Māori mythology Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern fantastic tales relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pr ...

, Toto was a chief in

Hawaiki In Polynesian mythology, (also rendered as in Cook Islands Māori, in Samoan, in Tahitian, in Hawaiian) is the original home of the Polynesians, before dispersal across Polynesia. It also features as the underworld in many Māori stories. ...

. He had two daughters,

Kuramarotini In Māori mythology, Kuramarotini was the daughter of Toto, a chief of Hawaiki. Toto made a gift to her of the canoe Matahourua, in which she went out fishing with her husband Hoturapa and their friend Kupe. Kupe tricked Hoturapa to dive into the ...

, the wife of

Hoturapa In Māori tradition, Hoturapa was a chief of Hawaiki. His wife Kuramarotini owned the canoe Matahourua. One day, Hoturapa and his wife went out fishing in the Matahourua with their friend Kupe. Kupe tricked Hoturapa to dive into the water to free ...

, and

Rongorongo Rongorongo (Rapa Nui: ) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, with none being successful. Although some c ...

, the wife of Turi. Toto felled a tree and made two canoes. One of these, the Aotea, was given to Turi, and was sailed by him to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The other canoe, the

Matahourua In Māori tradition, ''Matahourua'' was the canoe of the legendary hero Kupe, who, in some accounts, was the discoverer of Aotearoa (New Zealand) (Craig 1989:161, Grey 1970:108, 161–3). See also *List of Māori waka A ''list'' is any set o ...

, was later commandeered by

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 ge ...

who sailed it to New Zealand with

's wife (Tregear 1891:527).

References

*E.R. Tregear, ''Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary'' (Lyon and Blair: Lambton Quay), 1891. Māori mythology Legendary Polynesian people {{Māori-myth-stub