RAPAHAKARAPAHAKARAPAHAKARAPAHAKA Polynesian Heritage

Editorial

Chile and New Zealand have many similarities, both are in the pacific ocean and share

almost the same paralels, due to, weather and geographic are very similar. But they also

share a treasure, its indigenous people, who came from Polynesia ¿What things have

they in common and what things are different? ¿ how their goberments treat them? How

are they treat by its society? Thats what we try to find out in this edition. Enjoy it!.

Contents:

1- Editorial words 2- Maori and Rapa nui cultures: General aspects, their history, cosmology, traditions, language.

3- Talk about colonization. 4- Polynesian languages. 5- Interviews. 6- Tha fight that all indigenous have diven: Discrimination.

Who are Maories?

The Maori are the indigenous people of

New Zealand. They arrived about 1000

years ago to the island. It is believed

that the Maori migrated from Polynesia

in canoes around the 9th century to

13th century AD. Maori make up about

14% of the population from New

Zealand. Te reo Maori is the native

language which is related to Tahitian

and Hawaiian.

The present Maori population is around

600,000 or 14% of the country's

population, and Maori lives in all parts

of New Zealand, but predominately in

the North Island where the climate is

warmer, compared to Rapa nui, who

live separated by the rest of population,

in the eastern island.

A little of their history…

Dutch navigator Abel Tasman was the

first European to encounter the Maori.

Four members of his crew were killed

in a bloody encounter in 1642. In 1769

British explorer James Cook established

friendly relations with some Maori. By

1800, visits by European ships were

relatively frequent. At this time, war

and disease took their toll on the Maori

till eventually their population dropped

to about 100,000.

In 1840 representatives of Britain and

Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of

Waitangi. This treaty established British

rule, granted the Maori British

citizenship, and recognized Maori land

rights.

Today many of the treaty's provisions

are disputed and there has been an

ongoing effort from the New Zealand

Government to recompense Maori for

land that was illegally confiscated; you

can compare New Zealand policies with

Chilean indigenous policies that, until

now, are been incapable to do anything

to recompense or even recognized

indigenous land rights.

(Source:http://www.virtualoceania.net/n

ewzealand/culture/maori/)

.

Maori origins.

Nobody knows exactly how maories

arrived to New Zealand. There are

many theories about Maori´s origin.

One of them says that Maori came from

“Hawaiki”, about 1.000 years ago.

Nobody knows if Hawaiki really existed

but some especulated that Hawaiki was

near to Hawai and now it is inundated

by pacific ocean. Oral tradition tell that

Maori arrived in seven rowboats and

that people found the seven original

tribes. Another theory suggests that the

Maori

originated in China, and travelled via

Taiwan, the Philippines to Indonesia,

onto Melanesia, reaching Fiji. From

there to Samoa and on to the

Marquesas, and turned South West to

Tahiti, thence to the Cook Islands and

finally to Aotearoa (New Zealand).

When the Maori arrived to “Aotearoa”

(New Zealand) they found a place with

a different weather, fauna and also a big

area, in fact, New Zealand is much

bigger than hole Polynesia.

Genealogy

The term "Whakapapa" is used to

describe Maori genealogy. The word

"Papa" doesn't mean father but rather

anything broad, flat, and hard such as a

flat rock. Whakapapa means to place in

layers and this is the way that different

orders of genealogies are looked at. One

generation upon another.

Maori Tattoo. One of the most

recognized aspects of

maorie culture are their

tattoos, as well as rapa

nui (cause they share the

same heritage) ; an

evolution of oldest

polynesian art, geometric

figures who offen

represents real figures but

stylized. Tattoos who

adornes his face are call “moko”, and are used by men, women only

tatto their upper lip and chin area.

Haka, maori dance.

Haka it is a traditional war dance. The term “haka” it is used to

named any tribal dance, in fact “haka” means dance. There are many

different haka, some of them more violent than others, like Kapa o

Pango, a way to intimidate to the opponent. The famous rugby team

from New Zealand, the “all blacks”, make a recognition to their

indigenous people with a Kapa o Pango Haka before the game

begins.

In Chile, Rapa nui culture has

a war dance too, it named

“hoko”, but they are not so

lucky than maories, because

their society do not recognized

them.

Carol Ramírez Valdés

Talk about

colonization

Colonization is a word that we use to

indicate the occupation of a place.

The occupation of the Polynesia stated

in The year 1000 B.C in Samoa, real

centre to the Polynesia culture.

Examples of the Polynesian

colonization were maories people and

rapanui people.

Originally, new Zealand was inhabited

by natives of Polynesia. They stayed in

new Zealand became the maori tribe.

New Zealand were independent

inhabitants, but, they become in British

colony in 1840, after the “treaty of

waitangui” between British crown and

maories leaders.

Maori colonization have a big

difference with other colonized people

in the past. In the case of maories there

wasn’t a passive colonization because

they respond with strong resistance to

the invaders. Whereas other cultures

were submissive when started the

colonization.

