To learn about Maori culture

Key Stage 2

English

Whale Rider - Narrative writing

﻿Hi, my name is Mrs. Smart. Welcome to a new English units. What's your name? Nice to meet you. This unit is one of my absolute favourites because it is about one of my favourite films called "Whale Rider". And it's all about a different culture. And I'm really enjoying learning about different cultures and their different customs and traditions. So I hope you are going to enjoy it as much as I do, right. If you're ready, let's get started. In this lesson you're going to need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil to write with and a ruler or any kind of straight edge that you can draw straight lines with. You're also going to need to make sure that you're in an area with no distractions where you can focus on your learning. If you don't have any of those things with you right now, you're not somewhere where you can focus, pause the recording and make sure you are ready. In today's lesson we're going to start with an introduction. We're then going to move on to learning about Maori people. Now don't worry if you don't know what that word means yet, because all will become clear. Then we're going to move on to then about Maori culture and traditions. And lastly, we'll finish with your independent task. As I mentioned earlier, this unit is all about a film called "Whale Rider", and you can see an image of the front cover of the DVD there with one of the main characters on the front. We'll be learning more about her in a few lessons time. And this film is actually based on a book called "The Whale Rider". Now, can you guess where you think the story of "Whale Rider" might be set? There are two photographs on screen. Are there any clues there that might tell you where it is? I can see mountains, I can see lakes, I can see a beach and the sea, which must tell me there's a coastline. Where do you think it might be? What a good guess, it is New Zealand. Repeat after me, New Zealand. Well done if you've got that right. New Zealand is a country in the continent Oceana. Now, sometimes this continent has some different names. You might have heard it called Australasia. You might've heard it called Australia. And it's also called Oceana. It's quite close to Australia. You can see New Zealand is broken into two main islands, the North and the South Island. And then it has some smaller islands near it as well. Now I live in London in England and I can see from looking at the world map, New Zealand is a long, long way away from me. I wonder if you can find where you live, what country you live in and see how far away New Zealand is from you. I think it would take me a long time to get there on an aeroplane. We're now going to learn a little bit about Maori people because lots of the characters in "Whale Rider" are part of the Maori culture. The Maori are the indigenous people that live in New Zealand. They settled there over 1,200 years ago, that means they started to live there. They were the first people to live on the islands of New Zealand, the North Island and the South Island. And it's thought that they migrated from other islands in Polynesia. If you have a look at the map, you can see the area of Polynesia, New Zealand is within that area. And then there were lots of other smaller islands within Polynesia as well. Can you spot Hawaii? You might've heard of that island before. Can you find the Cook Islands? You might've heard of those islands. There are lots of other smaller islands as well that you might not have heard of before. So it's thought that Maori people originally came from some other islands in Polynesia and they moved to New Zealand and they settled there. Let's now find out a little bit about the history of New Zealand and Maori people. In 1769, Captain James Cook circumnavigated New Zealand. What do you think circumnavigated means? That's a really good guess. I can see it's got the word circ in it, which I know comes from the word circle and navigate means to find so I'm guessing, or I know, that circumnavigate means to find his way around the whole island. He travelled around the islands. Can you have a guess at how he travelled around the islands? Remember it was 1769, so probably no cars. Good, well done. Of course it wasn't a car was it because cars weren't invented in 1769. He travelled in a sailing boat and you can see a picture of it there. It was called the Endeavour. And when he'd been to New Zealand, he then wrote about it and told lots of people about it. And that meant that lots of people wanted to go and visit. And when these people first came, the Maori people initially welcomed whalers and sealers and other Europeans seeking profits. What do you think a whaler and a sealer is? Good guess. A whaler and a sealer are people that kill whales and seals and then sell them. And that was quite common a long, long time ago, especially as there are lots of whales and seals in the wild around New Zealand. And then other Europeans, Europeans means people from Europe, seeking profit there, they were trying to make money. They moved to New Zealand, or they visited New Zealand trying to find new ways of making money. And this then caused the Maori culture and social structure to disintegrate. It changed and it sort of, it almost ruined their social structure they had in place. Cause they had all these new people coming in and changing the way that New Zealand worked. By the late 1830s, European settlers landed in New Zealand in their hundreds. So at first it was just a few people coming to New Zealand to visit and maybe to start living there. But by 1830 hundreds and hundreds of people had made a decision to move from a country in Europe and settle and live in New Zealand. The British assumed formal control of New Zealand in 1840. So Britain actually took it over. People who are originally from New Zealand, the Maori people were no longer in control of their own country. Britain owned it. And today there are lots of Maori people that still live in New Zealand and they make up about 15% of New Zealand's population. Because so many people have moved from Europe and other countries in the world to live in New