TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 112, 19 March 1954, Page 1

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

THE COMING OF THE MAORI

(By

R.H.

W.)

IV The great migration, or heke, from Hawaiki to New Zealand is an event in Maori history similar to the Norman Conquest in English history. The story of the coming of the Fleet about 1350 is well known, but it is not so commonly realised that the first discovery of New Zealand by Polynesian folk took place some four hundred years earlier, about the middle of the tenth century A.D. This disaovery was made by Kupe, one of those navigators who had visited many of the islands and whose home appears to have been in Ra'iatea island (to the Maori, Rangiatea), Tahiti. He lived about 39 generations ago, which sets the date at approximately 925 A.D. Kupe's canoe, in which tradition says he embarked his wife and five children, and a crew of 60, was the Matahourua, and he was accompanied by a friend, Ngake, or Ngahue, in his canoe the Tahirirangi." A landfall was made in the far north and after a brief sojourn there the canoes ran down the east coa.st of the island. Great Barrier Island was named "Aotea," and the mainland "Aotea-roa," and tradition says that the names were derived from a white cloud (ao tea), the first sign of land ahead, seen by Kupe's wife as they approached the North Cape region. The adjective "roa," long, added to "Ao-tea," refers not to the cloud, but to the length of time that had elapsed on the voyage before the long looked for land-denoting cloud had appeared. Literally, the name meant "The white cloud seen after a long time," and the construction, strange to European ideas, is a typical Polynesian one. Landings at Castle Point and Palliser Bay were followed by the entry of Wellington Harbour, which does not appear to have been given a name, though Somes and Ward Islands were named after Kupe's daughters Matiu and Makaro. A venerated stone, known as "Te Punga o Matahourua," and said to have been the anchor, or mooring stone, of Kupe's canoe, lay formerly on the sand-hills near Plimmerton, in Porirua Harbour. It was removed some years ago to the Dominion Museum in Wellington. An ancient song, beginning "Ka tito au, ka tito au, ka tito au ia Kupe," commemorates the severing of the North and South Islands by Kupe. The first lines, translated, are "I sing, I sing, I sing of Kupe, The man who cut the land in twain," or who, in plain prose, diseovered the sea passage that was later called Raukawa, and, later still, Cook Strait. Kupe made his departure for the homeland from an inlet on the North Auckland peninsula, which was named, from the event, "Hoki-anga-nui-a-Kupe," the Great Returning Place of Kupe, and Hokianga it has remained to this day. On his safe return, he is said to have given information about the great land he had diseovered in the southern sea of Tiritiri-o-te-moana. Asked if it were inhabited he replied that all he had seen was a weka, whistling in the gullies, a kokako (N.Z. crow) calling on the

ridges, and a tiwaiwaka (fantail) flitting about before his face. The reply is typical of the Polynesian form of indirect answer, more poetic than an abrupt "No." The soil smelt good and food abounded in streams and sea. The sailing directions given by Kupe were handed down in the traditions of his ' voyage, but the versions that have come down to us today differ considerably on the course to be set. The successful voyages made by Toi, two hundred years later, and later still by the Great Fleet about 1350, indicate that at that time the correct information had been preserved. Asked if he would return to the new land, Kupe replied, "E hoki Kupe?" ("Will Kupe return?"), and to this day the reply is quoted on suitable occasions as an indirect but definite refusal. (To be continued).