While not having a tradition of ceramics as a customary art form, the Maori of Aotearoa/New Zealand do have traditions relating to the elements required for the making of ceramic works.

The cosmological/creation narratives include the origins of clay and ochre, firs and water.

Maori traditions regarding clay are first encountered in the stories relating to the creation of the first human being, a woman - Hineahuone who was moulded from the sacred clay of Kurawaka from the body of the primordial earth mother Papatuanuku.

By this act the all male Maori Gods, led by Tane, were acknowledging that the Ira-Tangata (life principle of humanity) needed to be created and required the Uwha (female principle) which was located within their mother Papatuanuku. Hineahuone was vivified by the infusion of the Hau-Ora (breath of life) by Tane, imparting into humanity the Ira Atua (life principle of the Gods). Thus Hineahuone, clayformed, first human, a woman, combines both the spiritual and the material; a legacy passed on to all of her descendants.

Fire as used by humankind is once again the result of the work of Tane. He secures the fire making tools which were suspended around the neck of the celestial father Ranginui at the time of the separation of the primal parents. Kokowai (red ochre) is the blood shed by the primal parents Ranginui and Papatuanuku (sky father and earth mother) as they were forced apart by their children (the departmental Gods of Maori mythology).

Tane uses the fire tools to create Ra (the sun) who in turn expressed his compassion for humankind by bestowing the gift of fire. He instructs his son, Auahituroa (comet) to descend to mother earth to marry Mahuika who becomes the Goddess and custodian of fire. The story continues with the demi-god Maui (trickster/mischief-maker to Maori and other Polynesian people) taking control of fire for humankind.

Nga-Kaihanga-Uku (Maori clayworkers) is a loos collective of artists who have a rich heritage of allegory and metaphor such as the above to draw on as a cultural template - a foundation and springboard from which to reinterpret and develop an identity for the non-customary medium of clay. These artists use clay to celebrate and express their Maori identity.