WI: Maoris colonize Australia

Valdemar II

Banned
San! lost out to the africans, Celts to the Saxons, human history is just full of that happening. The maori are more agressive, have a better food package, organize for war and superior population density.


Did they really have a better food package to Australian climate?
 
Did they really have a better food package to Australian climate?


Yeah, I missed that comment before. It's a good question.

So to answer it...

Apart from the fact that the Maori will have to bring everything with them, when they eventually arrive at somewhere like Bondi Beach, they'll be low on supplies, so they'll have to rely on an environment that's completely foreign to them. As such they'd have no idea what to eat & what not to eat. And considering there's a lot of stuff you stay well clear of, in the Australian bush, half of them will probably die of food poisoning long before the first major battle with the Aboriginals.

The British, however, brought everything with them, not to mention they gained further supplies from either Java, southern Africa, & even Britain, & only resorted to eating the indigenous vegitation & animals as a last resort. And only after taking careful note of what the Aboriginals ate themsleves.
 
The Maori were a warlike people because of the chronic shortages of food. They only had two crops- Kumara (a type of sweet potato, that is still very popular today) and bracken fern, which grows naturally in open scrubland. The Bracken fern has very low nutritional value, and has to be grown in wetter areas. Kumara is a sub-tropical crop, and the Maori struggled to grow it in the South Island (where it needed to planted facing north, on a certain angle, with correct drainage and at certain times of the year). These vegetables were supplemented with meat from native birds (first Moas, and other large birds such as Adzebill, geese and swans) and then smaller birds such as kiwi and kereru (type of woodpigeon). Seafood was also a major part of coastal Maori tribe's diet.

This type of diet was necessary because the Maori were a Polynesian culture that moved into an area where most of their crops did not grow.

With a shortage of land, the Maori had to fight for food, and good hunting grounds and gardens. A high population density (compared to say the Aboriginals in Australia) and generally mountainous, forested terrain meant that most weapons were designed for close combat. Axes , clubs, spears were favored. The Maori were excellent at ambush tactics, and were particular brutal, often killing every member of the enemy war party. When the British arrived these tactics were adapted to new weapons- muskets and swords. Development of trench warfare and the sawn-off shotgun are examples of 19th century Maori weapons technology.
This style of fighting was clearly ideal for New Zealand conditions, evidenced by the troubles that the British had fighting them right up until the later part of the 19th century when Maori guerillas caused havoc in the Urewera ranges.

Contrast the steep forested hills and swamps of New Zealand with the plains and open woodland of Australia however. Ambush tactics would not work here, and swift and violent hand-to-hand skirmishes would not be the regular type of fighting. I don't see the Maori winning against a well armed Aboriginal tribe- just as I don't see the Aboriginals being able to beat a Maori war party in dense New Zealand bush.

I am not that familiar with Aboriginal weapons technology however, so I will not say that the Maori will be totally annihilated. The Maori have a number of advantages, including their Waka (massive carved canoes or catamarans), crops (Kumara would probably do much better in Australia than the South Island of New Zealand), organization (very much a warrior culture) and their awareness of more of the world than the Aboriginals (the Polynesians, that the Maori were, were excellent explorers, less likely to be stunned by strange peoples of lands than say the Aboriginals).

Of course the Aboriginals would know all about their native land, with no crops to pillage and not that many animals the Maori would be in trouble in terms of food. They would not know which animals and plants were good to eat, or which animals and plants were poisonous. Without a large supply of food they would certainly perish in a strange environment.

I am not sure what would happen with diseases, I am unfamiliar with any native Maori illnesses.

Of course this scenario postulates that the Maori are invading the entire Australian continent, or at least the Eastern Seaboard. How Aboriginals would fare against a small Maori force landing on say Tasmania (most primitive area) would be much different to one attacking right at the heart of the Murray River basin. Furthermore, the Maori might just establish a small settlement along the coast, and largely not bother the locals. Over time they may become too fortified for the Aboriginals to repel.

This doesn’t even consider the prospect of how the Maori got to Australia, when and why they did either. That is a whole other story…
 
I don't think you could claim that the Maoris, at the time in question, were farming people. That happened after they colonised New Zealand.

Yeah, they were sort of half and half- they grew Kumara and Bracken, but hunted animals and shellfish for meat.

Actually I was thinking (probably belongs in a new thread) but since the Maori got Kumara from South America, what if they got other crops too, say Maize or potatoes? Things more suited to a temparate climate...
 
