In
Polynesian mythology
The Polynesian narrative or Polynesian mythology encompasses the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian Triangle) together with those of the scattered cul ...
, (also rendered as in
Cook Islands Māori
Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to New Zealand Māori, but is a distinct language in its own right. Cook Islands Māori is simply c ...
, in
Samoan, in
Tahitian, in
Hawaiian) is the original home of the
Polynesians
Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...
, before dispersal across
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
. It also features as the
underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
in many
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
stories.
Anne Salmond
Dame Mary Anne Salmond (née Thorpe; born 16 November 1945) is a New Zealand anthropologist, environmentalist and writer. She was New Zealander of the Year in 2013. In 2020, she was appointed to the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour ...
states ''Havaii'' is the old name for
Raiatea
Raiatea or Ra'iatea ( Tahitian: ''Ra‘iātea'') is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the ...
, the homeland of the Māori. When British explorer
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
first sighted New Zealand in 1769, he had
Tupaia on board, a
Raiatea
Raiatea or Ra'iatea ( Tahitian: ''Ra‘iātea'') is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the ...
n navigator and linguist. Cook's arrival seemed to be a confirmation of a prophecy by Toiroa, a priest from
Māhia. At
Tolaga Bay
Tolaga Bay ( mi, Uawa) is both a bay and small town on the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island located 45 kilometres northeast of Gisborne and 30 kilometres south of Tokomaru Bay.
The region around the bay is rugged and remote, and for m ...
, Tupaia conversed with the ''
tohunga
In the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, a tohunga (tōhuka in Southern Māori dialect) is an expert practitioner of any skill or art, either religious or otherwise. Tohunga include expert priests, healers, navigators, carvers, builders, teache ...
'' associated with the school of learning located there, called Te Rawheoro. The priest asked about the Maori homelands, 'Rangiatea' (Ra'iatea), 'Hawaiki' (Havai'i, the ancient name for Ra'iatea), and 'Tawhiti' (Tahiti).
Etymology
Linguists have reconstructed the term to
Proto
Proto or PROTO may refer to:
Language
* Proto-, an English prefix meaning "first"
Media
* ''Proto'' (magazine), an American science magazine
* Radio Proto in Cyprus
Music
* ''Proto'' (Holly Herndon album), 2019
* ''Proto'' (Leo O'Kelly ...
-
Nuclear Polynesian ''*sawaiki''.
[Polynesian Lexicon Project Online](_blank)
/ref>
The Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
word figures in legends about the arrival of the Māori in Aotearoa
''Aotearoa'' () is the current Māori-language name for New Zealand. The name was originally used by Māori in reference to only the North Island, with the name of the whole country being ''Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu'' ("North Island and South ...
(New Zealand). The same concept appears in other Polynesian cultures, the name appearing variously as ''Havaiki'', ''Havaii'', or ''Avaiki'' in other Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...
. ''Hawaiki'' or the misspelling "Hawaiiki" appear to have become the most common variants used in English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
. Although the Sāmoans
Samoans or Samoan people ( sm, tagata Sāmoa) are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Samoan Islands, an archipelago in Polynesia, who speak the Samoan language. The group's home islands are politically and geographically divided between t ...
have preserved no traditions of having originated elsewhere, the name of the largest Sāmoan island preserves a cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with the word ''Hawaiki'', as does the name of the Polynesian islands of (the denoting a glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
that replaces the "k" in some Polynesian languages).
On several island groups, including New Zealand and the Marquesas
The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in t ...
, the term has been recorded as associated with the mythical underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
and death. William Wyatt Gill
William Wyatt Gill (27 December 1828 – 11 November 1896) was an English missionary, active in Australia and the South Pacific region after 1851.
Early life
Gill was born in Bristol, England, son of John Gill of Barton Hill and his wife Jane ...
wrote at length in the nineteenth century recounting the legends about Avaiki as the underworld or Hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...
of Mangaia
Mangaia (traditionally known as A'ua'u Enua, which means ''terraced'') is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga. It is a roughly circular island, with an area of , from Rarotonga. Originally heavily popula ...
in the Cook Islands
)
, image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg
, capital = Avarua
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Avarua
, official_languages =
, lan ...
.[Gill, William Wyatt, 1876. ''Myths and Songs from the South Pacific.'' Henry S. King, London, pp 152–174.] Gill (1876:155) records a proverb: ''Ua po Avaiki, ua ao nunga nei'' – 'Tis night now in spirit-land, for 'tis light in this upper world." Tregear (1891:392) also records the term Avaiki as meaning "underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
" at Mangaia, probably sourced from Gill. There is no real contradiction in Hawaiki being both the ancestral homeland (that is, the dwelling place of the ancestors) and the underworld, which is also the dwelling place of ancestors and the spirits.
Other possible cognates of the word ''Hawaiki'' include ("spirits" in Sāmoan) and ("chiefs" in Tongan). This has led some scholars to hypothesize that the word ''Hawaiki'', and, by extension, and , may not, in fact, have originally referred to a geographical place, but rather to chiefly ancestors and the chief-based social structure that pre-colonial Polynesia typically exhibited.
On Easter Island
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...
, the name of the mythical home country appears as . According to Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography.
Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000&nb ...
, was said to lie east of the island. Sebastian Englert
Father Sebastian Englert OFM Cap., (November 17, 1888 – January 8, 1969) was a Capuchin Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest, missionary, linguist and ethnologist from Germany. He is known for his pioneering work on Easter Island, where the ...
records:
:
: Translation: "The island towards the sun, above! Go, see the island where King Hotu Matua Hotu may refer to:
* Hotu Matu'a, legendary first settler of Easter Island
* The Yellow River Map
The Yellow River Map, Scheme, or Diagram, also known by its Chinese name as the Hetu, is an ancient Chinese diagram that appears in myths conc ...
will go and live!"
