Genealogy is a fundamental principle in Māori culture, termed specifically in this context as whakapapa (Māori pronunciation: [ˈfakapapa], ['ɸa-], lit. 'layering'). Reciting one's whakapapa proclaims one's identity among the Māori, places oneself in a wider context, and links themself to land and tribal groupings and their mana.
Experts in whakapapa can trace and recite a lineage not only through the many generations in a linear sense, but also between such generations in a lateral sense.
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern tales of supernatural events relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pre-European Māori, often involving gods and demigods. Māori tradition concerns more folkloric legends often involving historical or semi-historical forebears. Both categories merge in whakapapa to explain the overall origin of the Māori and their connections to the world which they lived in.
The Māori did not have a writing system before European contact, beginning in 1769, therefore they relied on oral retellings and recitations memorised from generation to generation. The three forms of expression prominent in Māori and Polynesian oral literature are genealogical recital, poetry, and narrative prose. Experts in these subjects were broadly known as tohunga.
Iwi (Māori pronunciation: [ˈiwi]) are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori, iwi roughly means 'people' or 'nation', and is often translated as "tribe". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, and is typically pluralised as such in English.
Iwi groups trace their ancestry to the original Polynesian migrants who, according to tradition, arrived from Hawaiki. Some iwi cluster into larger groupings that are based on whakapapa (genealogical tradition) and known as waka (literally 'canoes', with reference to the original migration voyages). These super-groupings are generally symbolic rather than logistical. In pre-European times, most Māori were allied to relatively small groups in the form of hapū ('sub-tribes') and whānau ('family'). Each iwi contains a number of hapū; among the hapū of the Ngāti Whātua iwi, for example, are Te Uri-o-Hau, Te Roroa, Te Taoū, and Ngāti Whātua-o-Ōrākei. Māori use the word rohe for the territory or boundaries of iwi.
Whānau (Māori pronunciation: [ˈɸaːnaʉ]) is the Māori word for the basic extended family group. Within Māori society the whānau encompasses three or four generations and forms the political unit below the levels of hapū (subtribe), iwi (tribe or nation) and waka (migration canoe). These steps are emphasised in Māori genealogy as a person's whakapapa.
Ngāti Koata or Ngāti Kōata is a Māori iwi of New Zealand, originating on the west coast of Waikato, but now mainly at the northern tip of South Island.
Ngāti Koata whakapapa back to Koata who lived near Kāwhia in the 17th century. She had two sons, Kāwharu and Te Wehi (founder of Ngāti Te Wehi). Te Totara pa on the south shore of Kāwhia was shared with Ngāti Toa in the early 19th century. Following the musket wars, many of the iwi moved south to Kapiti Island and then Te Tau Ihu in the mid 1820s.
Ngāti Maniapoto is an iwi (tribe) based in the Waikato-Waitomo region of New Zealand's North Island. It is part of the Tainui confederation, the members of which trace their whakapapa (genealogy) back to people who arrived in New Zealand on the waka (canoe) Tainui. The 2018 New Zealand census reports show an estimated population of 45,930 people who affiliated with Maniapoto, making it the 9th most-populous iwi in New Zealand.