The Birth of New Zealand - A Nation's Heritage

Published by Kowhai Publishing Ltd., 1985.
New Zealand was the last land to be discovered by mankind. It has the shortest human history of any major land area. Its two large islands were hospitable to human beings, but lost in a distant corner of the world's largest ocean. The shores of these islands were not trodden by human feet until long after civilisations had risen and fallen in all the other major inhabitable areas of the world. New Zealand's human history may be short, but it is rich and interesting, for more than a thousand years have elapsed since the Polynesian navigators of the Pacific saw, on the distant horizon, the long white cloud which told them they had discovered a new, mountainous land. In New Zealand's first thousand years these Polynesian first-comers created one of the world's most sophisticated stone-age cultures. But the Maori world was disrupted when European navigators rediscovered New Zealand. They were followed in the nineteenth century by successive waves of Europeans, the first coming simply to make their fortunes, but many more after them to stay and make the country their home. The river of New Zealand's history has flowed from two sources - Polynesia and Europe. The mingling of the two streams has not always been smooth, but today both Maori and Pakeha call themselves New Zealanders. Both races have made the islands their native land. Here then is the story of New Zealand's birth, of a new nation emerging in the world's last, loneliest corner...