In Tahiti and adjacent islands, the term Maohi (Mā’ohi in Tahitian language) refers to the ancestors of the Polynesian peoples.
The term can also be a reference to normal, everyday people, just as Māori is accepted among native or indigenous people in New Zealand or the Cook Islands as the way they describe themselves. Te Ao Maohi – the Maohi world – as an expression coined by Oscar Temaru gives an example of this.
Cook Islanders are residents of the Cook Islands, which is composed of 15 islands and atolls in Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. Cook Islands Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Cook Islands. Only 15–17% of Cook Islands Māori people live in the Cook Islands now, with New Zealand and Australia each having larger populations. Originating from Tahitian settlers in the sixth century, the Cook Islands Māori bear cultural affinities with New Zealand Māori and Tahitian Mā'ohi, although they also exhibit a unique culture and developed their own language, which is one of two official languages in the Cook Islands, based on the Te Reo Maori Act of 2003.
Tāvini Huiraʻatira (lit. 'People's Servant' or 'Serve the People'), also known as Tāvini huiraʻatira nō te ao māʻohi – FLP (lit. 'Serving the Maohi people' or 'Servant of the Maohi people'), is a pro-independence political party in French Polynesia. Founded in 1977 as the Front de libération de la Polynésie (FLP), the party has been led since its inception by Oscar Temaru. From 2004 to 2013 it was part of the Union for Democracy (UPLD) coalition.
The party has primarily been in the opposition, but between 2004 and 2013 governed French Polynesia at various times as part of various coalition arrangements.