NEW ZEALAND, FLAG OF

national flag consisting of a blue field with the Union Jack in the canton and four stars, forming the Southern Cross constellation, at the fly end. The width-to-length ratio of the flag is 1 to 2. A federation of Maori tribes established a national flag on March 20, 1834. The field of the flag was white with a red cross, and its canton was blue with a red cross quartering four stars. Maori chiefs on the North Island surrendered their sovereignty to Great Britain on February 6, 1840, but the first distinctive colonial flag (the British Blue Ensign with the letters NZ at the fly end) was not established until January 15, 1867. Subsequently other variations of the designusually showing the Southern Crosswere substituted. On land the Union Jack was the only official flag, although the Maori traditionally used an undefaced British Red Ensign to show their loyalty to Great Britain and its sovereign. Red was traditionally symbolic of mana and high status for the Maori. Parliament legally established a New Zealand national flag on June 12, 1902. For display on land by private citizens andjointly with the Union Jackby the government, this flag was similar to the one used between 1869 and 1900, except that the stars were larger and more precisely defined. Under this flag New Zealand became a dominion on September 26, 1907, and a completely independent state on November 25, 1947. Proposals for a new flag, possibly incorporating Maori symbols, have been brought forth since the 1960s, but support for any change is minimal. In 1981 Parliament adopted an act making it impossible to alter the flag design without wide public approval. The New Zealand flag is a rare example of a flag with colonial origins that, with only minor modifications, continued to represent the nation as it underwent substantial political developments. Whitney Smith History Discovery No precise archaeological records exist of when and from where the first human inhabitants of New Zealand came; but it is generally agreed that Polynesians from eastern Polynesia in the central Pacific reached New Zealand more than 1,000 years ago, possibly by AD 800 or even earlier. There has been much speculation on how these people made the long ocean voyage. Polynesians are known to have sometimes set sail in search of new lands, their canoes well-provisioned with food and plants for cultivation, and it is likely that the discoverers of New Zealand were on such a voyage. Few canoes probably made the dangerous journey, but the people from even one of these large, double-hulled craft could have produced the Maori population that the Europeans encountered in New Zealand in the 17th and 18th centuries. With them they brought the dog and the rat and several plants, including the kumara (a variety of sweet potato), taro, and yam. The Polynesian period has been divided roughly into an early Archaic and a later Classic Maori phase. The transition between these two phases is uncertain, but it is thought to be linked to improvements in the raising and storage in a cooler climate of what had been tropical vegetables. In the South Island, if not elsewhere, the first Polynesians found moas (flightless birds) in immense numbers on tussock grasslands, and these became their major food supply. The agriculturalist Classic Maori encountered later by Europeans had only faint memories of the moa. The 18th-century Maori population was densest in the warmer northern parts of the country, where the Maori variant of Polynesian culture had reached its high point, particularly in the arts of war, canoe construction, building, weaving, and agriculture. The first European to arrive in New Zealand was a Dutch sailor, Abel Janszoon Tasman, who sighted the coast of Westland in December 1642. His sole attempt to land brought only a clash with a South Island tribe in which several of his men were killed. After his voyage the western coast of New Zealand became a line upon European charts and was thought of as the possible western edge of a great southern continent. In 176970 the British naval officer and explorer James Cook completed Tasman's work by circumnavigating the two major islands and charting them with a remarkable degree of accuracy. His initial contact with the Maori was violent, but harmonious relations were established later. On this and on subsequent voyages Cook, with the explorer and naturalist Joseph Banks, made the first systematic observations of Maori life and culture. Cook's journal, published as A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World (1777), brought the knowledge of a new land to Europeans. He stressed the intelligence of the natives and the suitability of the country for colonization, and soon colonists as well as other discoverers followed Cook to the country he had made known. Early European settlement Apart from convicts escaping from Australia and shipwrecked or deserting sailors seeking asylum with Maori tribes, the first European New Zealanders sought profitsfrom sealskins, timber, New Zealand flax, and whale oil. Early New Zealand was an offshoot of Australian enterprise in whaling and other activities; Sydney, founded as a convict settlement in 1788, became a base for whaling in the South Pacific; and Kororareka (now called Russell), in the far north of New Zealand, became a stopping place for American, British, and French deep-sea whalers. Around both islands Australian firms set up tiny settlements of land-based bay whalers. Traders supplying whalers drew Maori into their economic activity, buying provisions and supplying trade goods, implements, muskets, and rum. Initially the Maori welcomed the newcomers; while the tribes were secure, the European was a useful dependent. Maori went overseas, some as far as England. A northern chief, Hongi Hika, amassed presents in England, which he exchanged in Australia for muskets; back in New Zealand he waged devastating war on hereditary enemies. The use of firearms spread southward; a series of tribal wars, spreading from north to south, displaced populations and disturbed landholdings, especially in the Waikato, Taranaki, and Cook Strait areas. Europeans were soon to found colonies in these unsettled regions. Missionaries quickly followed the traders. Between 1814 and 1838 Anglicans, Wesleyan Methodists, and Roman Catholics set up stations. Conversion was initially slow, but by the mid-19th century most Maori adhered, for varying reasons, to some form of Christianity. All of these newcomers had a profound effect upon Maori life. Warfare and disease reduced numbers, while new values, pursuits, and beliefs modified tribal structure. Christianity cut across the sanctions and prohibitions that had supplied Maori social cohesion. A capitalist economy, to which Maori were introduced both by traders offering new inducements (for instance, the brief demand for flax) and by missionaries bringing new agricultural techniques, affected the whole material basis of life. At first in the north and later over the whole country a process of adjustment began, which has continued to the present day. By the late 1830s, chiefly through the Australian link, New Zealand had been joined to Europe. Settlers numbered at least some hundreds, and there were certain to be more. Colonization schemes were afoot in Great Britain, and Australian graziers were buying land from the Maori. These circumstances determined British policy.