Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. So this
Speaker 1: is stuff you should know the podcast. Jerry with her
Speaker 1: face tattoos, fipster Maory wanna be Mariya thoughts Maori Maori? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just looked at the pronunciation. I was sure Chuck
Speaker 1: was right because he picked this article. But it looks
Speaker 1: like mayori. It seems like that should be an acceptable
Speaker 1: pronunciation as well. I know, and you know we have
Speaker 1: lots of quiet fans. They're in New Zealand. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: and so this is for you. And if you're not
Speaker 1: from New Zealand all the other ones, you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: listening to just this one. Uh, if you're not from
Speaker 1: New Zealand, then I think you'll enjoyed anyway, because um,
Speaker 1: indigenous tribes are interesting. Plus those of you outside New
Speaker 1: Zealand won't know how much stuff we got wrong. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So chuckers, yes, were you familiar with the Maori ahead
Speaker 1: of time? Did you know most of this stuff from
Speaker 1: this article. No, I had seen the movie Once We're Warriors,
Speaker 1: and that was my introduction to them. Is that right
Speaker 1: many years ago? Yeah, that was the one that won
Speaker 1: a bunch of Academy awards, right, or I'm thinking a
Speaker 1: Whale Rider, You're thinking a Whale Rider? But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: Once We're Warriors is not I feel good movie. Is
Speaker 1: it a documentary, No, it's a it's um just a
Speaker 1: regular narrative feature. But it's uh, it shows sort of
Speaker 1: the dark side of the modern Maori, with like propensities
Speaker 1: for violence and crime and alcoholism. So basically it's like,
Speaker 1: I guess anyone who hears the story in the US
Speaker 1: will be like this sounds familiar. An indigenous group pushed
Speaker 1: around and completely obliterated by uh Europeans. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: later on perhaps suffering from alcoholism and and further marginalization,
Speaker 1: trying to hang onto a culture that is not well,
Speaker 1: it exists. But I don't want to spoil anything. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, okay, So my my, uh, the extent that
Speaker 1: I came to figure out my awareness of the Maori
Speaker 1: um culture, it's my familiarity with Mike Tyson's face tattoo
Speaker 1: and Um, the fact that there's such a thing as
Speaker 1: tribal tattoos and that those are mostly rooted in Maori
Speaker 1: uh tattooing. And in fact, the Maori they didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: come up with tattooing. They're directly descended from the people
Speaker 1: who did. But they had a specific kind of tattoo,
Speaker 1: a specific method of tattooing. I should say that kind
Speaker 1: of um gains them the status of the toughest tattoo
Speaker 1: people around, and that they used not needles but chisels
Speaker 1: to do their tattoos, which are called the tomoco. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tom moko two words I think so, No, I mean
Speaker 1: it's two words of moco is the face tattoo specifically,
Speaker 1: I think right. Um, there's another type of tattoo that's
Speaker 1: not quite as um spiritual as well, we'll find out,
Speaker 1: called kiri two hey and um that's kind of more
Speaker 1: like the tribal bands you see around people's arms and
Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah. Like, if you're a hipster with
Speaker 1: mocho face tattoos and you're from um, Michigan, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna be frowned upon by real Maori people because you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have a moco on your face. No, you should
Speaker 1: have the other one because that's not as sacred, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: And the question is do the people who have these
Speaker 1: face tattoos know what you're saying. I don't know. I've
Speaker 1: seen these white dudes with it, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you know you're not Maori. Well I was. When I
Speaker 1: was looking up like Mike Tyson Maori face tattoo, Like,
Speaker 1: a whole slew of articles came up about how he was.
Speaker 1: His visa was canceled before a trip to New Zealand.
Speaker 1: It was like, and was it because he had faced tattoo?
Speaker 1: No criminal past? Which makes sense? Yeah? And I don't his.
Speaker 1: I don't think his is amoco. I think it's just
Speaker 1: a face tattoo. Okay, let's get into it, man, because
Speaker 1: there's much more to it than face statoos. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the Maori are credited as being the first um settlers
Speaker 1: of New Zealand. The thing is, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: controversy around this. I should say in academic circles, it's
Speaker 1: um typically accepted, widely accepted, and that it's been proven
Speaker 1: that the Maori were the original settlers of New Zealand. Um,
Speaker 1: there are other circles that are like, no, there's there's
Speaker 1: there's evidence that they're not the Maori zone. Oral history
Speaker 1: says that there are people there before them. There's evidence
Speaker 1: here there. But for the most part, if you believe
Speaker 1: that in academic circles, you are considered fringe dweller. Right,
Speaker 1: So for the most part that the generally accepted ideas
Speaker 1: that the Maori settled New Zealand from Polynesia somewhere between
Speaker 1: uh twelve eighty and fourteen fifty. Yeah, and they came
Speaker 1: over on canoes, on ocean canoes that they still used today.