Has there been a single case in human history where a farming people encountering hunter-gatherers in an environment suitable for farming has not rolled them up in short order?

Vickings vs Inuits in Greenland and North America. There were many causes for the Vikings failure, but Inuit pressure was one. (I concede, though, that the terrain isn't the best for farming)

Another case would be what happened on several occasions on Pre- and post- Columbian America. Before the Spaniards, in the River plate area, the Guaranni (recently arrived rudimentary farmers) were facing the hostility of tribes of hunter gatherers who had better cannoes and/or better bows. We don't know if the Guaranni would have prevailed at the end (I'd like to think they would have), but at the moment of the conquest they were having a hard time, due to the difficulties in adapting their "subtropical" crops to the new temperate environment (a problem the Maori might also have had).

Another example would be the struggle between sedentary societies slightly "civilized" on the Eastern side of the Andes (relatively far from the Andes proper) and "Amazonic" tribes from Chaco, who were mostly hunter gatherers (in OTL North Western Argentina and Southern Bolivia) Again, we don't know what would have been the final outcome. But according to Spanish accounts, the Amazonic tribes were beating sedentary societies hard.

Finally, there's also the case of the Amerindians who were agriculturers and, after the introduction of the horse, became Hunter Gatherer Nomads, and overrun those who remained agriculturers. Not the best example, as the aborigines wouldn't have had horses (Although maybe they could have fought mounted on cangaroos:D)

Of course, we have to believe that agriculture would have triumphed in the end, if the enverinment were suited for it. In the South cone, for example, if the Europeans hadn't arrived, a few agricultural societies might have retreated for a while; but, since agriculture was firmly established in the Andes and in OTL Paraguay, it would have extended eventually, towards the whole Southern Cone.

But that doesn't mean than the agricultural societies who were living on the margins of the agricole world would themselves have won their struggle for survival. When a rudimentary agricultural society gets into a new environment, dominated by a hunter gatherer society who has been on that terrain for ages and knows very well how to exploit the resources of the land, the victory of the newcommers isn't granted.

Translated to the Australian case, this means the folowing: if the Polynesians make persistant attemps to colonise Australia, they would probably succeed. But it's still possible that the first Maori settlers, surrounded by hostile aborigines and expiriencing difficulties with their crops (at first), find themselves overrun by Aborigines.

What happens nexts? Well, it all depends on whether their brothers back home chose to try it again (and again, and again), till they succeed.

(In any case, it's just an opinion. In the long run, I think the Maories might eventually settled in the East coast, merging perhaps with the Aborigines. By 1600, the East coast would have been mostly Maori in culture. The Aborigines would probably still be dominant in the interior.)
 
Yeah, they were sort of half and half- they grew Kumara and Bracken, but hunted animals and shellfish for meat.

Actually I was thinking (probably belongs in a new thread) but since the Maori got Kumara from South America, what if they got other crops too, say Maize or potatoes? Things more suited to a temparate climate...


Oh completely true. But prior to their settlement of NZ, & going with the original scenario here where the Maori arrived in Australia instead of NZ straight off their boats, I guess we'd classify them as a boat people at that stage. Of course, after they settled down, things could well change.

Also - great first post BTW I've got to say. It was well balanced & thought out. I learnt a couple of things from it. I'll just add a few things from the Aboriginal side...

To Aboriginals there wasn't much difference, if any, between being a hunter as to being a warrior. If anything they were considered the same thing.

Aboriginals also used ambush & concealment as part of their hunting practices. So adapting such hunting skills to warrior action wouldn't be at all difficult for them considering what I just mentioned above.

Aboriginals placed emphasis on distance weapons, ie Woomera, Boomerang, & throwing spear, based upon the animals they hunted: ie kangaroos & emus etc. So they needed weapons which could bring down a large moving target at distance. And although ambush & concealment was a skill, when it came to fighting , it wasn't an uncommon tactic for them to stand off at a distance & hit their enemy using their distance weapons (as you alluded to) just like how the first Governor of the Sydney Colony, Captain Arthur Phillip, discovered to his horror due to a spear sticking out of his leg.

As for illnesses - now that'll be a key thing. Another reason why the British were so successful, in taking over Australia - especially initially - is because they brought smallpox with them. When this hit the Aboriginal population it decimated their numbers. No one knows how many were killed, in a short period of time, but eye witness reports from the British colonists say that entire villages & camps were filled with the dead. So if the Maori had smallpox with them at the time, not that I've ever heard of this mind you, then that could change things somewhat.
 
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