THE MAORI IN POLYNESIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 216, 5 September 1908, Page 3

THE MAORI IN POLYNESIA.

(By James Izel't.-AU Rights Reserved.;; chapter I. HAWAIKI, THE Ijjst LAND. It is to be noted tiiut in the ilili'eren. islands of Polyuria the way in whi-L llii! lost land, Hawaiki, is regarded b\ the people varies, and varies to suei a considerable degree as almost to jus tify the Rev. \\. Culeuso in doubting whether Hawaiki ever had anc real e.\ istenee. By the .Maori of New Zealam invariably iiawaiki is spoken of as ha ; ing been an actual place—a land. "li other islands, as in the Hevvey am Marquesan groups, either the geograpin cal existence has faded into a men poetical dream of spirit land, or it habecome the veritable Hades, the shadow;, under-world of death and even of ex tinction."* These latter words, "evei of extinction," may shortly be found l< possess a significance of which he win lirst penned them had, apparently, no; the least conception. * - Before proceeding with the interest ] ing task of locating the original home o. the Maori, tracing his advent into Pol,\ nesia, and following his conquering pro gress through the islands, it is propose! to devote here some little attention ti the lost land of llawaiki; more partieu larly does this seem to be desirable a: a view will be put forward as to tin possible fate of the lost laud to whiel complete expression has never yet beei. given. At least one great authority at tempted to throw doubt upon the reli ability of the traditions of the Maor. in relation to llawaiki; but, in this ■ place, the reliability of the tradition' will be accepted. The traditions of tin Maori have relation to the doings oi; great men among the people, navigators.! tohungas, and warriors who made thoii! mark upon their time; but because the) are specifically mentioned it by no means follows that other chiefs ano warriors did not revisit the scenes d their youth in the sunny land of Ha waiki. Of chiefs and tribes, of mountains, rivers, bays in llawaiki the names are given; the loves, feuds, rivalries voyages, wars of the people of the Io»i land are related with quite a wealth oil detail; yet, notwithstanding all this, which would be accepted as conclusive! in any other case, the Rev. W. Colenso—the most reasonable and the best informed of all who have written on tinsubject of the Maori—doubts whether any such land as llawaiki ever had existence. Having in view what will hcre-.j after be set forth, it is but fair to tin. i memory of the late reverend gentleman that the grounds upon which his declaration was founded should be stated. He says: "There is yet another view to be taken of the word Haiwaiki, or Hawaii, which at least is not wholly unworthy of notice, namely, to consider the New Zealand tradition of the immigration thence to New Zealand more as a figurative or allegorical myth thau anything really historical. Such is wholly in keeping with all their other extraordinary myths, and with the genius of the race; and also with the common legends of all nations. Viewing it. thus, llawaiki, or Hawaii, will no longei mean any particular (if any) island; and may prove to be a portion of a still more ancient myth that that o! the fishing-up of the northern island by Maui. Williams (L.M.) says that one of the Polynesian traditions concerning the creation of the world and of the first peopling of it was, that after the island of Hawaii was produced by the bursting of an egg, a man and a woman, with a hogg, a dog, and a pair of fowls. arrived in a canoe from the Society Islands, and became progenitors of tin present inhabitants. And another account given by Turner represents Tangaroa, the great Polynesian Jupiter. as rolling down from heaven two great stones, one of which became the firsl land, or island of Savaii—or Hawaii—in the Samoan group. Very likely ii may yet more clearly be seen that thi' mythical or allegorical Hawaii, oi •Savaii, of tbose two groups, is also tin Hawaiki of the New Zealanders—tV' whole being fragmentary portions of tinlegends of a flood which are found underlying the myths of all ancient races.'' This, no doubt, is very fanciful, not to say clever, but few will recognise in il anything to weigh against the body ol evidence embodied in the legends of Hawaiki and the detailed accounts given of the great emigration of the Maori people. Because, derived from one common source, there are to be found