Speaker 1: And um, they supposedly came from a mythical land called Hawaiki.
Speaker 1: But um, these days scholars will say, what that probably
Speaker 1: is is a combo of some real places. Um, Tahiti,
Speaker 1: Samoa in the Cook Islands. Yeah, it's made of tomato exactly.
Speaker 1: But they got to New Zealand and they named it
Speaker 1: uh uh Otowa And there's a lot of pronunciations in here.
Speaker 1: We might not get exactly right by the way, I
Speaker 1: think that might be right. Actually, Oh to Rowa, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say the a is silent. I don't think so
Speaker 1: it's capitalized even that means land of the long white cloud,
Speaker 1: right and in other words, it's the Maori name for
Speaker 1: New Zealand. Yeah. Um, And we should say that when
Speaker 1: the Maori arrived, they arrived as they didn't describe themselves
Speaker 1: or self describe as Maori until the Europeans came. Before then,
Speaker 1: it was just desparate tribes that were familiar with one another.
Speaker 1: But they settled. Uh. It's believed either in close together
Speaker 1: waves or like pretty much all at once heading out
Speaker 1: from Polynesia, arriving and saying okay, let's go to war.
Speaker 1: Pretty much. The name means ordinary or common. And they
Speaker 1: were and are tough people, right. And the reason Maori
Speaker 1: means ordinary or common is they're referring to themselves in
Speaker 1: comparison to white Europeans who, right, and their knickers in
Speaker 1: their fancy hats with feathers and the muskets. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's not very ordinary, especially compared to Maori. Um. And
Speaker 1: they had a name for them, uh pakeha. Yes, those
Speaker 1: are white Europeans who came colon settlers. Anybody who wasn't
Speaker 1: Maori ordinary? Very true? Um. And like we said, they
Speaker 1: were tough, they were very fierce. Um. When they battled
Speaker 1: one of the trophies that they would and you know
Speaker 1: a lot of tribes you'll see do this that we'll
Speaker 1: put the old head on the steak as a trophy.
Speaker 1: Very tough. Um. And then something else we'll get into
Speaker 1: in a minute is very important to them called mana,
Speaker 1: which is a power or prestige, and uh, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of fighting going on when the mana was
Speaker 1: challenged or disrupted basically sort of like, um, you insult me,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go to go to war, right, But
Speaker 1: all of this was extremely structured. Um. The Maori wars
Speaker 1: were typically held in the fall after the harvest, right
Speaker 1: yeah football season. Yeah. Um, let's a really good analogy. Uh.
Speaker 1: They would use weapons um that were usually clubs. There
Speaker 1: were a short range battle clubs called kaika uh, and
Speaker 1: then there were clubs that had a cutting edge that
Speaker 1: were called patu. These are the most typical weapons used
Speaker 1: in these battles. And you would get brained and creamed
Speaker 1: and be up to heck. Yeah. But as far as
Speaker 1: loss of life goes compared to firearms, there was there
Speaker 1: were relatively few. Yeah. It sort of reminded me of
Speaker 1: the old gang fights back in the day, like when
Speaker 1: you would get together with your chains and your clubs
Speaker 1: and hit each other and fight. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: would walk away with your bruises and your scrapes and um,
Speaker 1: not a lot of loss of life, right, But the
Speaker 1: the intent was the same. It was the vanquished people
Speaker 1: to get control of their land, to make them move
Speaker 1: to more populated, less fertile areas. Um. And like you said,
Speaker 1: it was to gain mana or prestige for your tribe. Um.
Speaker 1: Everything changed once the Europeans came and brought firearms, as
Speaker 1: is the pretty by now familiar narrative for anybody who's
Speaker 1: listened to one of our cultural historical episodes. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting that it follows about the same path all
Speaker 1: over the world. You know, the boomstick comes in, the
Speaker 1: white folks come in with the boomstick and the powder,
Speaker 1: the boom powder, and then things change, um. And things
Speaker 1: changed by the Maori gaining access to some of these guns. Um.