Zealand. We're now going to focus on this word, indigenous, which I mentioned earlier, just to make sure we're really clear on what it means. Repeat after me, indigenous, indigenous, indigenous is an adjective, so it describes a noun. The definition is originating or occurring naturally in a place. Synonyms could be native, local and first, and I could use it in a sentence like this, the Maori are indigenous people from New Zealand. So we know the Maori people were the first people to live on the islands of New Zealand. So they originated, they started there. We can also call that native. We're now going to learn a little bit about Maori culture and traditions, starting with finding out about their tribes. Everyone in Maori culture belongs to a tribe. That's a group of people, a tribe is called an iwi and they also have subtribes called a hapu. They support each other like an extended family. So if you think about your family or the people you live with, or maybe even your class at school, you all support each other and work together as a group. And a tribe is quite similar. It's a group of people that all help each other out. And each tribe has their own special traditions. So they might do things that they might have ceremonies or different celebrations that only their tribe do and no other tribes do. Every tribe has a leader or chief, and you can see some examples of some Maori chiefs in the image. And usually the chief is the first born son. Now this reminds me a little bit of the Royal family because it used to be that it would always be the first born son who would become the king. And if there is a female born first, they wouldn't become queen before the male. So it's always the first born son that was prioritised and women could not be chief, so it would always be a man. This is a very special building in Maori culture called a Marae. Can you say that, Marae? Let's learn a bit about it. The Marae is a sacred communal meeting ground. It usually consists of buildings and an open space. So you can see the building there, but often it has an open space at the front and it might have an open space at the back where welcoming ceremonies takes place. They might also have a special space or hall for eating in. They're used for important meetings, ceremonies, meals, arts and crafts, and shows. And it's where communities or tribes of Maori people would come together. Visitors are officially welcomed in a ceremony where prayers, speeches, songs and hakas, that are dances are performed. And you'll see in the film "Whale Rider", you'll see one of these welcoming ceremonies taking place in a few lessons time. We're now going to learn about something called the Kapa Haka. And you might've heard of the haka before. Kapa haka is the term for Maori performing arts. So performing arts, any type of singing or dancing or drama, anything that you might perform on a stage to an audience. And it's an opportunity to showcase their culture through song and dance. You might have heard of the haka before. The haka is a performance of song and dance, and it can be interpreted as both a challenge. And often people would perform it at the beginning of maybe a battle or a fight to show who was the most scary group, but it can also be used as a welcome. You might have seen the haka performed before by the All Blacks rugby team, as they often perform it at the beginning of their matches to scare the team that they are going to be playing before they begin. Let's now focus on this word culture because it's quite a tricky word to define and understand it. Repeat after me culture, culture, culture is a noun. The definition is the way people live according to their beliefs, language, history, or shared ideas. Synonyms, our way of life and customs. In a sentence, we could use it like this. Maori culture involves customs, practises and beliefs. An we'll notice while this is is a noun, it's not a thing that you can hold or touch, or even really see. It's more of an abstract noun. And everyone has their own culture based on where they live, their family, their beliefs, maybe their religion, their history. So things that they've experienced in their lives or their families have experienced in their lives. All of those different aspects combined together to create your own culture. And Maori people have a very strong culture. Let's look at this word tradition. It's quite similar to culture, but a little bit different. Repeat after me, tradition. Tradition. Again, tradition is a noun. The definition is the beliefs or customs, which are passed on from one generation to the next. So that might mean that grandparents pass something on to their children and then their children pass something on to their children. So it's passing things on through generations or families. A synonym could be heritage. And in a sentence, we could use it like this. It is tradition to perform the haka dance as a welcome or a challenge. Wow, well done. You have done lots of listening and learning today. I hope you feel like you have learnt a lot about Maori traditions and cultures. That's going to really help you understand the film "Whale Rider" when we begin watching it. What I would like you to do for your task today is create a mind map of everything that you have learned about Maori people and their culture. And you can see an example there that I've started for you. I want you to try and include information on location. So think about where did they come from and where have they now settled. Their history, so anything that's happened in the past. Information about their tribes, the Marae and sorry, the Marae and the Kapa Haka. Remember those performing arts from the Maori culture. Congratulations, you've completed your lesson today. Well done for all your hard work. If you would like to please share your work with your parents or carer, I'm sure they would be really interested to hear about all of your learning about Maori culture today. See you in your next lesson, goodbye.

To learn about Maori culture

To learn about Maori culture

Slide deck

Lesson details

Key learning points

Licence

Video

Lesson appears in

UnitEnglish / Whale Rider - Narrative writing

English