Origins: Season 1

2020

Scotty Morrison heads this docuseries looking back on the first people of Aotearoa and asking who they were, where they... More

Scotty Morrison heads this docuseries looking back on the first people of Aotearoa and asking who they were, where they came from, and how they got there.

In this deeply personal and emotional journey, Scotty sifts his way through whakapapa, oral history, archaeological, and DNA evidence, unpicking fact from fiction in his search for the truth. This is not a series that pits science and traditional knowledge against each other. Rather, the two are explored both separately and together to deepen knowledge and understanding of Māori history.

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Where to watch Origins: Season 1

Origins: Season 1 is available to stream in New Zealand... More now on TVNZ+.

Origins: Season 1 episodes

Episode 1

Scotty Morrison explores the origins of the Māori people, visiting... More the Wairau Bar site which could be the first community in Aotearoa. Scotty tries to locate his hawaiki, his homeland, in the Pacific, but is hawaiki a real place or just a concept?

Episode 2

Scotty learns how early Pākehā researchers got the origins of... More Māori so wrong. He is surprised to find that several traditional folktales in Samoa are replicated in Māori culture and he makes a shock personal discovery at an ancient Vanuatu urupa.

Episode 3

Scotty travels to Ethiopia to explore the place that is... More said to be the origin of us all, and he visits the Cook Islands - the stepping off point for waka heading to Aotearoa hundreds of years ago.