Speaker 1: And it says here you know, they would trade things
Speaker 1: like pigs and flax and potatoes. But I watched the
Speaker 1: documentary last night and six, as the documentarian said, was
Speaker 1: the big trading coinage basically what it was six? What
Speaker 1: is that s e x six? He kept saying it though,
Speaker 1: you know, in that Kiwi accent, which is one of
Speaker 1: my favorites, by the way. Um. And so they would
Speaker 1: trade when they ran out of other stuff to trade.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a big hot spot for Europeans,
Speaker 1: not even to settle necessarily, but to come by and
Speaker 1: do some trading and stop over. And they would stop
Speaker 1: over and they would sign their women up to like
Speaker 1: three week contracts and trade for one musket. And it
Speaker 1: was a very sexual culture. Like women and this was
Speaker 1: in the hundreds could take like multiple lovers and not
Speaker 1: be looked down upon. And they didn't have the hangups
Speaker 1: that europe did about sex. Yeah, I know, the HMS
Speaker 1: bounty was mutinied because the sailors wanted to go back
Speaker 1: to Polynesia. Well, dude, the Maori were down with it
Speaker 1: early on. They didn't have big hang ups, um hang ups.
Speaker 1: You could have sex before you were married and it
Speaker 1: wasn't a big deal. Um. So the sex trade by
Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties was the biggest uh money maker in
Speaker 1: New Zealand at the musket huh so chuck the when
Speaker 1: the muskets come along um eighteen oh seven is kind
Speaker 1: of a seminal year because this is the year when
Speaker 1: the first Maori tribe um got their hands on muskets
Speaker 1: and used them for battle. Yeah. The problem is they
Speaker 1: hadn't practiced quite so much, and so as they're trying
Speaker 1: to fire and reload and aim, they were vanquished by
Speaker 1: the ie they raided with using traditional clubs and get
Speaker 1: clubbed in the head while they're trying to load a musket.
Speaker 1: And I think that some of them started to swinging
Speaker 1: the musket like a big club, which is it makes sense,
Speaker 1: especially even out of frustration. And that actually started the
Speaker 1: musket wars. Yeah, because the leader of that tribe said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we these firearms. We shouldn't abandon him yet,
Speaker 1: so let's get some more and we'll trade whatever we
Speaker 1: need to for him, and let's practice this time, and
Speaker 1: hence the musket wars were born. Once they got good,
Speaker 1: they started tearing up the countryside in eighteen fifteen and
Speaker 1: just basically said we've got these guns, we're gonna kill you,
Speaker 1: take your land, enslave you, and maybe eat you. Yes,
Speaker 1: they mentioned that a lot of Polynesian tribes they they
Speaker 1: were accused of cannibalism. I don't know if it's true
Speaker 1: or not. Yeah, bears pointing out them, right. Um, but
Speaker 1: this first group that got the muskets definitely changed everything
Speaker 1: because now it was kind of like, um, when the
Speaker 1: Soviets and the Americans, when the Americans had the bomb.
Speaker 1: So if you were like, we have to have the bomb.
Speaker 1: Now you can't just have one country with the bomb.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have just one Maori tribe with firearms. Other
Speaker 1: groups were forced to adopt firearms as well, and hence
Speaker 1: the musket wars got pretty bloody. Yeah, but it became
Speaker 1: the great equalizer. About twenty Maori and New Zealander's died.
Speaker 1: But once everyone had guns, it's sort of calm things
Speaker 1: down in a weird way. Yeah. Well, it's like the
Speaker 1: mutual usured destruction exactly. So before we move on, I
Speaker 1: think it's a good time for a message break, all right,
Speaker 1: So let's continue. So chuck um. The eighteen thirties, Uh,
Speaker 1: two tribes that have been forced off their land by
Speaker 1: other must get using. Maoris um went south. I believe
Speaker 1: it was south of the Chatham Islands. Yeah. They wanted
Speaker 1: to basically find a better place to live where all
Speaker 1: this war wasn't going on. But they found the Moriory
Speaker 1: people and that's right, but what's one more war? Exactly
Speaker 1: because they were a peaceful people and they were like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, these people are here, let's figure out what
Speaker 1: to do with them. And they said kill them, kill
Speaker 1: them basically, Yeah, that's what they did. They killed them,
Speaker 1: thrust them into slavery, and then um basically took over
Speaker 1: Chatham Island and now it was a Maori island, right.
