Before Europeans arrived, Māori communities were organised around family and descent. The largest grouping was the iwi, a tribe made up of related hapū. Each hapū was a clan of several whānau, and a whānau was an extended family of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and children. Every hapū had rights to marae, open meeting grounds where important gatherings were, and still are, held.

Many communities built pā, fortified villages set on hills, ridges or headlands where the land itself helped with defence. Inside a pā were sleeping houses, storage buildings, and deep pits for storing kūmara, the sweet potato that voyagers had carried across the Pacific. Kūmara gardens were planted in the best warm soils, and food also came from fishing, gathering shellfish, and catching birds in the forest.

Goods moved long distances. Pounamu, the hard greenstone found in the South Island, was highly treasured and worked into tools and ornaments. Daily life followed tikanga, the customs and correct ways of doing things, which guided how people were welcomed, how food was shared, and how important treasures, taonga, were cared for. Tikanga and marae remain central to Māori life today.