amongst all ancient races" sonic mure or less foolish stories about the ereatior and other tilings, that alibrils no souni reason why the detailed and generally helicved aeeoimt of the cmigralioi should he doubted. To regard the dc j seriplion given of Hawaiki as move in vention, to eonelude that consistently I drawn characters ascribed to certair j Hawaikian cliiefs is a mere effort ol imagination, to declare that the wlioU story of the emigration is simply .1 romance, is to bestow upon the Mao" people powers of genius approaching tin 1 marvellous. However that may be, a> has been said, in these pages the one time existence of Hawaiki as a lan.l inhabited by a Maori people, and tin ' traditions <jf the Maori people of New Zealand of the emigration of their an cestors from that land, are here accepted as substantially founded upon fact. It seems a most extraordinary thing that it should be necessary to reminc the student that the whole of the know ledge the world possesses to-day in regard to Hawaiki, the lost laud, is dc ■«*ived from Maori sources. Vet ii appears to be absolutely required thai this should lie done. Outside of what the Maoris have said about Hawaiki th r world knows nothing. In attempting U locate on the map the position of l!it lost land all has been groping and guess work and theory; but no matter whether the story be taken from the Hervey or the Marquesan groups, where not perhaps without good reason, tho Maoris regard Hawaiki as a spirit land, a dead land, a land of "extinction," as the authority quoted avers, or from New Zealand, where the Maoris look back upon Hawaiki as the original home of their ancestors—the land from which their fathers came—all the knowledge which we enjoy to-day on the subje.'t of Hawaiki comes from the Maori people. This being so, it must be clear that in any attempt which may be made to locate Hawaiki the whole story by the Maoris in connection with it must be considered. Tt is not open for any writer to pick out any particular feature of the accounts given and thereupon proceed to build an edifice of theory, deliberately rejecting or calmly ignoring all the other features of the Maoris' story. If one statement of the Maoris' story be accepted as fact, then all must be accepted, and all the features of that story must be considered. This has not been bithcrton recognised. As far as the traditions of the -Maori are concerned, writers and lecturers, in nearly eve'y instance, have picked from the history of the Maori the single fact that there was such a place as, Hawaiki, and then they have proceeded to endeavour lo locate that Hawaiki according to their own inclinations, treating all else in the story of the .Maori as of not the slightest consequence. In a court of justice, whoever takes the responsibility of submitting a document as evidence ,'s bound by every word that document contains: he is' not free to take only the part that suits him and ignore all the rest. So in this case, whoever undertakes to deal with the question of the location of the lost hind must take the whole Maori tradition, and not the part only that seems to suit his purpos". Surelv it is ridiculous for writers i„ spend' their time and waste their brain over an Hawaiki, a knowledge of whh-li has been derived wholly from traditio.i. and then to throw aside as valuclcsall the traditions themselves. It is repeated that the whole of the information which tradition gives must be considered, and no theory as to (lie pro', able position of the lost Hawaiki is in anv degree tolerable unless it is in agreement with the great body of evidence which tradition all'ords. What, then, do the traditions of the Maori declare almnt Hawaiki'! First. Hawaiki was a large land—that is to say. it was a large land compared with the bulk of tlfe lands—the islands of I he Pacific—known to the Maori before the advent of the European. Hawaiki was a lar"c land in the sense that lo the Maori" New Caledonia and the islands of Xew Zealand were large binds. It was a land where a man could walk I wo da\« in a straight line wilhout being slopped hv the sen. This enivvs a tolerablv fair idea of Ihe extent of th' countrv: Then, secondly. Hawaiki was a vciv hot land, a tropical land, a land where the sun. rising in fire, throngaout the livelong day poured down rays of burning, scorching heat, and in 'h.M evening -eemed to sink siiddcnlv be-, neath the lin- of Of horizon: a laud | where, through this sudden sinkiir: 01 j ■ the -un. the evening, were -n -lnolj that Maui vz- constrained 10-ari-e in, his might and compel the t.io hasty andj sultrv orb to go slow. Thin. (V.rdly.; Leeause of Hie east and west ~,U s t , fcA j in" so frequently referred to there i<| reason to believe tint Hawaiki was aj Ion" island, a land much longer than it[ was wide. Fourthly, Hawaiki was a land inhabited by a purely Maori people; 0

