Tagata Pasifika - Indigenous People

The similarities between Polynesian cultures often outweigh the differences.

– Reporter Iulia Leilua

Took a while to get used to it. I wondered what I had gone into, you know. But the families were very good. Beau’s family were very, very good to me. They were very supportive, and they helped so much to make me feel at home.

– Māori Moana Rasmussen on marrying into a Samoan family

In terms of understanding Māori from an island perspective, I think that they are the tangata whenua of this land and therefore they must be given priority. They have, in summary, had a harder time than I think island communities have because we basically have fairly intact cultures. The spirit is very strong in Māoridom — if life is a one hundred metre race, the Māori people have started life ten metres behind the start line.

– Tongan-Māori lawyer Kahungungu Barron-Afeaki

I had this idea, if the Māori’s not going to take me, or like me, I can always walk home. I can walk back to Auckland. It was quite a long way so there was a lot of landmarks I had to remember; which one's going to lead me back to highway one that will take me home.

– Nuiean-born Toa Luka on early days in Northland

In live theatre, in performance, people always looked on me as a Māori. But in terms of commercials and in video type work, people always looked at me and said 'she’s a Samoan'. So, it’s quite good fun, actually...because people are never quite sure what you are, and they can never kind of buttonhole you. That’s one of the disadvantages I think, of being our colour — you have to be one or t'other. You can’t be both.

– Actor Whetu Fala

The integration between Māori and Pacific Islanders has never been more visible than through the increasing rates of intermarriage.

– Narrator Iulia Leilua

There was no work here at the time. I couldn’t shear sheep, and I couldn’t kill mutton, or work in the freezing works. I was able to use an axe so I had to go and cut scrub and cut firewood for different people. Got paid £1.10 for a days work — which was a lot of money those days.

– Samoan Beau Rasmussen recalls trying to find work in the East Coast town of Waipiro Bay

... the threat of Māori language death resulted in the country’s first kōhunga reo or preschool language nest in 1981. The move was closely monitored by language communities around the world.

– Reporter Iulia Leilua