Whānau ([ˈfaːnaʉ]) is a Māori-language word for extended family, now increasingly entering New Zealand English, particularly in official publications.
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In Māori society, the whānau is also a political unit, below the level of hapū and iwi, and the word itself has other meanings: as a verb meaning to be born or give birth.
Early Māori society
In the Māori tribal organisation the whānau comprises a family spanning three to four generations. It forms the smallest partition of the Māori society.
In the ancient Māori society, before the arrival of the Pākehā, a whānau consisted of the kaumātua (tribal elders), senior adults such as parents, uncles and aunts, and the sons and daughters together with their partners and children. Large whānau lived in their own compound in the pā. Whānau also had their own gardening plots and their own fishing and hunting spots. The whānau was economically self-sufficient. In warfare, it supported the iwi (tribe) or a hapū (sub-tribe).
Contemporary conceptions
Contemporary conceptions offer whānau in one of two ways:
- An “object or construction based on descent, cause or a mix of the two”; or
- “A collection of ideas”.
As a descent construct, ‘whānau’ has been variably described as “the extended family”, “the extended family or community”, or simply "family".