The Māori King Movement, called the Kīngitanga in Māori, is a Māori movement that arose among some of the Māori iwi (tribes) of New Zealand in the central North Island in the 1850s, to establish a role similar in status to that of the monarch of the British colonists, as a way of halting the alienation of Māori land. The Māori monarch operates in a non-constitutional capacity with no legal or judicial power within the New Zealand government. Reigning monarchs retain the position of paramount chief of several iwi and wield some power over these, especially within Tainui.
The flag hoisted at Ngāruawāhia on the proclamation of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero as Māori King, drawn in 1863
The first Māori King, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero
Tāwhiao, the second Māori king (1860–1894)
Masthead from Te Paki o Matariki, newspaper of the Kīngitanga (Māori King Movement), edition of 8 May 1893. This represents Matariki or the Pleiades as harbingers of good weather and fruitful endeavours.
Māori 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 their own distinctive 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.
Māori performing a haka (2012)
Early Archaic period objects from the Wairau Bar archaeological site, on display at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch
Model of a pā (hillfort) built on a headland. Pā proliferated as competition and warfare increased among a growing population.
The first European impression of Māori, at Murderers' Bay in Abel Tasman's travel journal (1642)