whānau
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Whānau () is the Māori word for the basic extended family group. Within Māori society the whānau encompasses three or four generations and forms the political unit below the levels of hapū (subtribe), iwi (tribe or nation) and waka (migration canoe). These steps are emphasised in Māori genealogy as a person's whakapapa.
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Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Early Māori society
- Contemporary conceptions
- See also
- References
Whānau () is the Māori word for the basic extended family group. Within Māori society the whānau encompasses three or four generations and forms the political unit below the levels of hapū (subtribe), iwi (tribe or nation) and waka (migration canoe). These steps are emphasised in Māori genealogy as a person's whakapapa.
==Early Māori society== In pre-contact Māori tribal organisation the whānau historically comprised a family spanning three to four generations, and would number around 20 to 30 people. It formed the smallest partition of the Māori society.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “whānau” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.