This marked the first attempt at a separate Māori census.[i]
Footnotes
[i] go to main content Cautionary note regarding the fluidity of who would and could be counted as Māori: ‘Census definitions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were made directly by British or Māori census collectors, based informally on what appears to have been a mix of descent, cultural practices and modes of living’. ‘From 1916 the census collected data on ‘race’, giving Māori as one example, signalling a significant shift to a more structured, descent-based definition of Māori. This shift became more concrete in the 1926 census, when Māori were asked a question about ‘blood quantum’ or descent by proportions of ancestry. Subsequent censuses continued to collect Māori proportion-of-descent. Those reporting that they were half or more Māori by descent were categorised as Māori. From the 1976 census, terminology shifted away from ‘race’ to ‘ethnicity’, but the responses remained based on fractions of descent from various named ethnic groups, including Māori. In 1981 the official question was about ‘ethnic origin’. Again, a fractional approach was taken, with people responding as half or more Māori.’
Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney, Aroha Harris, Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 2014, p. 490.