Maori = 'He ao! He ao! Aotea! Aotearoa'
Its land, its land, its land through a long white cloud.
Māori come from a place called Hawaiki. 
 Our homeland to the northeast of here.
And it's where our first descendant by the
name of Kupe came from.
When Kupe and his entourage or his
as people arrived they saw this grassy
land or hills popping out through what
looked like a long white cloud.
Aotearoa
So that's the very first name of
New Zealand.
We are LeKi op Reis.
That's Dutch for
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Haka is a dance of a noble people.
Haka is an identity of Maori.
There are many different types of Haka. 
 There is the expressive haka which displays
anger.
Anger about the subject that we're
doing the haka about.
there's also other
Haka which talk about the histories of
the land.
Histories of different ancestors.
Battles of different ancestors
and Haka is an expressive
It's an expressive way for Maori to be able
to tell their story.
tell their story and let it all out.
Haka today has become a brand almost.
Before it only identified to Māori.
but now it identifies to New Zealand
The beauty of Haka is that you can design it specifically so that it suits you and
where you are.
And through a massive brand
like the All Blacks other teams have
picked it up and then you know schools
and kindergartens and what that's lead
onto as a learning of the language one
or two words at a time and now most
people would be able to translate the
haka word-for-word and they might know
another Haka or their school Haka and
that's more learning that goes with it
and so because of the beauty of haka and
everybody wanted to be a part of it.
I think that has helped to integrate it
into New Zealand society
So the Haka to me it means a part of
my cultural identity it is a part of my
customs my traditions and it was an
important ceremonial dance that was
passed down from my ancestors and we
still practice it today.
This is what I love.
I love being able to show my
culture off to the world it's the only
job in in the world we get to poke your
tongue out it your customers and you get
paid for it.
That's a good reason to do it.
very very proud actually to be able to
share our culture to the world and
people like yourself embraces it.
Embrace our culture and they
love it.
And do you think you can do this your entire life?
I'll keep on doing
it as long as I can as long as I can
stamp my feet and do the haka I'll keep
doing it
This is the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. New
Zealand's most historic place.
This is where on the 6th of February 1840 a treaty document was signed between the Māori people
my ancestors and the
British representatives.
We were the minority when these brash young European
or British sailors were coming in after
spending years out of out on sea and
then coming in coming into our countries
They mistreated our people. They mis
treated our woman. They mistreated
our children. They murdered our men. They murdered our kids for no reason
No reason whatsoever other than they've felt that they had the superiority over us.
we fought to
the bitter end
and it was because of the vision of our
many prophets, our many visionaries
that we had pre 1840 that foresaw this
happening was the very reason that they
wanted this treaty document this treaty
document came about as a request from
Maori so that we were able to move
forward as one people as one nation
Ta Moko is it's an identity print of
our people it tells the history the
genealogies and the stories of you as an
individual who wears the Ta Moko.
in short it's a tattoo but it tells your
whole story because prior to the pen and
paper our body was the paper the ink was
the pin.
the reason the old people had Moko
was to identify who they were it was to
also identify what they did where they
the standing in their tribe was.
Status you know, things like that.
And that's what it's still about and it's still about
identity the main part of it is all
about identity.
The client will come
in will we'll have a conversation and
from that conversation and then look
into our minds because
in our minds you know we have all the designs.
and then we utilize the right design to
get that story sort of understood on the
skin.
We do not draw the design before the client comes
For us it's best that
it comes directly after the conversation
because that's when you're at your freshest.
that's what makes it so unique.
Like today I had a idea in mind but then as
soon as I saw her back it changed just like that.
It looks totally different to
what I was going to initially do.
In the old days they utilize the
bone chisel. The chisel was actually you
know tapped on the face to split the skin
like cut the skin.
And if we take a look
behind me on this photograph here this
is one of our Māori kings his name was Tafia.
And if you can see like
the incisions were made on the skin so
you can actually see it was cut where I
was on my face the lines are like
drawing.
Yeah but these guys did it
the hard way.
British wanted Maori to cede all of our
rights and our sovereignty and ownership
over to the British.
Henry Williams who
translated the document from English
into the native tongue Te Reo Maori knew
full well that Maori would never ever
agree to those terms as set out in the
English Treaty documents.
he translated it in a
way whereby Maori would understand and
whereby Maori would agree to the terms
as set out in the Maori document.
