Story: Children’s play

These children are playing a traditional Māori stick game at Rotorua in the 1960s. After European colonisation many traditional Māori games were either suppressed or abandoned. Tī rākau (stick games) survived, and sometimes were even adopted by Pākehā groups such as scout troops. The other Māori games that persisted, such as hand games, string games and ruru (knucklebones), often bore strong similarities to traditional European games.