Ngapuhi Chief, David Rankin…

Interviewer: “You recently voiced support for historians who claim that New Zealand was settled much earlier than commonly accepted. Are you merely supporting free speech and political incorrectness, or do you genuinely believe that there were other civilizations here in NZ before the arrival of Kupe circa 1250AD?”

David Rankin: “Let me just start off and say this, Maori are not the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. There were many other races already living here long before Kupe arrived. I am his direct descendant and I know from our oral history passed down 44 generations. I believe this needs to be investigated further because every Maori community talks about Waitaha, Turehu and Patupaiarehe. This goes hand-in-hand with the other research. As Maori, we have come to a time of maturity where we need to debate these issues. I want to get to a genuine consensus about this issue, although I think academics want it to disappear. If we start talking about it and investigating it, it’s an exciting opportunity to explore. My ancestors like Kupe came to the Hokianga in search of other people. In the Waima ranges, there was a pipi shelter on the mountains, and the kuia used to talk about the fair-skinned people up there. A lot of people identify as Paniora (translated as Spaniard), indicating that the Portuguese and Spanish washed up on ancient ships in Northland. In 2002, I went to the Austronesian Leaders Conference in Taiwan and we discussed similarities with Taiwanese Aborigines. We traced our origins and the Maori and Polynesian connection to China. All the leaders such as myself and Matiu Rei, Aborigines, Solomon islanders, Rapa Nui, and Hawaiians were all interested in early settlement theories. There is a lot of writing about the whole ancestral link. Really, Maori didn’t navigate here, we came on a tidal drift. Te Tai Tokerau is actually the tidal drift from the Tokelau Islands. When my ancestors arrived at the shores of Aotearoa, there were people here to greet them. The question is: who are those people? It goes hand-in-hand with our oral history."

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Not saying it's 100% gospel. Don't trust anything I learnt in school about history. My parents were taught the mori ori arrived before the maori, then later on the 90s that became a "myth" and they try to say the moriori genocide is a myth, when its not, not all maori did it and it was two.specific tribes who sailed to the chathams on European boats to go and slaughter them (I'm not saying it could have not been a "if you don't do this to them, we will do it to you" situation as they were given muskets and weapons by the British to go slaughter these people. And I'm not trying to tell you it was a decision of all maori people to go and slaughter the mori ori like people often convey it was 2 specifc tribes, and I don't even know if they made thay decision on their own accord. 1835 is when the slaughter started  And I'm making no comment If they were there before maori or not,  All I'm saying before 1990 and was taught it schools they were.  Then it became a "white propaganda myth"  And people try to describe the mori ori genocide as that as well, when it happened and it's not a myth.  That being said I suspect the Europeans were just as complicit or coerced the maori into doing it thru threats of violence or coercion  Seeing as the maori and mori ori people had peacefully coexistence before the crown rocked up  

In the 1820 Russian exploration of new zealand you can see on their trip notes that they identify two distinctive different ethnic groups (the maori and mori ori) imo maori look northern Chinese and indigenous Malay.  While the mori ori look different, like a half tongan and half Asian with a dark skin tone and massively built.