Primary Health Care and Nursing in New Zealand 

New Zealand – Aotearoa – land of the Long White Cloud, has two meanings.  In the ancient beliefs of the indigenous people, the Maori, Aotearoa was fished from the ocean depths by Maui.  The second beginning is attributed by tradition to Kupe who on a voyage from Hawaiki discovered Aotearoa about 925 A.D.  Waves of canoe fleets from throughout the Pacific followed so that by the time of European colonization in the 18^th century the tangata whenua of Aotearoa were the descendants of successive groups of immigrants.  Continued…