Archaeological evidence suggests that they first arrived in New Zealand from the Cook Islands in about 800 AD. Several later waves of Maori immigrants appear to have settled in New Zealand over the following 500 years. The last wave of Maori voyagers came from Tahiti about 1350 AD. The Maori immigrants are thought to have mixed with the Moriori, a people of unknown origin, who had settled on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island.

The Maori lived in villages that were generally guarded by a fort. The people were divided into several tribes, or iwi, each made up of descendants of a common ancestor. Groups of tribes were allied in confederations called a waka. Each tribe was made up of a number of hapu, or clans, which in turn were composed of family groups called whanau. Primogeniture, or inheritance by the first born son, was basic to the social system and determined the succession of the highest chief, the ariki.

The Maori held many beliefs in common with other Polynesians, including concepts such as tapu (taboo), mana (prestige or honor of a social group or individual), mauri (life force), utu (revenge), and makutu (sorcery). The Maori believed in a number of gods, including Tane-mahuta, lord of the forest, and Tangaroa, a Polynesian ocean god. Tribal dignitaries, such as the higher priests and the chief, also believed in a supreme god, Io, whose existence was not revealed to the community. All Maori believed in a great number of atua, or spirits, who responded to magical spells and punished people for breaking taboos.

In 1841 New Zealand officially became a colony of Great Britain. Many European settlements were soon established. Between 1843 and 1872 violent conflicts between the Maori and European colonizers, known as the New Zealand Wars, arose over conflicting claims to land. In 1856 Maori elected their first intertribal leader, King Potatau I, also called Te Wherowhero. The movement to unite Maori under a single ruler, known as the Maori King Movement (Kingitanga), enjoyed mixed success. Although its authority was never universally acknowledged, the King Movement was influential in encouraging Maori unity. The descendents of Potatua I, formed the Te Wherowhero dynasty, and continue to lead the Maori King Movement today.

The Maori population fell from about 120,000 in 1769 to 42,000 in 1896. In the late 19th century, European settlers spoke of the Maori as a "dying race." In the 20th century the Maori population recovered. Only 11 percent of Maori were city dwellers in 1936, but by the 1980s more than 90 percent of the Maori population lived in urban areas.

Whakapapa
"Papa" is anything broad, flat and hard such as a flat rock, a slab or a board. "Whakapapa" is to place in layers, lay one upon another. Hence the term Whakapapa is used to describe both the recitation in proper order of genealogies, and also to name the genealogies. The visualisation is of building layer by layer upon the past towards the present, and on into the future. The whakapapa include not just the genealogies but the many spiritual, mythological and human stories that flesh out the genealogical backbone. Due to the modern practice of writing whakapapa from the top of the page to the bottom the visualisation seems to be slowly changing to that of European genealogy, of "descending" from our ancestors. The Maori term for descendant is 'uri', but its more precise meaning in terms of Maori mental processes is offspring or issue.