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60 free Māori trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Māori are the tangata whenua of Aotearoa New Zealand, and this quiz covers the whole story: the canoe voyages from Polynesia, the gods and heroes of the oral tradition, the Treaty of Waitangi, the King Movement and the land march, and the living culture of marae, haka, tā moko, kai and te reo Māori. Easy questions ask what a hongi is, which star cluster Matariki names and what Ka Mate is; harder ones dig into who composed that haka, which god pushed apart the sky and the earth, when te reo became an official language and how many chiefs signed the Treaty. It suits anyone planning a trip to New Zealand, students of Pacific history, rugby fans who want to know what the All Blacks are actually shouting, and quiz nights looking for a round beyond the usual capitals and flags. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Māori people, language, mythology, the Treaty of Waitangi and the individual customs and figures involved, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Māori are descended from settlers who voyaged by canoe from which part of the Pacific?
East Polynesia
The main settlement period was the first half of the 14th century, and the culture then evolved in isolation for centuries.
Q 02In the Māori language, what does the word "māori" itself mean?
Normal or ordinary
In legend the word separated ordinary mortal humans from gods and spirits, and wai māori means fresh water as opposed to salt.
Q 03What is the traditional Māori greeting in which two people press their noses together?
Hongi
The greeting exchanges the ha, or breath of life, and some East Coast iwi press noses twice.
Q 04What is a hāngī?
Cooking food in a pit oven with hot rocks
Lamb, pork, chicken, root vegetables and pumpkin go into baskets on top of the hot stones, and the whole thing is buried for hours.
Q 05The haka "Ka Mate", made famous by the All Blacks, is attributed to which Ngāti Toa war leader?
Te Rauparaha
He composed it around 1820 to celebrate a lucky escape from pursuing enemies, a triumph of life over death.
Q 06In which year was the 2009 settlement over ownership of the haka Ka Mate signed?
2012
The government agreed to record the haka's authorship but ruled out royalties or a veto on performances.
Q 07The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed on 6 February of which year?
1840
It was signed on the grounds of James Busby's house at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands, now known as the Treaty House.
Q 08Waitangi Day was first celebrated in 1934, but in which year did it become a nationwide public holiday?
1974
It was briefly renamed New Zealand Day under Norman Kirk's Labour government before the old name was restored.
Q 09Roughly how many Māori signed the Māori-language version of the Treaty of Waitangi?
About 530 to 540
At least 13 of the signatories were women, and some leaders cautioned against signing at all.
Q 10Which Māori word, used in the Treaty's first article, was a loan translation of "governorship" that did not previously exist in the language?
Kāwanatanga
Scholars such as Ruth Ross argue "mana" would have conveyed a transfer of sovereignty far more clearly, which is why the two texts still clash.
Q 11Which missionary translated the Treaty of Waitangi from English into Māori?
Henry Williams
Some historians argue he carefully crafted both versions so each side found the deal palatable without noticing the contradictions.
Q 12The Treaty of Waitangi Act, which created the Waitangi Tribunal, was passed in which year?
1975
The same year Whina Cooper led the great land march to Parliament, marking a turning point in Māori-Crown relations.
Q 13Te reo Māori was given official status by the Māori Language Act of which year?
1987
New Zealand now has three official languages: te reo Māori, New Zealand Sign Language and English.
Q 21In the Māori creation story, which god finally forced apart the sky father and the earth mother?
Tāne, god of forests and birds
Tūmatauenga had proposed killing the parents instead; Taranaki traditions credit the sea god with the separation.
Q 22Which god of storms and winds was angered by the separation of his parents and attacked his brothers?
Tāwhirimātea
In one tradition he plucked out his own eyes and flung them into the sky, where they became the star cluster Matariki.
Q 23Matariki, the Māori New Year celebration, is named for which star cluster?
The Pleiades
Q 14The Kōhanga Reo movement, begun in 1982, revived te reo Māori by doing what?
Immersing infants in Māori from infancy to school age
The name means "language nest"; the movement grew from the protest era of the 1970s.
Q 15Māori Language Week includes which September date, when a 30,000-signature petition reached Parliament in 1972?
The 14th
That petition day became Māori Language Day and by 1975 had grown into the first Māori Language Week.
Q 16Te reo Māori is most closely related to Tahitian and which other language?
Cook Islands Māori
It is the southernmost member of the whole Austronesian family, which stretches back to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan.
Q 17What is the most popular translation of Aotearoa, the Māori name now used for New Zealand?
Land of the long white cloud
As late as the 1890s the name referred only to the North Island; William Pember Reeves used it for the whole country in his 1898 history.
Q 18In Māori tradition, Māui hauled up the North Island using a hook made from what?
His grandmother's jawbone
His brothers refused him bait, so he struck his own nose and baited the hook with blood.
Q 19Māui's final trick, which cost him his life, involved which goddess?
Hine-nui-te-pō
She had fled to the underworld and become the goddess of death after learning the truth about her parentage.
Q 20Why, in Māori legend, did Māui set out to snare the sun?
It moved too fast, leaving too little daylight
Armed with the jawbone and ropes, said in some tellings to be made from his sister Hina's hair, he and his brothers ambushed the sun in its pit.
The name is short for a phrase meaning "the eyes of the god" and refers both to the cluster and to one star within it.
Q 24Matariki was first observed as an official New Zealand public holiday in which year?
2022
The celebration had faded during the 20th century before reviving in the early 1990s.
Q 25According to Māori tradition, who was the first person to discover New Zealand?
Kupe
Legend has him chasing and killing the great octopus Te Wheke-a-Muturangi on the voyage from the homeland of Hawaiki.
Q 26What is Hawaiki in Māori tradition?
The ancestral homeland from which the migration canoes came
Its geographic location is uncertain; the legendary discoverer of New Zealand was said to have been born there to a Rarotongan father and a Raʻiātean mother.
Q 27Which descendants of early Māori settlers became the pacifist indigenous people of the Chatham Islands?
The Moriori
They were later massacred and subjugated during an invasion by Taranaki iwi in the Musket Wars era.
Q 28Which large flightless bird was a mainstay of the early Māori diet before it was hunted to extinction?
Moa
The earliest settlement period is sometimes simply called the "Moahunter" period.
Q 29Who was the first European explorer to reach New Zealand, in 1642?
Abel Tasman
Four of his men were killed and he never landed; Cook did not arrive until 1769.
Q 30What is the Māori term for New Zealanders of European descent?
Pākehā
Early Māori valued these newcomers as a means to acquire Western knowledge, technology and, fatefully, muskets.