Talk:Māori people

Image bloat
Might I suggest, in light of the fact that the article was already over the maximum recommended article size, that the recent additions are bordering on image bloat. If it continues would anyone find a tag inappropriate? DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 09:34, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * If this continues, I feel a level 1 disruptive editing warning might not be out of place either. —VeryRarelyStable 11:06, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Colonial Bias
I notice this page has 4 images of Maori doing haka. The haka is a globally recognised symbol of Maoridom largely because of its association with the All Blacks (NZ's infamous national rugby team), but there is some evidence that it has led to a general misunderstanding of Maori culture as aggressive and warlike. Is it possible that the over-representation of the haka in this article contributes to a harmful stereotype which propogates violence within and towards Maori communities? Source Other Source Seansi.c (talk) 00:58, 3 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if I entirely agree, but I do think the main image could be changed to something that isn't the haka. I've looked through Wikimedia Commons to see if there are any better images, but I can't seem to find any that would be more suitable. Panamitsu (talk) 02:28, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Historically the Maori indeed were agressive and warlike, towards others (moriori history recounts being culled like sheep) and themselves during fierce inter-tribal battles. Cannibalisim, taking heads as trophies, never ending issues of revenge - you name it.
 * On the other hand, a Haka in itself is 'agressive' in the same way that rugby is, but is not an act of violence. It's an act of assertion, something uniquely NZ'ish in it's application. To have a haka performed for you is a great honor. Yes, it's powerful and intimidating - that's the point.
 * Rugby, however, is a poor steriotypical image to use to represent maori. It's not attributable to the culture at all, and is a lampoonish generalisation of a non-NZ view of the culture. 222.155.223.129 (talk) 11:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There are reports from some of the earliest anthropologists to vis Aotearoa that Maori were fierce when roused but otherwise loving and gentle. I see no evidence of ‘a warlike people’ who regularly engaged in practices like cannibalism outside of isolated incidents and independent of coloniser bias. I dispute these assertions. And while your assessment of the haka is accurate, the world sees it as a way dance done to intimidate enemies - none of that nuance comes through and having only haka pictures here therefore seems quite harmful. 43.230.129.148 (talk) 00:08, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Indigenous people
Per Merriam-Webster, "Indigenous, or less commonly indigenous: of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group". If anyone thinks that the Māori, the earliest known inhabitants of mainland New Zealand, are not Indigenous, please explain here instead of trying to edit-war. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:59, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * We've had a number of accounts and IPs making this claim recently. I suspect it is all from one person, who is either confused and ignoring good faith attempts to educate them, or a disruptive editor.- gadfium 06:08, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * : Technically speaking, the Māori are the descendants of the first settlers of New Zealand. At what point those descendants could be considered Māori rather than Polynesian is debatable. :) That of course does not invalidate the fact that Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand as per the quoted definition.  DerbyCountyinNZ  (Talk Contribs) 06:14, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * At no point would they be considered Māori rather than Polynesian. Māori people are Polynesian. And indigenous. New Zealand is part of Polynesia.
 * Sorry, I meant "specifically Māori " as opposed to otherwise unspecified "Polynesian", their exact place of origin in Polynesia (i.e. immediately pre-settlement, without going all the way back to Taiwan) being so far undetermined. DerbyCountyinNZ  (Talk Contribs) 06:29, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The latest editor also seems confused about the term "mainland", which here refers to the main New Zealand archipelago (not just its two biggest islands) as distinct from the Chatham Islands. If this was a common confusion I would suggest alternative phrasings, but it doesn't seem to be.
 * —VeryRarelyStable 06:19, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This editor was an infrequent editor prior to this year, but the majority of this year's edits have been reverted, so I would assume they still don't understand such guidelines as WP:RS, WP:NPOV etc. DerbyCountyinNZ  (Talk Contribs) 06:29, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Maori spelling in lead sentence
My (seemingly harmless) addition of the spelling "or Maori" in the lead sentence was repeatedly removed, and I would like to know why. According to WP:OTHERNAMES, various names commonly used for the topic in question are to be mentioned in the lead sentence, or if that would make that sentence too long, in a separate section. That also applies to spelling variants – the article on behavior mentions that it might also be spelled behaviour, organization gives organisation as alternative name, etc.

The same clearly applies to the word Māori/Maori, which has two common spellings in modern English (with or without the macron). Both are widely used, both are listed in dictionaries, and which one any specific publication or author uses is very much a "house style" issue. So why not acknowledge that both spellings exist in the lead sentence, and then move on and use the spelling Māori throughout the rest of the article (as is already the case)? As I understand it, this is something we must do – OTHERNAMES is part of a policy, it's not something that can be ignored for any given article because a few editors decide that they don't like the alternative spelling. Gawaon (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * There is a second correct spelling: Maaori, and the incorrect spelling Maori, which is rarely seen in formal writing in New Zealand, is used at least in the United States, so I suggest putting these two spellings in a footnote rather than inline.-Gadfium (talk) 20:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Is the spelling Maaori listed in English dictionaries? Maori certainly is, for example in Merriam-Webster. So it's not "incorrect" in any meaningful sense of the word. Gawaon (talk) 20:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This is an article on a New Zealand-centred topic and hence uses New Zealand English. In New Zealand English, the present standard is to use macrons for Māori words.