Speaker 1: So one genocide, that goot another genocide, that's right. So
Speaker 1: the Maori are like pretty well established by this time,
Speaker 1: but they're kind of hanging onto their cultural lives um,
Speaker 1: and everything kind of hinged on a rumor. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was a factual rumor or not, but
Speaker 1: come eighteen thirty five there was a rumor that France
Speaker 1: was going to try to annex New Zealand. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: previous previous day, eighteen forty they were pretty welcoming of
Speaker 1: the Europeans, like they are of trading with them. They
Speaker 1: got along pretty well. Even this guy in the documentary
Speaker 1: that said six said that they were you know, they
Speaker 1: got pretty friendly and they said, you know, come here,
Speaker 1: route down will be trade partners and we all got
Speaker 1: along great. But like you said in thirty five, that's
Speaker 1: when France started, or at least there the Maori's point
Speaker 1: of view was France was trying to get their little
Speaker 1: French hooks in them, right and good. By this time,
Speaker 1: the Maori had a pretty good idea that they were
Speaker 1: in trouble. They were losing their numbers, which they think
Speaker 1: hit about a hundred thousand before contact with Europeans, um
Speaker 1: to not just the Musket Wars, but also disease introduced
Speaker 1: by Europeans and familiar thing um. So they they decided
Speaker 1: to allie themselves. In the face of this rumor that
Speaker 1: France um was gonna annex New Zealand, they decided to
Speaker 1: allie their lands to the British. And why not at
Speaker 1: the time, who else are you gonna go with? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like, we like your powdered wigs, Yeah you're read, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like your accent. We can nick that and change it
Speaker 1: around a bit and making our own. And so let's
Speaker 1: sign the Treaty of Watangi. Yes, and uh it was.
Speaker 1: It was a pretty good contract. At first, they thought,
Speaker 1: um it gave the Marory control over their own land,
Speaker 1: and yeah, so they think, um, until it turns out
Speaker 1: that the British really said, you know what, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a lot of that land. We're gonna tax you
Speaker 1: and violate the treaty in that way, and um, this
Speaker 1: ancestral land that's been in your family forever, we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna just take what we want basically and shuffle
Speaker 1: you to the side, just like American treaty was going
Speaker 1: to be broken. So that started the New Zealand Wars.
Speaker 1: And this guy in the documentary said, it's sort of again,
Speaker 1: sort of like here in America, they weren't really taught
Speaker 1: that so much in school, or they were taught a
Speaker 1: very sanitized version of the New Zealand Wars, when in
Speaker 1: fact it was thirty years of very bloody, fierce battling
Speaker 1: with the British soldiers in the British government, and um,
Speaker 1: dwindled down to really sad. So at this point, what
Speaker 1: you have is what would be called an evolutionary bottleneck. Basically, Um,
Speaker 1: you have a group of population that's in real danger
Speaker 1: of extinction. Um. And I guess what the Marie does say, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, the British control New Zealand. We're not going away.
Speaker 1: We are fierce warriors. Have you seen these tattoos we got? Uh?
Speaker 1: And the British said again, we are in control of
Speaker 1: New Zealand. You just said it yourself. We won't wipe
Speaker 1: you out entirely because hey, it's almost the twentieth century
Speaker 1: and who does that, right, Um, But we are going
Speaker 1: to anglicize you. And first let's start by creating an alphabet.
Speaker 1: Which this struck me as weird, right, Marie culture had
Speaker 1: an oral tradition. They didn't have any written language. They
Speaker 1: had totems basically what amount to totems comparison, um, But
Speaker 1: they didn't have any kind of alphabet or written language.
Speaker 1: And so European missionaries said about creating one. Rather than
Speaker 1: teaching them just English, like oh, well, here's your written language,
Speaker 1: they went about creating a Maori written language, which is
Speaker 1: strange to me, you know, like there's this is the
Speaker 1: Maori experience. It's almost like a condensed version of what
Speaker 1: went on in in North America and in the United States.
