Human world
“There is no one face to Maori art. Instead there are as many faces as there are artists.”
Robert Jahnke and Witi Ihimaera 1999.
European contact with Oceania changed island societies a great deal.
Europeans introduced metal tools, guns, literacy, new kinds of clothes and diseases. They also introduced different attitudes, religions and ways of life.
But was this just a simple matter of Europeans imposing things onto other people?
Interactions between societies are complicated. Islanders had their own cultures and trade systems when Europeans arrived. The interactions between different ways of life led to new cultural forms which combine European and Oceanic heritage.
We can see this in Christianity and in contemporary art forms.
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