On the other hand “the rapanuis” were

colonized initially by Polynesian

inmigrates during the century XVIII,

when the first European navigators

visited the island and showed it to the

world.

Finally, in 1888 the Chilean sailor

“policarpo toro” took official

possession to the island and incorporate

it to the Chilean territory.

these cultures are different in the way

they were colonized because the maori

people had a “indirect colonization”.

They fought until the last moment and

created a treaty that would bring

benefits. whereas the Rapanui people

was submissive culture because they

inicially accepted the domination.

Stephanie Arriagada Castro.

Polynesian languages.

Language

is a

communication system of the human

community. It is very important because

is part of our identity. There are

languages very similar , these are called

dialects. A example of this are

Polynesian languages.

Polynesian languages are part of

languages´s family austronesias. These

languages tend to repeat words or a part

of a word. Examples of this languages

are the maori and the rapanui.

The Maori language belongs to the

family of “austronesias” languages. A

branch of the Polynesian languages.

Maori language is spoken exclusively in

new Zealand per hundred thousand

people approximately.

Maori is one of two officials languages

with English spoken in new Zealand.

Goberment departments recognize

Maoris’s names of locations in postal

addresses. In the 80´s they started

recovery programs of maori language

because maories leaders began to see

the dangers of the decline of their

language.

During the last two hundred years

Maori language has had changes. First

,this language was the principal

language in new Zealand, but,

nowadays English language is most

spoken in this country.

In our country, we have “rapanui”

language that its part of the Polynesian

language with the hawai language and

Maori language.

Actually the Spanish is the official

language of the island. The “rapanui”

language its protected by laws since

1990 when the “indigenous law” was

passed in chile. The language is very

important for this culture because is part

of their identity, for this reason they

created a etymological dictionary in the

island.

These languages have the same

phonology. These have five vowels and

nine consonants.

Interviews.

Interviews 1

By : Stephanie Arriagada Castro.

Paola Castro, 39 años.

1- Do you know which are the native cultures of your country? Mapuches, onas , aymaras, diaguitas , I don’t know more.

2- Do you feel that exist discrimination of society to this people? I think that the society to discriminate to mapuches people,etc, because some

people feel superior to them.

3- Do you think that the state help to this people to keep their identity like native ethnic groups?

No, I think that the state don’t help them to keep their identity, because I feel that the

state fight to them for land and don’t respect their culture, their traditions, etc.

4- Would you like to be of a originary culture? I think that, I am part of originary culture like mapuche culture. I have mapuche blood.

5- Do you think that people give real importance to Chilean history and their native cultures?

No, I think that some people don’t value Chilean history and their culture. I think that

some people value other cultures and give more importance to the universal history.

Interview 2.

By: Stephanie Arriagada Castro.

Jairo Venegas. 23 años.

1- Do you know wich are the native cultures of your country? mapuches, aymaras, and.. I don't know more.

2- Do you feel that exist discrimination of society to this people? I think that exist discrimation for the state and not for society.

3- Do you think that the state help to this people to keep their identity like native ethnic groups?

No, because they fight for land to them and they don’t have support.

4- Would you like to be of a originary culture? I think that I am part of mapuche culture.

5- Do you think that people give real importance to Chilean history and their native cultures?

No, I think that we don’t value our culture, our history, our things.

The fight that all indigenous have given:

Discrimination.

Rapa nuis ancient cultures as Maori are

fighting every day for not losing their

roots, the societies in which they live do

not give value to his way of seeing or

understanding life, are discriminated

against by having their own language

and not to mention well language of the

society in which they live, by their dress

that is different and very poor, besides

being discriminated by their surnames.

Furthermore cultures are suffering as

much in their daily lives are mistreated

in public offices or health services, are

treated badly because they do not want

to address.

Discrimination is a form of passive

violence sometimes becoming

physically attacked designate who

discriminate or less differential

treatment in terms of rights and social

considerations of those organizations

and states make the difference either by

skin color, ethnicity, sex, age, culture,

religion or ideology.

Often those who do discriminate by

skin color, aboriginal or native,

foreigners of different ethnicity, are the

target of attacks, blacks are one of the

breeds most affected since the colonial

period. Currently minorities racial

experience are rejected and sometimes

physical attacks.

64% of the population belongs to

indigenous (Mapuche, Aymara, Rapa

Nui, Kawesqar) and 1.2% are foreign

immigrants living in the country

42.7% believed that people belonging to

indigenous peoples are the largest group

that suffers discrimination (chile study

21).

88% of children and adolescents

indicates that those who suffer more

jokes from his peers are those with a

physical or indigenous features

(UNICEF study).

Currently struggling to rescue

Aboriginal identity and become known

to the world in the best way possible, to

shut us lose the opportunity to meet new

people, different and equally valuable

addition is essential that we understand

and accept the differences of those

around us.

Karla Mendez Figueroa.