Speaker 1: There's like one treaty. Um, there's some weird aspects to it,
Speaker 1: where like missionaries are not just trying to anglicize the groups,
Speaker 1: they're helping them preserve their culture simultaneously. UM. And I
Speaker 1: think that that was helped Maori culture survived by taking
Speaker 1: their royal traditions and writing them down. But that's not
Speaker 1: to say the Maori were helpless in preserving their own
Speaker 1: traditions because as we'll see that everyone's expected to know
Speaker 1: their own history and to be able to recite it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Um. And that that came along in the
Speaker 1: seventies is when they really started to sort of gain
Speaker 1: more ground in re establishing their culture and claiming their
Speaker 1: culture as their own. Uh. Previous to that, they it
Speaker 1: really dwindled because they they they scattered. Basically they started
Speaker 1: to move to urban areas. Um. After World War Two
Speaker 1: there was a mass migration. Prior to the war lived
Speaker 1: in rural New Zealand and twenty years later lived in
Speaker 1: urban areas. So I mean that's when you moved the
Speaker 1: tribe from their native land. You take their land and
Speaker 1: they moved to the big city. It just the culture
Speaker 1: is just gonna go away. Well, it gets diluted, especially
Speaker 1: in the face of the government. Um. The official language
Speaker 1: of New Zealand was English. Yeah, they tried their best
Speaker 1: to stamp it out there. Yeah, there were government schools
Speaker 1: that weren't like they didn't teach anything about myer Maori culture. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, the the culture was the people were
Speaker 1: still there, but they were losing their culture. And then
Speaker 1: like you said again, uh, analogous to um, North America
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies saw a an awakening of pride
Speaker 1: in being a Maori, just like the aim the American
Speaker 1: Indian Movement was founded in the seventies UM and in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. By that time about of the Maori
Speaker 1: were actually fluent speakers of their language, which was Terreo
Speaker 1: Maori was the name of the language. So it was
Speaker 1: a big win, it was, but the there was a
Speaker 1: lot of groundwork that was laid between the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: a lot of battles that were fought. In one UM,
Speaker 1: there's a the establishment of the Maori Party and political party. UM.
Speaker 1: They sued the government to have Treo Maori, the Maori
Speaker 1: language be officially recognized somehow, and in ninety five UM
Speaker 1: the British were forced to say, yes, this is a
Speaker 1: treasure that we were supposed to protect under the Treaty
Speaker 1: of what Tangy and we didn't, So now we're gonna
Speaker 1: make this one of three official languages in New Zealand. English,
Speaker 1: New Zealand Sign Language and uh Terrayo Maori are now
Speaker 1: the three official languages of New Zealand. Exactly in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five that was the designation of Maori Language Week
Speaker 1: and they opened the first bilingual school in ninety eight.
Speaker 1: So by the time five rolled around, they made it
Speaker 1: an official one of the official languages. Um, like we
Speaker 1: said about we're now speaking it and fluent in it,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, the British were like, well, we'll
Speaker 1: give you these small things, but what we don't want
Speaker 1: to give you back is your land. But they were
Speaker 1: forced to eventually with the what what Tangi Tribunal in
Speaker 1: nineteen it was It's not h I don't think it
Speaker 1: was um. I don't think they established laws. I think
Speaker 1: it was just like you fill an application out into
Speaker 1: a claim on some land and they'll decide whether or
Speaker 1: not to give it back to your family. And they
Speaker 1: did to a large degree, not all of it though.
Speaker 1: So was it like a European run tribunal that like
Speaker 1: um that indigenous people went and petitioned or was it
Speaker 1: was it made up of indigenous people, because I got
Speaker 1: the impression that they were like jealously guarded um Maori
Speaker 1: culture and we're like suing for repatriation of Maori artifacts
Speaker 1: from other museums. And well, yeah, that definitely happened because
Speaker 1: there were you know, Maori trinkets and um heads all
Speaker 1: over the world. And it's still ongoing today. Um, like
Speaker 1: all these reparations are still going on, like people are
Speaker 1: still getting back their land even here in the twenty
Speaker 1: one century. So the um the Maori culture kind of
Speaker 1: is vibrant, beaten down, hangs on by a thread and
Speaker 1: starts to revive. Right. That's right, that's good. That's where
Speaker 1: we're at. Okay, um, let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: their culture again. A lot of it was deluded and
Speaker 1: lost over time, but there's still like some very robust
Speaker 1: um fundamentals that are very much alive today. Yeah. They're
Speaker 1: very spiritual people, even though they were fierce warriors. Um
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of the white folks thought
Speaker 1: they were savages. Of course, sounds familiar, like the face
Speaker 1: tattoos were very much repressed but never went away exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: So they're very spiritual. They believe that um, their ancestors
Speaker 1: and other supernatural beings are always around. UM, their family
Speaker 1: and their ancestry is really really important. Their genealogy, which
Speaker 1: they called the uh waka papa waka papa. I went
Speaker 1: with wakapapa waka papa. UM, that's the genealogy of the ancestors.
