New Zealand Poetry - Early Maori Literature

Early Maori Literature

The Māori were a pre-literate culture until contact with Europeans in the early 19th Century. New Zealand acknowledges the presence of its indigenous Māori and the special place they have in New Zealand culture. Oratory and recitation of quasi historical / hagiographical ancestral blood lines has a special place in Māori culture; eurocentric notions of 'literature' may fail to describe the Māori cultural forms of the oral tradition.

In the early nineteenth century Christian missionaries developed written forms of Polynesian languages to assist with their evangelical work. The oral tradition of story telling and folklore has survived and the early missionaries collected folk tales. In the pre-colonial period there was no literature, after European contact and the introduction of literacy there were Māori language publications. No literary works in Māori have been translated and become widely read. The Māori language has survived to the present day and although not widely spoken is used as medium of instruction in education in a small number of schools. As far as Māori literature can be said to exist, it is principally literature in English dealing with Māori themes.