 * Māori language and its use is a political issue in New Zealand right now, witness the incoming Government's removal of the Māori names from government organizations; which means there are potential WP:NPOV issues. And WP:NPOV trumps matters of style or "common usage".
 * —VeryRarelyStable 21:33, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Like I already mentioned, OTHERNAMES comprises all varieties of English, not just the one in which the specific article is written. So even if all dictionaries of NZ English agreed that Māori is the only correct spelling (do they?? I somehow doubt that – but I'm certainly no expert), that wouldn't matter, since other spellings are used, at the very least, in other English-speaking countries, and those matter too. The article behavior happens to be written in American English, but it must still mention the alternative spelling (incorrect from the American viewpoint) in its lead sentence. And so must we. As for POV, it seems to rather veer into POV territory to pretend that only one of the several widespread spellings is the "correct" one – without even being able to explain what should be "incorrect" about the other. Gawaon (talk) 23:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * This article is specific to New Zealand, and is written in New Zealand English, in which there are two correct spellings of the word: "Māori", and "Maaori". "Maori" is an incorrect spelling. I have quickly checked another article specific to another nation, and written in that national variety of English in which the normal English spelling of the word is considered incorrect, Pearl Harbor, and nowhere on that page does the international English spelling of the word, "Harbour", appear. We should try to be at least vaguely consistent in our treatment of words of which the spelling differs in other varieties of English in articles specific to that variety. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So the Maori Language Act 1987 has a typo? —Panamitsu (talk) 04:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * No, it's just obsolete. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:52, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So the government has changed its usage, but how does that make the other spelling "incorrect"? The government doesn't determine "correct" English in any English-speaking country I know of, and neither does English have an "Academy" that could determine what's right or wrong. Dictionaries are important indicators of language usage, but ultimately they just document it – they follow usage and thereby also help shaping it, but they too can't just arbitrarily decide. So what's the source of your claim that Māori and Maaori are "correct" NZ English, while Maori is now "incorrect", when it clearly wasn't a few decades ago? Aren't you just in "I don't like it" territory here? Gawaon (talk) 07:40, 22 March 2024 (UTC)


 * So how to proceed from here? Nobody has yet made a convincing argument why WP:OTHERNAMES should be ignored for this article, and frankly I doubt that such an argument could be made. So what do to? I'd say: As long as we know only of two spellings that are widely used in contemporary English and listed in dictionaries (Māori and Maori), let's simply give them both the lead sentence. So I'll readd "or Maori" in a few days, unless somebody comes up with a better suggestion. It's just two words more and certainly not something that should give anyone sleepless nights.


 * If there were three or more spellings sufficiently frequent to deserve mention, then I would agree with that an explanatory note would probably be the better place for the alternative spellings, so as not to clutter the lead sentence. But the spelling Maaori seems very much a minority variant, used by a few institutions, but generally very rare and not listed in any major dictionaries, as far as I could determine. So, unless somebody knows otherwise, that leaves us with the simple "Māori or Maori" solution suggested above. Gawaon (talk) 19:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think you would have to add "or Maori in the United States" (with your dictionary reference), but I think it is not necessary unless the macron causes confusion to Americans.-Gadfium (talk) 19:52, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To repeat: WP:NPOV is one of the core policies of Wikipedia, and trumps lesser policies such as WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OTHERNAMES. Māori usage, including macrons, is a political issue at present. (Some time soon someone needs to add the recent Parliamentary changes to Māori language; I can do it if no-one else wants to, but it's not high on my priority list and my energy is a limited resource just now.)  Because of WP:NPOV, Wikipedia must not be seen to support the "drop the macrons" side of the question.  Since there is little risk of confusion, and since "Maori people" redirects to this article, I'm not seeing the urgency for change. —VeryRarelyStable 02:47, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * NPOV means that we must not support any side, if sides there are, and so show all the spellings that are currently in use. If we use just one spelling, even if arguing "well you can guess that the other one exists", we are taking sides, and we shouldn't. Gawaon (talk) 07:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Common usage does not, by itself, make an error not an error. Mischievious, alot, and their for they are are all errors in English despite their frequency.  The political question is whether Māori standards apply to Māori words in English; whether such words are (so to speak) borrowed or stolen; who decides what counts as correct usage.  To offer a spelling which is an error in Māori, without acknowledgement that it is an error, is to come down on the side of the question that answers those questions, respectively, as "no", "stolen", and "Pākehā do."  A NPOV stance would be to give the spelling while acknowledging that it is an error: "(commonly misspelled as Maori)" or some such phrasing.
