6% of the total population), an increase of 12.5% since 2018. Of those identifying as Māori at the 2023 census, 366,015 people (41.2%) identified as of sole Māori ethnicity while 409,401 people (46.1%) identified as of both European and Māori ethnicity.

The Bounty Islands (Māori: Moutere Hauriri; "Island of angry wind") are a small group of uninhabited granite islets and numerous rocks, with a combined area of around 50 ha (120 acres) in the South Pacific Ocean. Territorially part of New Zealand, they lie about 670 km (420 mi) east-south-east of New Zealand's South Island, 530 km (330 mi) south-west of the Chatham Islands, and 215 km (134 mi) north of the Antipodes Islands. The group is a World Heritage Site.

The islands are listed with the New Zealand Outlying Islands. The islands are an immediate part of New Zealand, but not part of any region or district. Rather, they are listed as an Area Outside Territorial Authority, similar to all other outlying islands except for the Solander Islands.

This is a list of New Zealand species extinct in the Holocene that covers extinctions from the Holocene epoch, a geologic epoch that began about 11,650 years Before Present (about 9700 BCE) and continues to the present day. This epoch equates with the latter third of the Haweran Stage of the Wanganui epoch in the New Zealand geologic time scale.

The North Island and South Island are the two largest islands of New Zealand. Stewart Island is the largest of the smaller islands. New Zealand proper also includes outlying islands such as the Chatham Islands, Kermadec Islands, and New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Only New Zealand proper is represented on this list, not the Realm of New Zealand. For extinctions in the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau, see the List of Oceanian animals extinct in the Holocene.

The regions of New Zealand are the administrative jurisdictions of the country's regional councils and unitary authorities; the country is divided into sixteen such areas. The councils derive their powers from the central government, as New Zealand is a unitary state rather than a federation.

Eleven are currently administered by regional councils, whilst the other five are administered by unitary authorities. Most of New Zealand's outlying Islands are not included within its regions, with the Solander Islands being the exception as they are within the Southland Region. The Chatham Islands are not within any region, having their own specially legislated territorial authority.
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The history of the Māori began with the arrival of Polynesian settlers in New Zealand (Aotearoa in Māori), in a series of ocean migrations in canoes starting from the late 13th or early 14th centuries. Over time, in isolation, the Polynesian settlers developed a distinct Māori culture.

Early Māori history is often divided into two periods: the Archaic period (c. 1300 – c. 1500) and the Classic period (c. 1500 – c. 1769). Archaeological sites such as Wairau Bar show evidence of early life in Polynesian settlements in New Zealand. Many crops the settlers brought from Polynesia did not grow well in the colder New Zealand climates. However, many native birds and marine species were hunted or collected for food, with birds sometimes to extinction. An increasing population, competition for resources, and changes to the new local climate led to social and cultural changes during the Classic period. A more elaborate art form developed, and a new warrior culture emerged with fortified villages known as pā. One group of Māori settled in the Chatham Islands around 1500; they created a separate, pacifist culture and became known as the Moriori.

The Moriori are the first settlers of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in Moriori; Wharekauri in Māori). Moriori are Polynesians who came from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 AD, which was close to the time of the shift from the archaic to the classic period of Polynesian Māori culture on the mainland. Oral tradition records migration to the Chathams in the 16th century. The settlers' culture diverged from mainland Māori, and they developed a distinct Moriori language, mythology, artistic expression and way of life. Currently there are around 700 people who identify as Moriori, most of whom no longer live on the Chatham Islands. During the late 19th century some prominent anthropologists proposed that Moriori were pre-Māori settlers of mainland New Zealand, and possibly Melanesian in origin; this hypothesis has been discredited by archaeologists since the early 20th century, but continued to be referred to by critics of the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process into the 21st century.

Early Moriori formed tribal groups based on eastern Polynesian social customs and organisation. Later, a prominent pacifist culture emerged; this was known as the law of nunuku, based on the teachings of the 16th century Moriori leader Nunuku-whenua. This culture made it easier for Taranaki Māori invaders to massacre them in the 1830s during the Musket Wars. This was the Moriori genocide, in which the Moriori were either murdered or enslaved by members of the Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama iwi, killing or displacing nearly 95% of the Moriori population.

The Pai Mārire movement (commonly known as Hauhau) was a syncretic Māori religion founded in Taranaki by the prophet Te Ua Haumēne. It flourished in the North Island from about 1863 to 1874. Pai Mārire incorporated biblical and Māori spiritual elements, and promised its followers deliverance from European domination. Although founded with peaceful motives—its name means "Good and Peaceful"—some followers of Pai Mārire became known for an extremist form of the religion. These extremists were labelled as "Hauhau" by the Europeans. The rise and spread of the violent expression of Pai Mārire was largely a response to the New Zealand Government's military operations against the North Island Māori, which were aimed at exerting European sovereignty and gaining more land for white settlement; historian B.J. Dalton claims that after 1865 any Māori in arms were almost invariably termed Hauhau despite no affiliation to the movement.

Governor George Grey launched a campaign of suppression against the religion in April 1865, culminating in the raiding of dozens of villages in Taranaki and on the East Coast and the arrest of more than 400 adherents, most of whom where incarcerated on the Chatham Islands. Elements of the religion were incorporated in the Ringatū or "Raised hand" religion formed in 1868 by Te Kooti, who escaped from incarceration on the Chatham Islands.