Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Maori Then
Some three millennia ago people began moving eastward into the Pacific, sailing against
the prevailing winds and currents (hard to go out, easier to return safely). Some stopped at
Tonga and Samoa, and others settled the small central East Polynesian tropical islands.
The Maori colonisation of Aotearoa began from an original homeland known to Maori
as Hawaiki. Skilled navigators and sailors travelled across the Pacific, using many naviga-
tional tools - currents, winds, stars, birds and wave patterns - to guide their large, double-
hulled ocean-going craft to a new land. The first of many was the great navigator Kupe,
who arrived, the story goes, chasing an octopus named Muturangi. But the distinction of
giving NZ its well-known Maori name - Aotearoa - goes to his wife, Kuramarotini, who
cried out, '
He ao, he ao tea, he ao tea roa!'
(A cloud, a white cloud, a long white cloud!).
Kupe and his crew journeyed around the land, and many places around Cook Strait
(between the North and South Islands), and the Hokianga in Northland still bear the names
that they gave them and the marks of his passage. Kupe returned to Hawaiki, leaving from
(and naming) Northland's Hokianga. He gave other seafarers valuable navigational inform-
ation. And then the great
waka
(ocean-going craft) began to arrive.
The
waka
that the first setters arrived on, and their landing places, are immortalised in
tribal histories. Well-known
waka
include
Takitimu, Kurahaupo, Te Arawa, Mataatua,
Tainui, Aotea
and
Tokomaru
. There are many others. Maori trace their genealogies back to
those who arrived on the
waka
(and further back as well).
What would it have been like making the transition from small tropical islands to a much
larger, cooler land mass? Goodbye breadfruit, coconuts, paper mulberry; hello moa, fern-
root, flax - and immense space (relatively speaking). NZ has over 15,000km of coastline.
Rarotonga, by way of contrast, has a little over 30km. There was land, lots of it, and a flora
and fauna that had developed more or less separately from the rest of the world for 80 mil-
lion years. There was an untouched, massive fishery, a great seaside mammalian conveni-
ence stores - seals and sea lions - as well as a fabulous array of birds.
The early settlers went on the move, pulled by love, by trade opportunities and greater
resources; pushed by disputes and threats to security. When they settled, Maori established
mana whenua
(regional authority), whether by military campaigns, or by the peaceful
methods of intermarriage and diplomacy. Looking over tribal history it's possible to see the
many alliances, absorptions and extinctions that went on.
