Various Māori traditions

Maori mythology

Māori mythology and Māori traditions are the two major categories into which the legends of the Māori of New Zealand may usefully be divided...

 recount how their ancestors set out from their homeland in great ocean-going canoes (or waka

Waka (canoe)

Waka are Māori watercraft, usually canoes ranging in size from small, unornamented canoes used for fishing and river travel, to large decorated war canoes up to long...

). Some of these traditions name a mythical homeland called Hawaiki

Hawaiki

In Māori mythology, Hawaiki is the homeland of the Māori, the original home of the Māori, before they travelled across the sea to New Zealand...

.

Among these is the story of Kupe

Kupe

In the Māori mythology of some tribes, Kupe was involved in the Polynesian discovery of New Zealand.-Contention:There is contention concerning the status of Kupe. The contention turns on the authenticity of later versions of the legends, the so-called 'orthodox' versions closely associated with S....

, who had eloped with Kuramarotini

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 water to free one of the lines...

, the wife of Hoturapa

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 one of the lines. Once Hoturapa was overboard, Kupe...

, the owner of the great canoe Matahourua

Matahourua

In Māori tradition, Matahourua was the canoe of the legendary hero Kupe, who, in some accounts, was the discoverer of Aotearoa .-References:...

, whom Kupe had murdered. To escape punishment for the murder, Kupe and Kura fled in Matahourua and discovered a land he called Aotearoa

Aotearoa

Aotearoa is the most widely known and accepted Māori name for New Zealand. It is used by both Māori and non-Māori, and is becoming increasingly widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.-Translation:The...

 ('long-white-cloud'). He explored its coast and killed the sea monster Te Wheke-a-Muturangi

Te Wheke-a-Muturangi

In Māori mythology, Te Wheke-a-Muturangi is a monstrous octopus destroyed in Tory Channel or at Pātea by Kupe the navigator.The octopus was a pet or familiar of Muturangi a powerful tohunga of Hawaiki. The wheke was nonetheless a wild creature and a guardian....

, finally returning to his home to spread news of his newly discovered land.

Other stories of various other tribes report migrations to escape famine, over-population, and warfare. These were made in legendary canoes, the best known of which are Aotea

Aotea (canoe)

In Māori tradition, Aotea is one of the canoes by which Māori migrated to New Zealand; it is particularly associated with the tribes of Taranaki and Whanganui, including Ngāti Ruanui and other tribal groups. Aotea was a double canoe built by Toto from half of a great tree from Hawaiki, the other...

, Arawa, Kurahaupō

Kurahaupo

In Taranaki tribal tradition, Kurahaupō is known as 'Te Waka Pakaru ki te moana' or 'The Canoe broken at sea', and was reputed to have arrived in Aotearoa in the same generation as the other great migration vessels of the Māori like Aotea, Mataatua, Takitimu, Tainui, Arawa etc...

, Mataatua

Mataatua

In Māori tradition, Mataatua was one of the great voyaging canoes by which Polynesians migrated to New Zealand. Māori traditions say that the Mataatua was initially sent from Hawaiki to bring supplies of kūmara to Māori settlements in New Zealand...

, Tainui

Tainui (canoe)

In Māori tradition, Tainui was the name of one of the great ocean-going canoes in which Polynesians migrated to New Zealand, approximately 800 years ago. The Tainui waka was named for an infant who did not survive childbirth...

, Tākitimu

Takitimu

In several Māori traditions, the Tākitimu was one of the great Māori migration canoes that brought Polynesian migrants to New Zealand from Hawaiki. It was one of the seven canoes in the "Great Fleet hypothesis" proposed by historian Stephenson Percy Smith .-Māori Traditions:The Tākitimu appears in...

, and Tokomaru

Tokomaru (canoe)

In Māori tradition, Tokomaru was one of the great ocean-going canoes that were used in the migrations that settled New Zealand. It was commanded by Manaia. His brother-in-law had originally owned the canoe. When Manaia's wife was raped by a group of men, he slew them, including the chief Tupenu...

. Various traditions name numerous other canoes. Some, including the Āraiteuru

Araiteuru

In Māori mythology, Āraiteuru is the canoe in which brought the ancestors the Ngāi Tahu people of the South Island. The canoe was conveyed to New Zealand by the north-east wind, carrying the chiefs Kirikiri-ka-tata, Aroarokaehe, Mangaatua, Aoraki, Kakeroa, Te Horokoatu, Ritua, Ngamautaurua,...

, are well known; others including the Kirauta and the sacred Arahura

Arahura

This is about the Maori canoe. For the ferry operating on the Interisland Line, see Arahura .Arahura, in Māori mythology , is a divine canoe which was made of pounamu...

 and Mahangaatuamatua

Mahangaatuamatua

Mahangaatuamatua is a canoe mentioned in a letter by Uma-kau-oho-mata-kamokamo, a Māori chief from the Tauranga district, New Zealand, quoted in White...

 are little known. Rather than arriving in a single fleet, the journeys may have occurred over several centuries.

The "great fleet" hypothesis

An important early collector and preserver of Maori traditions was the surveyor and ethnologist Stephenson Percy Smith

Stephenson Percy Smith

Stephenson Percy Smith was a New Zealand ethnologist and surveyor. He founded The Polynesian Society.-Early life and career as a surveyor :...

.

