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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. Anne Salmond states ''Havaii'' is the old name for Raiatea, the homeland of the Māori. When British explorer James Cook first sighted New Zealand in 1769, he had Tupaia on board, a Raiatean navigator and linguist. Cook's arrival seemed to be a confirmation of a prophecy by Toiroa, a priest from Māhia. At Tolaga Bay, Tupaia conversed with the ''tohunga'' 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- Nuclear Polynesian ''*sawaiki''. The Māori word figures in legends about the arrival of the Māori in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state geographically located within the tropics. Hawaii comprises nearly the entire Hawaiian archipelago, 137 volcanic islands spanning that are physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania. The state's ocean coastline is consequently the fourth-longest in the U.S., at about . The eight main islands, from northwest to southeast, are Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lānai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii—the last of these, after which the state is named, is often called the "Big Island" or "Hawaii Island" to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands make up most of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the United States' largest protected area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Island"). In the pre-European era, Māori did not have one name for the country as a whole. Several meanings for Aotearoa have been proposed for the name; the most popular translation usually given is "land of the long white cloud", or variations thereof. This refers to the cloud formations which helped early Polynesian navigators find the country. Beginning in the late 20th century, ''Aotearoa'' has become widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations and institutions. Since the 1990s, it has been customary for particular parties to sing the New Zealand national anthem, " God Defend New Zealand" (or "Aotearoa"), in both Māori and English, exposing the name to a wider audience. New Zealand English speakers pronounce th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 organised migrations to the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand and other parts of East Polynesia started at Raiatea. A traditional name for the island is Havai'i, homeland of the Māori people. Situated on the southeast coast is the historical Taputapuatea marae, which was established by 1000 CE. The site was the political and religious center of eastern Polynesia for several centuries, and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2017 for its historical significance. The main township on Raiatea is Uturoa, the administrative centre for the Leeward Islands (French ''Îles Sous-le-vent''). There are also colleges which serve as the main educational location for secondary schools for students from the regional islands of B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Polynesian Language
Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using the comparative method, in much the same manner as with Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic. This same method has also been used to support the archaeological and ethnographic evidence which indicates that the ancestral homeland of the people who spoke Proto-Polynesian was in the vicinity of Tonga, Samoa, and nearby islands. Phonology Proto-Polynesian has a small phonological inventory, with 13 consonants and 5 vowels. Consonants Vowels Proto-Polynesian has five vowels, , with no length distinction. In a number of daughter languages, successive sequences of vowels came together to produce long vowels and diphthongs, and in some languages these sounds later became phonemic. Sound correspondences Vocabulary The following is a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Austronesian family. While half of them are spoken in geographical Polynesia (the Polynesian triangle), the other half – known as Polynesian outliers – are spoken in other parts of the Pacific: from Micronesia to atolls scattered in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu. The most prominent Polynesian languages, in number of speakers, are Tahitian, Samoan, Tongan, Māori and Hawaiian. The ancestors of modern Polynesians were Lapita navigators, who settled in the Tonga and Samoa areas about 3,000 years ago. Linguists and archaeologists estimate that this first population went through common development during about 1000 years, giving rise to Proto-Polynesian, the linguistic ancestor of all modern Polynesian languages. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 many years the only access to the town was by boat. Because the bay is shallow, a long wharf – the second longest in New Zealand (600m) after the Tiwai Point wharf at Bluff (1,500m) – was built in the 1920s to accommodate visiting vessels. The last cargo ship to use the wharf loaded a cargo of maize in 1967. The town is a popular holiday spot. Its population is predominantly Māori, a centre of the Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti hapū and home of Ariki – Te Kani a Takirau and Tohunga – Rangiuia. Geography The Uawa River reaches the Pacific Ocean in the middle of Tolaga Bay. There is a bar at the river mouth with around 2 metres of water at high tide. The Uawa River is called the Hikuwai further up. Tributaries include the Waiau and the M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including language relatedness, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night. The largest country in Polynesia is New Zealand. The term was first used in 1756 by the French writer Charles de Brosses, who originally applied it to all the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed a narrower definition during a lecture at the Geographical Society of Paris. By tradition, the islands located in the southern Pacific have a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself". Common features of underworld myths are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some heroic purpose. Other myths reinforce traditions that entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony, such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead Patroclus haunting Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose. Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld. A number of mythologies incorporate the concept of the soul of the deceased making its own journey to the underworld, with the dead needing to b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Māori Language
Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and Tahitian, it gained recognition as one of New Zealand's official languages in 1987. The number of speakers of the language has declined sharply since 1945, but a Māori-language revitalisation effort has slowed the decline. The 2018 New Zealand census reported that about 186,000 people, or 4.0% of the New Zealand population, could hold a conversation in Māori about everyday things. , 55% of Māori adults reported some knowledge of the language; of these, 64% use Māori at home and around 50,000 people can speak the language "very well" or "well". The Māori language did not have an indigenous writing system. Missionaries arriving from about 1814, such as Thomas Kendall, learned to speak Māori, and introduced the Latin alphabet. In 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 the Independent State of Samoa and American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States of America. Though divided by national border, the culture and language are the same. The Samoan people and culture form a vital link and stepping stone in the formation and spread of Polynesian culture, language and religion throughout Eastern Polynesia. Polynesian trade, religion, war, and colonialism are important markers within Polynesian culture that are almost certainly rooted in the Samoan culture. Samoa's colonial history with the kingdom of Tonga, Fiji and French Polynesia form the basis of modern Polynesian culture. Social organization Among the many parts of Samoan society, three are described below: The ''matai'' (chief), the '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 cultures known as the Polynesian outliers. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as Proto-Polynesian - probably spoken in the Tonga - Samoa area around 1000 BC. Description Prior to the 15th century AD, Polynesian peoples fanned out to the east, to the Cook Islands, and from there to other groups such as Tahiti and the Marquesas. Their descendants later discovered the islands from Tahiti to Rapa Nui, and later Hawai‘i and New Zealand. The latest research puts the settlement of New Zealand at about 1300 AD. The various Polynesian languages are all part of the Austronesian language family. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to permit communication between some other language speaker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