Englert puts forward the claim that lies to the West of the island. The name is found in the Marquesas Islands
The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in th ...
, in the names of several islands: , and (although in the element may be a different word, ). It is also notable that in the Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
, the ancestral homeland is called (a cognate of Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
, where at least part of the Hawaiian population came from).
Legends
According to various oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
s, the Polynesians migrated from Hawaiki to the islands of the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
in open canoes, little different from the traditional craft found in Polynesia today.
The Māori people
The Māori (, ) are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350. Over several ce ...
of New Zealand trace their ancestry to groups of people who reportedly travelled from Hawaiki in about 40 named waka
Waka may refer to:
Culture and language
* Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand
** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe
** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe
** Waka taua, a Māori w ...
(compare the discredited Great Fleet
Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
*Artel Great (born ...
theory of the Polynesian settlement of New Zealand).
Polynesian oral traditions say that the spirits of Polynesian people return to Hawaiki after death. In the New Zealand context, such return-journeys take place via Spirits Bay
Spirits Bay, officially named Piwhane / Spirits Bay, is a remote bay at the northern end of the Aupouri Peninsula, which forms the northern tip of New Zealand's North Island. It lies between Cape Reinga / Te Rerenga Wairua in the west and Ngataea ...
, Cape Reinga
, type =Cape
, photo = Cape Reinga, Northland, New Zealand, October 2007.jpg
, photo_width = 270px
, photo_alt =
, photo_caption =
, map = New Zealand
, map_width = 270px
...
and the Three Kings Islands
3 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
3, three, or III may also refer to:
* AD 3, the third year of the AD era
* 3 BC, the third year before the AD era
* March, the third month
Books
* ''Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 n ...
at the extreme north of the North Island
The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...
of New Zealand. This may indicate the direction in which Hawaiki may lie.
Modern science and practical testing of theories
Until the early 21st century, many anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
s had doubts that the canoe-legends described a deliberate migration. They tended to believe that the migration occurred accidentally when seafarers became lost and drifted to uninhabited shores. In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography.
Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000&nb ...
sailed the ''Kon-Tiki
The ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named ''Kon-Tiki'' after the Inca god Viracocha, for ...
'', a balsa
''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma''. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, with the name ''balsa'' being ...
-wood raft
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barrel ...
, from South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
into the Pacific in an attempt to show that humans could have settled Polynesia from the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, with sailors using the prevailing winds and simple construction techniques.
But DNA, linguistic, botanical, and archaeological evidence all indicate that the Austronesian-speaking peoples (including the Polynesians) probably originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from present-day Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. From there they gradually migrated southwards and eastwards through the South Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. The common ancestry of all the Austronesian languages, of which the Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...
form a major subgroup, as well as all Austronesian language families but Malayo-Polynesian
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...
, exist only in Taiwan, and thus support this theory.
The sweet potato
The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...
, which is of South American origin, is widely cultivated in Polynesia. This suggests that some interaction between the Polynesians and the Amerindians
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the Ame ...
of South America may have taken place. No Polynesian crops were introduced into the Americas, and there possible evidence of Polynesian contact only in Chile. Austronesian and Polynesian navigators may have deduced the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.
In recent decades, boatbuilders (see Polynesian Voyaging Society
The Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) is a non-profit research and educational corporation based in Honolulu, Hawaii. PVS was established to research and perpetuate traditional Polynesian voyaging methods. Using replicas of traditional double-hul ...
) have constructed ocean-going craft using traditional materials and techniques. They have sailed them over presumed traditional routes using ancient navigation methods, showing the feasibility of such deliberate migration that make use of prevailing winds.
See also
*Hawaiʻiloa
Hawaiiloa (alt. Hawaii Loa or Ke Kowa i Hawaii) is a mythical Hawaiian fisherman and navigator who is said to have discovered the island of Hawaii.
Legend
Hawaiiloa was an expert fisherman and navigator who was famous for his lengthy fishing ex ...
*''Hōkūleʻa
''Hōkūlea'' is a performance-accurate ''waa kaulua'', a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it is best known for its 1976 Hawaii to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusiv ...
''
*Kupe
Kupe ( ~1180-1320) was a legendary Polynesian explorer, navigator and great rangatira of Hawaiki, who is said to have been the first human to discover New Zealand. Whether Kupe existed historically is likely but difficult to confirm. He is g ...
* Percy Smith
*Urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
*Polynesian navigation
Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometers of the Pelagic zone, open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Poly ...
Footnotes
References
{{wikisource, Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori
*Buse, J., Taringa, R., ''Cook Islands Maori Dictionary With English Finderlist'', edited by Biggs, B. and Moeka'a R. (1996), 90. Canberra: The Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and i ...
.
* M. Taumoefolau, "From *Sau 'Ariki to Hawaiki". ''The Journal of the Polynesian Society
The Polynesian Society is a non-profit organisation based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, dedicated to the scholarly study of the history, ethnography, and mythology of Oceania.
History
The society was co-founded in 1892 by Percy S ...
'', 105(4), (1996), 385–410.
* E. R. Tregear, ''Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary'' (Lyon and Blair
John Rutherfurd Blair (8 February 1843 – 25 November 1914) was the Mayor of Wellington, New Zealand from 1898 to 1899.
Biography
Blair was born in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland, and was a paper merchant. His career started with a large Glasgo ...
: Lambton Quay), 1891.
External links
''Hawaiki''
in Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups
Mythological islands
Polynesian mythology
Māori underworld