Smith believed that while the Polynesian traditions may have been flawed in detail, they preserved the threads of truth which could be recovered using a method already well established for Hawaiian traditions by Fornander (1878–1885). This method involved seeking out common elements of tradition from different sources, and aligning these to genealogies to give a time frame for the events. Abraham Fornander

Abraham Fornander

Abraham Fornander was a Swedish-born emigrant who became an important Hawaiian journalist, judge, and ethnologist.-Early life and education:...

, Smith, and others used this method to reconstruct the migrations of the Polynesians, tracing them back to a supposed ancient homeland in India.

S. Percy Smith used the Fornander method, combining disparate traditions from various parts of New Zealand and other parts of Polynesia, to derive the 'Great Fleet' hypothesis. Through an examination of the genealogies of various tribes, he came up with a set of precise dates for his 'Great Fleet' and the explorers that he and others posited as having paved the way for the fleet.

According to Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand is an online encyclopedia created by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage of the New Zealand Government. The project was established in 2002 and the website launched in 2005...

, "Smith’s account went as follows. In 750 AD the Polynesian explorer Kupe discovered an uninhabited New Zealand. Then in 1000–1100 AD, the Polynesian explorers Toi

Toi (name)

Toi is a fairly common man's name in Māori and other Polynesian languages.The best known men named Toi are the following from Māori legendary history, who are sometimes confused with one another:...

 and Whātonga visited New Zealand, and found it inhabited by a primitive, nomadic people known as the Moriori

Moriori

Moriori are the indigenous people of the Chatham Islands , east of the New Zealand archipelago in the Pacific Ocean...

. Finally, in 1350 AD a ‘great fleet’ of seven canoes – Aotea

Aotea (canoe)

In Māori tradition, Aotea is one of the canoes by which Māori migrated to New Zealand; it is particularly associated with the tribes of Taranaki and Whanganui, including Ngāti Ruanui and other tribal groups. Aotea was a double canoe built by Toto from half of a great tree from Hawaiki, the other...

, Kurahaupō

Kurahaupo

In Taranaki tribal tradition, Kurahaupō is known as 'Te Waka Pakaru ki te moana' or 'The Canoe broken at sea', and was reputed to have arrived in Aotearoa in the same generation as the other great migration vessels of the Māori like Aotea, Mataatua, Takitimu, Tainui, Arawa etc...

, Mataatua

Mataatua

In Māori tradition, Mataatua was one of the great voyaging canoes by which Polynesians migrated to New Zealand. Māori traditions say that the Mataatua was initially sent from Hawaiki to bring supplies of kūmara to Māori settlements in New Zealand...

, Tainui

Tainui (canoe)

In Māori tradition, Tainui was the name of one of the great ocean-going canoes in which Polynesians migrated to New Zealand, approximately 800 years ago. The Tainui waka was named for an infant who did not survive childbirth...

, Tokomaru

Tokomaru (canoe)

In Māori tradition, Tokomaru was one of the great ocean-going canoes that were used in the migrations that settled New Zealand. It was commanded by Manaia. His brother-in-law had originally owned the canoe. When Manaia's wife was raped by a group of men, he slew them, including the chief Tupenu...

, Te Arawa and Tākitimu

Takitimu

In several Māori traditions, the Tākitimu was one of the great Māori migration canoes that brought Polynesian migrants to New Zealand from Hawaiki. It was one of the seven canoes in the "Great Fleet hypothesis" proposed by historian Stephenson Percy Smith .-Māori Traditions:The Tākitimu appears in...

 – all departed from the Tahitian region at the same time, bringing the people now known as Māori to New Zealand. These were advanced, warlike, agricultural tribes who destroyed the Moriori"

The great fleet scenario won general acceptance, its adherents even including the famous Māori ethnologist Te Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck), and was taught in New Zealand schools. However it was effectively demolished during the 1960s by the ethnologist David Simmons, who showed that it derived from an incomplete and indiscriminate study of Māori tradition as recorded in the 19th Century. Simmons also suggests that some of these 'migrations' may actually have been journeys within New Zealand.

Historian Rāwiri Taonui, writing in 2006 for the website Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, accuses Smith of falsification: "The Great Fleet theory was the result of a collaboration between the 19th-century ethnologist S. Percy Smith and the Māori scholar Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury. Smith obtained details about places in Rarotonga and Tahiti during a visit in 1897, while Jury provided information about Māori canoes in New Zealand. Smith then ‘cut and pasted’ his material, combining several oral traditions into new ones. Their joint work was published in two books, in which Jury and Smith falsely attributed much of their information to two 19th-century tohunga, Moihi Te Mātorohanga and Nēpia Pōhūhū" (Taonui 2006).

See also

• List of Māori migration canoes
• Māori
• Māori culture
  Maori culture
  Māori culture is the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, an Eastern Polynesian people, and forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture. Within the Māori community, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori...
  
  
• Polynesian navigation
  Polynesian navigation
  Polynesian navigation is a system of navigation used by Polynesians to make long voyages across thousands of miles of open ocean. Navigators travel to small inhabited islands using only their own senses and knowledge passed by oral tradition from navigator to apprentice, often in the form of song...
  
  

External links

• Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Ideas of Māori Origins
• Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: The meaning of canoe traditions
• maori.info Useful summary of the mythical and historical origin of the Māori of New Zealand