Speaker 1: Um spiritual and mythological significance and basically your whole spiritual
Speaker 1: existence as a person is told through the wakapapa, and
Speaker 1: the face tattoos will tell that story. That's what that's
Speaker 1: what it means. That's why they're not hip on non
Speaker 1: Maori people getting these things. Yeah, you're insulting like their
Speaker 1: ancestry basically, and they're really protective of this stuff. I
Speaker 1: was reading um about Maori waka papa stories and how
Speaker 1: like if you're like a social services worker, like you're
Speaker 1: not necessarily told to ask these questions that would be
Speaker 1: considered part of somebody's wakapapa, Like they'll tell you if
Speaker 1: they trust you. Um. Yeah, and you don't just run
Speaker 1: around telling just anybody. There's actually some sort of UM.
Speaker 1: I believe there's a law where Maori will tell the
Speaker 1: their waka papa to government agencies. But these things have
Speaker 1: to be like explicitly protected, like now that they're being
Speaker 1: put out there on the internet and everything, they need
Speaker 1: to like your protection because these things are sacred. They
Speaker 1: belong to the individual because that's their history, and since
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything before like a written language, speaking it
Speaker 1: out loud is extremely sacred and protected. Yeah. Well, part
Speaker 1: of it too is there. Um. They're really big on
Speaker 1: learning and changing things that they did wrong, learning from
Speaker 1: past mistakes. So part of the waka papa is it's
Speaker 1: not just like some rosy history of their family. It's
Speaker 1: also the bad because if you understand your past, you
Speaker 1: can understand your future better. Right, And the point of
Speaker 1: it is to keep going as far back as you
Speaker 1: can and usually from from this article they and at
Speaker 1: about the time your ancestors arrived. Uh so we talked
Speaker 1: about mana a little bit, the honor in prestige. Um.
Speaker 1: There are three forms of mana in the culture. It's
Speaker 1: one is achieved by birth. So basically what the rank
Speaker 1: of your descendants and your ancestors um the mana given
Speaker 1: by other people um, which this article says they boiled
Speaker 1: down to two good deeds, like being recognized for what
Speaker 1: you've done to pat on the back. Yeah, here's your mana. Um,
Speaker 1: and then mana of the group, which is when outsiders
Speaker 1: visit and if they leave with a good you know,
Speaker 1: a review on Yelp for you right or trip Advisor.
Speaker 1: These guys are so welcoming, then that's mana of the
Speaker 1: group and it's very important to them, you know, they
Speaker 1: want to have a good uh leave a good impression.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, yeah, there's exactly. Um, you can also
Speaker 1: be affected by Correo corel. This one's tough, carrero ko
Speaker 1: r e er oh. Which is the spoken word, um,
Speaker 1: which is where you're you gain mana by house people
Speaker 1: speak of you personally. I guess yeah. I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of like mana of the group, but for an individual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned earlier how they had an oral history.
Speaker 1: Um that of course the white Christian missionaries poop pooed.
Speaker 1: They said, now you've got right stuff down, and they said, no,
Speaker 1: we're not just like telling stories here. We actually like
Speaker 1: historians are trained and uh, their memory is trained to
Speaker 1: remember everything about the history. So it wasn't just like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's just tell stories about our past. Like historians were
Speaker 1: revered and very important and and uh acknowledge for their
Speaker 1: like incredible memories. So coming up next, we gotta have
Speaker 1: a little message break, but we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: what I think is one of the coolest things, which
Speaker 1: is the hakka dance. That's something big. Huh yeah, well
Speaker 1: let's let's get back to it, all right, the hakkah dance.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this? I have? Um. I saw in Budapest,
Speaker 1: of all places, at a natural history museum there was
Speaker 1: a like basically a grass outfit and um, like there
Speaker 1: was video of a guy wearing this grass outfit doing
Speaker 1: a hackey dance by himself. Yeah, it was like ethnographical footage.
Speaker 1: See I've never seen it, um with a like a
Speaker 1: solo dancer. I've usually just seen it as a big group,
Speaker 1: like a whole tribe. And um, it's really cool, Like
Speaker 1: you should look it up on on the YouTube. H
Speaker 1: A k A um. Very in fact, they're doing it
Speaker 1: in the picture right there, very uh like intimidating. They
Speaker 1: would do it before battle, and it's kind of scary
Speaker 1: and like when they first get started, before they're even
Speaker 1: moving in unison, they're just like individually shouting out things
Speaker 1: and sticking out their tongue and their eyes are wide
Speaker 1: and crazy and it's just like it's it would have
Speaker 1: sent me running for the hills, right, Well, that's what
Speaker 1: I was intended to. Um. And the New Zealand national
Speaker 1: rugby team, the All Blacks, they do a hakka before
Speaker 1: every rugby game. Yeah, they still do it for They've
Speaker 1: done it for more than a hundred years, I think,
Speaker 1: starting in Yeah, and they got the name the All
Speaker 1: Blacks when they change uniforms to all black uniforms makes sense.
