100 years of Indigenous Solidarity

1909, Māori performers on stage in NYC

This Indigenous Peoples Day we step back in time to 1909 to when a group of Māori from Aotearoa New Zealand traveled to America and encountered the Native American people. A meeting of two indigenous people who had vastly different yet related experiences.

The Māori contingent were on their way to perform at the New York Hippodrome, sailed from New Zealand to America before taking a train across the continent. On the journey they saw Native American people who they remarked as “the woman had their chins tattooed, but we did not see any men with tattooing.” Even going so far as to ask the question “perhaps we Māori came from here?”

At the time it was considered a federal ‘Indian Offense’ for Native Americans to practice their traditional dance. The prominence of the Māori performances in New York caught the eye of Native Americans, in particular the young men from the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania who attended a performance in October 1909. The Sun Newspaper said that “the visit of the Carlisle Indians to the hippodrome is the result of curiosity to see the New Zealanders in their native dances.”

America was at a crossroads and the appearance of the Māori at the hippodrome had helped spark a conversation about race and raised questions about the prominent social misconceptions of indigenous people of the time. Today we stand in solidarity once again with out Native American brothers and sisters.

To learn more about the Māori group who travelled to New York read our article in AFAR.