For Māori, place and place names act as constant reminders not only of where one is, but of who one is – without one the other does not exist. Māori named the landscape as a way of emphasising claim to the land, to describe features, to immortalise people or events for historic or spiritual reasons […]

  E ngā kōtuku rerenga tahi, koutou ngā manu tioriori, i waiho mai i ngā raukura nei hei tākiri i te manawa, hei hiki i nga parirau, kia taea ai te hōkai ki te rangi, tēnā koutou. Before the written word in New Zealand, Māori lived with an oral language reaching back to the homeland […]