Speaker 1: And um again to intimidate and even watch the rugby
Speaker 1: team do it, and um, it's pretty cool. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I would like to try it out, but I think
Speaker 1: I would just people laugh at me. Let's let's if
Speaker 1: I wouldn't intimidate anyone with my hawka, especially if you
Speaker 1: like bulls dr eves and start your tongue out to that,
Speaker 1: wouldn't I wouldn't have the same effect. Nope, let's talk.
Speaker 1: Let's talk chuck. The two that is actually from the
Speaker 1: Polynesian word t a t a u ta tao I
Speaker 1: guess and um, which means to mark. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: we need to do one on the whole tattoo thing.
Speaker 1: We will um and Like we said, the Maori aren't
Speaker 1: the first to come up with tattoos. You can trace
Speaker 1: back further in their Polynesian lineage, but they are the
Speaker 1: ones that use chisels, really sharp chisels, but chisels. Nonetheless, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder how that works. It's like you hammer in
Speaker 1: I know how chisel works. But and then you rub
Speaker 1: the pigment. And so basically you take a very sharp
Speaker 1: chisel and ammer and you make a mark. And then
Speaker 1: after you've made your marks, you go through and rub
Speaker 1: a pigment, usually taken from a certain type of caterpillar.
Speaker 1: And then the since you're you've used the chisel instead
Speaker 1: of a needle, there's not only a tattoo, but there's
Speaker 1: also scarification along where you made that chisel mark. So
Speaker 1: the original Maori tomokos were like they were pretty severe looking.
Speaker 1: They looked even more like hardcore than a regular That's
Speaker 1: what I was gonna ask is how like how tight
Speaker 1: was it? You know? I think I have the feeling
Speaker 1: that like this was like considered an art form. Is
Speaker 1: all right? Well, I know, they, incidentally, um are the
Speaker 1: ones who introduced color tattoos. UM, even though most of
Speaker 1: the Moco have seen or black, So I don't know
Speaker 1: if they just don't use color that much. They like,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen any color money either, but you know
Speaker 1: a rainbow dolphin. And they're like, let's just go back
Speaker 1: to the moco. H Um. Men typically have the moco
Speaker 1: on their face. Um, but women also have the tattoos
Speaker 1: and um, they have them on the arms, the thighs,
Speaker 1: the abdomen, and the crotch. Apparently, well, men will have
Speaker 1: him on the face, buttocks, and thighs and it's detailed
Speaker 1: stuff like I'm sure you've seen it before, um, but
Speaker 1: if not, look it up right now, because it's not
Speaker 1: like Mike Dyson, right, well, I mean it's there. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to depict the waka papa, like each swirl and
Speaker 1: symbol has like a real meaning that has to do
Speaker 1: with the person's genealogy. That's right, it's pretty cool. Um.
Speaker 1: And then again we said that there's another kind of
Speaker 1: tattoo that's not quite as intricate that's called the um
Speaker 1: what is it called the kira tuohy? Yeah, yeah, which
Speaker 1: is just fun to say. And I think that won't
Speaker 1: offend and and I think the impression that I have
Speaker 1: is Maori culture from this resurgence of Maori pride in
Speaker 1: the seventies and the revival of the culture, and say
Speaker 1: like taking steps to save it, like they do very
Speaker 1: jealously protect and guard their culture, their cultural history, their
Speaker 1: personal lineage. Um. And so it is I mean maybe
Speaker 1: even compared to other indigenous tribes, Respecting Maori culture on
Speaker 1: its own terms is a good idea for sure. Uh.
Speaker 1: These days they make quite a comeback in population. Um.
Speaker 1: New Zealand as a whole has more than four million
Speaker 1: people in about fourteen percent or Maori, compared to a
Speaker 1: low of about forty five thousand and eighteen nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's about five sixty thou people. Um. But like I said,
Speaker 1: there are like many marginalized indigenous tribes all over the world,
Speaker 1: there are problems with alcoholism. Um. The Maori are as
Speaker 1: far as more likely to be drinkers than uh fifty
Speaker 1: six percent Pacific Islanders. And among those who consume alcohol,
Speaker 1: hazardous drinking occurs and thirty six percent of Mau. Um
Speaker 1: And crime too, in violence is still sort of part
Speaker 1: of the culture. Sadly, Um, I think I have some
Speaker 1: stats here from a criminologist. Uh, even though they only
Speaker 1: make up four percent of the population. I believe. Um,
Speaker 1: they make up about of people in prison and they
Speaker 1: you know, they throw that right back to the fact
Speaker 1: that they were marginalized and their culture was stamped out.