 * —VeryRarelyStable 08:17, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But that's nonsense, and I think you know it. English and Maori are two different languages, each with its own vocabulary, grammar, and spellings rules. Is it an error to use "Portuguese" instead of português, "Indonesian" instead of (Bahasa) Indonesia, "Turkish" instead of Türkçe? Are Maori wrong when they talk about reo Ingarihi instead of "English"? No, of course not! Words usually change their spelling and pronunciation when migrating from one language into another. If you argue "because it's incorrect in Maori, it must be incorrect in English too", you are postulating that English and Maori shouldn't be two different languages at all, but just a single language. But wouldn't that be terribly boring? If you want to argue "that's incorrect in Maori", you must argue on the basis of Maori grammar, dictionaries, and spelling rules – English grammar and spelling rules are simply irrelevant here. And the same, only reversed, is true if you want to argue "that's incorrect in English". Gawaon (talk) 10:24, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * First of all, it's te reo Pākehā, not te reo Ingarihi.
 * Second, the question is not whether this is a correct stance to take, but whether it is a politically neutral stance to take. The answer is no.
 * There certainly do exist examples of Māori words being borrowed into English and changing in the normal way; examples include taboo (from tapu), matagouri (from tūmatakouri), biddybid (from piripiri), and cockabully (from kokopū). This is a very different situation from, say, kaimoana, waka, or for that matter tapu, which have entered the English language not as new English words but as Māori words, specifically referring to Māori cultural items.
 * The phrase je ne sais quoi has entered the English language, but it is still a French phrase, and the correct pronunciation is the French pronunciation. The phrase Homo sapiens has entered the English language, but it is still a Latin phrase, and it is incorrect to mis-singularize it to "Homo sapien".  In these cases, the rules of the language of origin still apply.
 * With Māori words, including Māori, there is the added complication of the politics of decolonization, which, regardless of what position you or I may take on it, is a live political issue on which Wikipedia needs to remain neutral.
 * —VeryRarelyStable 12:10, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Right, which also means we should remain neutral regarding the question of whether or not to add those macrons. Let's just check and document what the major (English-language) dictionaries say. Regarding te reo Pākehā and te reo Ingarihi – well, the Maori Wikipedia lists both, and they should know, shouldn't they? Gawaon (talk) 12:58, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * We don't need to remain neutral as to correct usage. You will find the word bicep in the Cambridge Dictionary, but it doesn't appear in the Wikipedia page for Biceps, because it's an error: a superfluous singular for an already singular Latin word misread as an English plural.
 * What we need to remain neutral to, and acknowledge both sides of, is live political disputes. One such dispute is over the correct usage of Māori words in English; the most common arena is the pronunciation of place-names, but the use of macrons in print is close behind. This is part of the larger debate over the status of Māoritanga in the modern world.
 * One side of this dispute has a habit of seeing itself as the default, neutral position, and their opponents as making a big fuss over nothing. There are many other political disputes of which this is true, and they are all still political disputes. Actually maintaining NPOV in such cases does not mean siding with the ones who think of themselves as neutral.
 * Ko te kupu Pākehā te ingoa Māori mō mātou ko ngā tāngata tauiwi nō Ūropi kua whakataiwhenua Aotearoa, me ō mātou reo hoki. Ko ngā Ingarihi ngā Pākehā kua noho kei muri, kei Ingarangi.
 * —VeryRarelyStable 00:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would suggest avoiding this argument as it has been thoroughly discussed before, and consensus was that the macrons are part of New Zealand English.
 * The real issue here is that it is sometimes spelt without a macron, and that is usually by foreigners (Google for example), but also within New Zealand, which is on a decline, so I don't think it really matters. As mentioned before, I think "Maori" could be explained with a footnote, just like how we do with "Gaol" in Jail, despite "Gaol" being a considerably rare spelling. I do think mentioning a decline in the macronless name is of encyclopaedic value, as in 100 years time, people might not realise that it was more common to omit the macron. —Panamitsu (talk) 01:01, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, all right. I'll add the explanatory footnote. Gawaon (talk) 07:50, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would in general advocate for omitting alternate spellings that are just "drop all the diacritics", since they're so obvious that readers are unlikely to be confused/enlightened based on their exclusion/inclusion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:06, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think this is also an issue of WP:NOTDICT. Māori and Maori aren't going to be confused like how Māui and Maui may be, where Māui is also spelt Maui, but Maui is also the island in Hawaii.
 * Using the spelling Māori appears to have only become widespread in the past decade, which I think is a strong point for inclusion, but I'm neutral on the matter. —Panamitsu (talk) 04:30, 22 March 2024 (UTC)