Year 6 · Social Sciences · 2 minutes
Why are New Zealanders called Kiwis?
A shy bird, a tin of boot polish, and a war that carried the name around the world.
Key terms
- te manu huna a Tāne
- A Māori name for the kiwi, meaning the hidden bird of Tāne, god of the forest.
- nickname
- A name people use for a group instead of its official name, like En Zeds or Fernleaves.
- symbol
- A picture or object that stands for something bigger, like the kiwi standing for the whole country.
- British Empire
- The group of lands ruled by Britain, where soldiers shined their boots with Kiwi polish.
- export
- To sell goods to other countries, as exporters did when they renamed the Chinese gooseberry the kiwifruit.
Transcript
New Zealanders are named after a bird. A small brown bird that can't fly and mostly comes out at night. So how did a shy bird become the name for five million people? And the answer involves a tin of Australian boot polish.
To Māori, the kiwi was always special: te manu huna a Tāne, the hidden bird of Tāne, god of the forest. European scientists were puzzled by it. One missionary called it the most curious bird in New Zealand.
By the early nineteen hundreds, cartoonists drew the kiwi to stand for the whole country. But the people had other nicknames: En Zeds, Fernleaves, Maorilanders.
Meanwhile, in Melbourne, a businessman named William Ramsay was making boot polish. In nineteen oh six he named it Kiwi, because his wife Annie was a New Zealander. A round bird on a round tin. Easy to remember.
Then came the First World War. The British army bought Kiwi polish in bulk, and soldiers right across the British Empire shined their boots with it. But the kiwi was New Zealand's bird, and many New Zealand soldiers already wore a kiwi on their badges. So by nineteen seventeen, people had started calling New Zealand soldiers Kiwis.
Here's a twist. In Australian army slang, a recruit with super shiny boots had kiwied up, and was even called a Kiwi!
When the war ended, New Zealand soldiers waiting for ships home cut a giant kiwi into a chalk hillside in England, about one hundred and thirty metres tall. It's still there today.
The name stuck. In nineteen fifty nine, exporters even renamed the Chinese gooseberry the kiwifruit. And today, our rugby league team is called the Kiwis.
So: a shy bird Māori always treasured. A boot polish named for Annie's home. And a war where kiwi badges and kiwi polish carried the name around the world. Not bad for a bird that can't fly.
Sources
Every fact in the video, and where it comes from.
- 1teara.govt.nz/en/kiwi/page-4
- Māori knew the kiwi as te manu huna a Tāne, the hidden bird of Tāne, god of the forest, and always regarded it as special.
- In 1835 missionary William Yate described the kiwi as the most remarkable and curious bird in New Zealand.
- By the early 1900s cartoonists used the kiwi to represent New Zealand; until the First World War it stood for the country, not the people, who were called En Zed(der)s, Maorilanders or Fernleaves.
- By 1917 New Zealand soldiers were also being called Kiwis.
- Kiwi polish was widely used in the imperial forces, and the kiwi's prominent use on New Zealand regiments' insignia made for easy association; NZ units wore kiwi badges in WWI (e.g. 4th Otago Rifles).
- 2adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ramsay-william-8152
- William Ramsay made boot polish in Melbourne; the Kiwi trademark was introduced in October 1906 in recognition of his wife Annie's New Zealand origins.
- 3rnz.co.nz/news/top/530889/richard-wolfe-on-how-new-zeala…
- The British government bought Kiwi polish in bulk for its army in the First World War, and the tins spread across the battlefields with New Zealand soldiers.
- 4historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1443438
- In 1919 New Zealand soldiers at Sling Camp, waiting to go home, made a chalk kiwi on Beacon Hill above Bulford, Wiltshire; it is about 130 m tall and still maintained.
- 5nzhistory.govt.nz/the-chinese-gooseberry-becomes-the-kiwifruit
- On 15 June 1959 Turners and Growers announced it would export Chinese gooseberries as kiwifruit.
- 6en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_national_rugby_league_team
- New Zealand's national rugby league team is known as the Kiwis.
- 7en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_(nickname)
- The Australian National Dictionary records 'Kiwis' and 'Kiwi Kids' in 1917 for Australian army recruits who had 'kiwied up' (polished their boots till they shone).
- 8awm.gov.au/collection/C1269667
- Kiwi polish was widely used in the imperial forces, and the kiwi's prominent use on New Zealand regiments' insignia made for easy association; NZ units wore kiwi badges in WWI (e.g. 4th Otago Rifles).
- 9theconversation.com/forensics-and-ship-logs-solve-a-200-year-myste…
- The first kiwi specimen reached Britain around 1812 and was described in 1813 as a new genus (Apteryx), with a puzzled early drawing.
- 10scoop.co.nz/stories/AK2602/S00327.htm
- New Zealand's population passed five million (provisional estimate 5,342,000 at 31 Dec 2025).
Image and sound credits
- Kiwi plates: J. G. Keulemans, Buller's Birds of New Zealand (1873, 1888), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Kiwi plate: Gracius J. Broinowski, The Birds of Australia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Apteryx australis drawing: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, CC0
- Kiwi postcard, cartoons 1910–1920: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, no known copyright restrictions
- Kiwi Boot Polish tin, 1930s: R. Henrik Nilsson, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Collins Street, Melbourne, 1903: Melvin Vaniman, public domain
- NZ soldiers in a French village; NZ soldiers in France: Alexander Turnbull Library, no known copyright restrictions
- Soldier portrait, 1917; Leo Bestall at Sling Camp: Hawke's Bay Museum (MTG Hawke's Bay), public domain
- NZEF pay book: Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, CC BY 4.0
- WWI regimental badges (4th Otago Rifles, South Canterbury): Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, CC BY 4.0
- Bulford Kiwi, Sling Camp, 1919: Palmerston North City Library, no known restrictions
- Bulford Kiwi from the air, 2025: The Nature Box, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Kiwifruit: Renee Comet, public domain
- 1935 pictorial stamp design: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, no known copyright restrictions
- Map data: Natural Earth (public domain)
- Paper textures: ambientCG (CC0) · Torn paper edges generated with AI
- Sound effects: Freesound contributors (CC0)
- Music: generated with ACE-Step · Voice: Gemini TTS
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