Speaker 1: And uh, young people are more likely to be violent.
Speaker 1: Young Maori are than than older ones now. But um yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently the losing your cultural identity really put a you know,
Speaker 1: hamper on your evolution, is it? People? I mean you
Speaker 1: can see that all over the world. Keen to you
Speaker 1: certainly can. Um So, let's Maori. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more? Do you have anything else right now? I
Speaker 1: got nothing else. If you want to know more about
Speaker 1: the Maori people, you can type in m A O
Speaker 1: R I in the search bar at house to horks
Speaker 1: dot com. We'll bring up this article. And since I
Speaker 1: said Maori, it's time Chuck for listener mail. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this email from a student at North Carolina Wilmington's. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: he's an econ dude. My girlfriend and I have been
Speaker 1: together for a little over three years and are both
Speaker 1: members of the stuff you should know Army. In the
Speaker 1: early days of our relationship, I used to pay her
Speaker 1: in doll hairs for favors such just cooking dinner or
Speaker 1: getting out of bed to plug my phone in when
Speaker 1: I forgot, I do this too. I tell Emily, like,
Speaker 1: I'll give you six seventy five dollars to take out
Speaker 1: the trash, and I'll just make up. You know, we
Speaker 1: keep a running tap of what we owe each other.
Speaker 1: It's just fun. He's just doll hairs, uh, Being that
Speaker 1: a doll hair is not real currency, that's why he
Speaker 1: uses it. Um. I could bid the price up or
Speaker 1: down with ease, depending on her mood. The going rate
Speaker 1: for dinner was about twelve thousand dollar hairs and a
Speaker 1: BackRub was d h capital d h uh um. Of
Speaker 1: course she was quickly. She quickly figured out that she
Speaker 1: was not accruing the American dollars she thought she was,
Speaker 1: and wanted her doll hairs exchange for US currency to
Speaker 1: get myself out of this. I quickly got on eBay
Speaker 1: to purchase her six hundred thousand Zimbabwe dollars to fulfill
Speaker 1: up my financial debt obligation. Uh. Like you, I appreciated
Speaker 1: the novelty of owning paper currency from a country that's
Speaker 1: all hyperinflation on the scale the world has never seen.
Speaker 1: We both got a real laugh out of a joke,
Speaker 1: and I am out of debt now. We both now
Speaker 1: carry one hundred thousand dollars in our wallets every day
Speaker 1: so we don't feel like broke college kids. Um. Economic
Speaker 1: research is a great passion of mine, from observation to
Speaker 1: data collection and model building. I find happiness through math
Speaker 1: and statistics. We don't how much in common talent Um
Speaker 1: talent that's his name. I would be more than happy
Speaker 1: to help you all with any economic questions you ever have,
Speaker 1: although I don't think you need much, seeing as how
Speaker 1: you You're super stuff. Guide to the Economy was so
Speaker 1: well presented. Awesome. Yeah, so that is from Talent Wisdom.
Speaker 1: His last name is wisdom Man from you and C. Wilmington's.
Speaker 1: And I wrote him back and he followed up and
Speaker 1: said he was in the middle of writing a lesson
Speaker 1: plan and eating leftovers when he got my email. And
Speaker 1: he said he's often daydreamed about being on listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is a dream come true and you're gonna like
Speaker 1: this part, Josh. He has a dog named Conway Twitty.
Speaker 1: Conway Twitty owned by Talent Wisdom. That's right, uh, And
Speaker 1: he he and Conway Twitty called his entire family to
Speaker 1: let them know to look out for the upcoming listener mail.
Speaker 1: Good going, thank you, talent Wisdom, Talent Wisdom, Conway Twitty,
Speaker 1: and um his girlfriend. Yeah, he's got a lot of
Speaker 1: doll hairs who who is very easy going with a
Speaker 1: good sense of humor about money. Uh. If you have
Speaker 1: a good story for us that has anything even remotely
Speaker 1: to do with something we've even mentioned in passing on
Speaker 1: any of the episodes here and Stuff you Should Know, Uh,
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