LOST PACIFIC ISLAND

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2305, 21 July 1921, Page 1

LOST PACIFIC ISLAND

RECORDS OF TUANAKI

IN VICINITY OF AITUTAKI

An Auckland correspondent, referring to Sir E. Shackelton’s proposal to search for the lost island of Tunnoki, states that the name is probably Tuannki.

“Tuanaki is mentioned in Polynesian tradition as being an island to which voyages were taken, and that some canoes that sailed thereto never returned,” writes the correspondent. “T«he Maori traditions

mention Tuanaki, among other plat es, as visited by them formerly, and also speak of it. as a resting or calling place on their voyage to New Zealand. Motutapu, Poraroa, Tohua and Tuanaki were names given to me by a Knipnra chietf (Makoare) as being all in one group, which was visited by their canoe Maliulm on the voyage from Hawaiki. The Mamari, a Ngapulii ancestral canoe, is also said to have called at Tuanaki to try to persuade people there Io join them. Beyond such casual references, no detail appears to have been handed down by tradition, but it would appear to have been inhabited by a Polynesian people, closely - related to Ihe Rarotongans.

“It is to Rarotonga, in fact, that we must turn for such particulars as have been preserved, for in that group Tuanaki is an island well remembered, and apparently visited within the past century. The names of the canoes and the commanding chiefs thereof are all known. Much of this detail is recorded in Gill’s “Gems of the Coral Islands.” Therein is recorded Williams’ attempt (about 1844) to locate Tuanaki AtAitulaki he had got direction from a native who claimed to have actually visited the place in a trading vessel a few years previously. This man described an island exploration lie made at the request of the captain, and how he found a village of Polynesians who spoke a Mangaian dialect. They were acquainted with his island of Aitutaki, said to be but a day and night’s distance. Tuanaki is said to be identical with an island visited by an Auckland trader ‘in the forties’; probably the other islands formerly in that group had already disappeared before the time -of these visits. However, eventually the trader could not again locate it, nor has any attempt to do so since then been successful. Probably it disappeared as the result of volcanic action, of which there are many other known similar happenings.”