From 1840 to today in fact it has always been
a contentious point of discussion
We arrived here from the Pacific and in the
Pacific they practice tattooing.
So we would have brought those skills here.
And then our designs changed as we arrived here because of our environment.
So the design of my tattoo is based on my 'iwi' (Tribe)
The 'awa' (river). The Whanganui awa (river).
And the design is that the ropes of the tide is coming into the rope that tie
all the different iwi (tribes) down the river together.
Beautiful. Did you knew when you came in here this morning how it would look like?
Not exactly.
I gave him free free will to do what he
wanted to do yeah. I trust in his design.
And you're very happy with it?
I love it.
Your Mãori as well.
yes
Are you hundred percent? Or how does it work?
I'm not sure on percentages but
My Whakapapa (genealogy) tells the story.
My mother is 'Pākehā' or English.
And my father is Māori.
And through him we go up.
So yeah.
I'm of Te Āti Awa, Tuwharetoa,
and Te Ati Ruanui iwi (tribes)
Oke. Cool!
So not everyone can get it a tattoo as you have because you're part of a tribe.
Can I get a similar tattoo?
You can get some a similar tattoo to my
understanding.
That's called 'Kirituhi' (non-maori) I think.
So it's the same sort of design, but not with the Whakapapa (genealogy), but your own story.
People that are outside of my tribe
they'll just see me as a Moko face but my
tribe knows what it means because I've
explained it to them and it's about my
guardian it's about a spiritual guardian
because we're big believers on that stuff
That we have tribal spiritual
guardians and that's what mine represents.
Nature is our everything
And when I talk
nature I talk the 'whenua' (lands)
I talk 'rākau' (the trees), the 'ngahengahe' (the forests).
I talk the 'moana' (lakes). Everything that's in the 'moana'.
that is our nature that is our world
everything has a lifeforce everything
has a heartbeat to Māori.
and we treat it with such respect.
and that is our
cultural upbringing that is our upbringing
and it's a part of our 'tikanga' (custom).   
Our practices of we as Maori.
To be respectful to everything around us
Swimming in our 'awa' our river.
knowing that we're swimming in the
ancestral waters that our ancestors also
swam in.
'Wairua' (spirit) that spirituality of
our ancestor also cleanses us.
it cleanses us physically. It cleanses usmentally and it also cleanses us
spiritually.
'Te Reo' is the language simply translated.
It's the language of our people.
if our language dies
Our people die, our culture dies.
Without language we don't have an identity I believe.
You know everybody has an
identity as a Kiwi with the English language.
because that's what we're known
for apart from Haka.
But as Maori within our
own country we need that.
'Te Reo' goes way back to Hawaïki.
Te Reo was kept
alive through the traditional types of
songs that we sang. The haka.
We told our stories, histories and genealogies
through our 'whakairo' (carving) through our carvings and our meeting houses.
And so that's how we we communicated with one another.
It was our missionary brothers and sisters
that come over you know from
Great Britain from Europe and started to
record the language on paper.
Through the
diligence of people like Williams and
other dictionary writers hopefully with
the help of Maori that they recorded as
many words as they could and that's how
it become a written language.
And they used the alphabet of the English language to write the Maori language.
That's correct. Yes.
My grandparents were a part of that forbidden generation that weren't allowed to speak
the language and that came
down to ignorance from the non Māori
That were around at the time who felt threatened by the language because
they couldn't understand what our people
were saying.
They tried to outlaw in fact they did.
They passed a law that forbid
Maori to speak the native tongue and if
they did speak the native tongue they
were strapped for speaking the language
because of that ignorance it caused the
whole language to miss an entire
generation which was my parents
generation but in the past you know I
In the past I would say past 20 years a lot of work
has been done to revive 'Te Reo'.
We've got universities now providing Maori
language courses to help with the
revival of 'Te Reo' Maori.
Where things Maori
will push down then they re-emerging.
but their e-emerging with not only help. They re-emerging with funding
And they're e-emerging with love because our
politicians can look back and say okay
that was wrong we can't fix it from there.
But what can we do for now to help and
enhance this person's educational
experience and to help them get on their
way and to learn what they need to learn
yeah.
You know the acceptance of 'Te Reo' Maori
is starten to broaden and starting to
widen around our country and that's very
very encouraging I think.
it's good to hear that
If I see your Maori heart you might get a facial tattoo.
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