Maohi

In Tahiti and adjacent islands, the term Maohi (Mā’ohi in Tahitian language) refers to the ancestors of the Polynesian peoples.

The term can also be a reference to normal, everyday people, just as Māori is accepted among native or indigenous people in Aotearoa, New Zealand or Avaiki, Cook Islands as the way they describe themselves. Te Ao Maohi – the Maohi world – as an expression coined by Oscar Temaru gives an example of this.