Polynesia

One of the three major divisions (with Melanesia and Micronesia) of Oceania, encompassing islands in the central and southern Pacific Ocean. Polynesia (Greek for "many islands") consists of American Samoa, the Hawaiian Islands, the Cook Islands, Easter Island, French Polynesia, Tahiti, Niue, the Pitcairn Islands, Fiji, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Wallis andal, Futuna Islands, and Western Samoa. Ethnological descriptions sometimes include New Zealand because of the presence in that country of the Maori, a Polynesian people. 

Polynesians

People inhabiting a widely scattered group of islands, collectively known as Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean. They speak Polynesian languages (see Austronesian Languages). The Polynesians are not indigenous to Polynesia; ethnologists differ as to their origin, but the most accepted view is that they were established in the Malay Archipelago about the 2nd century BC, when they were driven eastward by over population. By the 13th and 14th centuries AD they occupied the territory they now inhabit. Early Polynesian economy was based on cultivating taro and yams, gathering fruit and coconuts, fishing, and raising pigs. Polynesians were expert in canoe building and navigation. They used wood and plant fibers to make fishing nets, ropes, and cloth for clothing. Their houses, built of hardwood posts, were walled with lengths of bamboo and plaited palm leaves and roofed with reed thatch. Metal was unknown, but, in New Zealand especially, stone was used for utensils and carved into axes, lance points, and religious figures. Wood carving in intricate geometrical patterns was highly developed on many of the islands. The religion of the Polynesians, still practiced, is a form of animism-worship of animals and natural objects believed to possess supernatural powers. A supreme deity is also revered. The practice of religion as a moral code is largely conditioned by the system of taboo. Cannibalism was once almost universal as a ceremonial rite. In areas where the original social structure is maintained, organization is on the basis of the family, with an active head chosen by the elders through a system of mixed heredity and adoption. The family is patriarchal and polygamous.