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Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand, which translates as 'Land of the Long White Cloud') was first settled by Maori between 950 and 1130 AD. Highly sophisticated ocean navigators, Maori journeyed south through the Pacific from their original homeland, Hawaiiki (believed to be near Tahiti), to their new home of Aotearoa.
Aotearoa possessed a more temperate climate than their original Pacific Island home, with no indigenous mammals (aside from the native bat) to hunt for food. Bird and marine life was plentiful however, and Maori also began to cultivate kumara, taro and yam.
Isolated from other Polynesian peoples by thousands of miles of ocean, Maori developed a unique and vibrant culture of their own, reflecting their natural environment and affinity with the land. Maori, the tangata whenua (people of the land) were the only inhabitants of New Zealand for over 600 years, until the arrival of European explorers in the mid 1600s.
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