Maoris, such as .Maoris were in Xew /calami before the white man cams. Fifthly, llawaiki, until bitter feuds *nd warfare broke out, was a land thickly populated. 'J'lio evidence in regard to' this is to he found in the story of Kauwhanga, where the people adopted the practice of destroying the children oorii to them immediately tliev came into the world. .Sixthly, "llawaiki lay at no very groat Uista'nce from .New Zealand. The whok' storv of thu emigration testifies to this. A canoe couhl sad from llawaiki to Xew Zealand i>i about six or seven days. And seventhly, the traditions of tiie .Mauris m thV .Uarqucsans, the Ilervey group, the I'i-iendly group, and other islands, is to the effect that llawaiki from them lay to the west, but the dill'evences in hititude are so great that it is simply impossible that the lost land could have been due west of all of them. However, from evidence to be submitted the student will probably conclude that llawaiki was the most western of all the lauds occupied by the .Maoris. It the student will bestow a glance upon the map he will see that due west from the Marqucsans would locate the lost Hawaiki somewhere in lOdeg. S. latitude; due west from the Cook Islands would place Hawaiki on the 20th parallel >S. latitude; and due west from die Friendly Isles would be two or three degrees further south slid. Xo doubt what was intended to be conveyed was that the lost land lay somewhere to the westward. The .Maoris of Xew Zealand are also quite clear that Hawaiki lay somewhere in the west. and, according to this, a commonsensc interpretation would place llawaiki somewhere in the Tasman Sea. It must be evident that in all of these instances due west was not intended to be conveyed, but, speaking generally, llawaiki lay "to the westward"; in the case of the Friendly Isles a little to the southward, and in the case of the .Maoris of Xew Zealand a little to the northward. In connection with the most prominent features of the emigration what do the traditions of the Maori allirm? First in order as they appear is the story of Xgalme, who was driven from his home by Ilinc-tu-a-hoauga. Xgalme (led first to Tehua, but there his enemy quickly followed. From place to place went Xgalme, but ever on his track his foe relentless. At length, putting boldly forth into the mysteries of the ocean, Xgaliuc discovered Aotearoa; hut, although lie anxiously desired to laud, he feared to stay so close to his foe, saying to himself, " Perhaps 1 and my lish

ought to go far away." Going on, Ngahue landed at Aruhura, and there took up his abode. After a time he proceeded to Te-wai-kere, where he killed a moa; thence to Taitranga and Wha-nga-Paroa, and from thence he returned to Hawaiki. Once more in his native land Ngaline lost no time in spreading information of the new' country he had discovered, telling his friends of the moa—the principal food of the country—and the precious greenstone which was there abundant. This is number on.-. The story of Raka-taura, who commanded the Pauiri-raura, may be taken nexc. It is also affirmed of him that he was the first man to set foot on the shoves of Aotearoa. The numerous places along the coasts visited by Raka-taura are given in detail. At Kaikoura he left a man and a woman, and by the east coast he went back to Tehua. Then he returned to Hawaiki, where lie found several canoes about to set forth for the new land, which shows that the people of his native country were not indebted to him for their knowledge of the existence of Aotearoa. This is story number two. Next the story of Kupc may he taken. The Xgahue peopie claim that Knpc derived a knowledge of the existence of Aotearoa from their great wandering ancestor, but the n.iirative of his abduction of the beautiful wife of his friend is more likely to be well founded. A fugitive from justice, Kupc is also alleged to have discovered Aotearoa. He sailed all round the coasts of both islands, and having been absent about four years he returned to Hawaiki. This is number three. The story of Turi follows as a matter of course. Having exposed himself to the vengeance of Uenuku, the high priest of the W'hare-kura, Turi if he would save his life must lly; therefore went be to Kupc anil made enquiries relative to the new land which it was alleged he had discovered. Kupc gave the information desired, with the following direction—" O, Turi, listen and remember these my words. Meer thou ever to the eastward —to that, portion of the heavens in

which the sun rises—in which it Hares , up in the morning. Steadily keep the . prom" of the •Aoten' ever directed to that part of the sky and volt will reach the islands whieh 1 have found." Tim followed the sailing directions given to him, and duly arrived at Aotearoa. Me '. travelleil all'down the west eoast. an ;accoiml of various events being given, ( and he named various rivers and molt 1- , tains. He settled his peopleby the Patea i river, and lie died there. This is stu.-y I nuinlier four. In the story of Tamatea , it is aflinned that Toi was the first to . depart for the new land, hut that may ] he taken to mean that lie was the iirs't I to go as a matter of choice, and not as , a fugitive fro.m vengeance; and per- . chance lie was the first to emigra'e from the neighbourhood of Tomatca's I people. Toi was expected to return lo llawaiki and tell tile people all about , the condition of things in the new land, j Imt Toi came not back again. Tlni ; Run departed, anil in due time roaclrd! , the most coast of the North Island.' and lo! there he found Toi settled peacct fully with his people. Toi dilated elu- . quently on the blissful advantages of ' Aotearoa, the only thing wanting being , the kumera. " 1 cannot do without the , kumera, and one of us must go back to , llawaiki and fetch it," promptly :Ic- . dared liun. To whieh Toi replied* ''(in . thou, then. I shall stay as a rock on , this island." Rua thereupon went buck to llawaiki to fetch the kumera, the ' laro, and some other things, and he returned again to Aotearoa, thus cross- [ ing the intervening waters three liims. Tliis is story number five, hi the story of the immigration of Tamatea a fleet . of five canoes, all of whieh are named, the history of their construction and . their capabilities is given, the names of the gods and the principal chiefs they carried are also set forth. They all ■ departed from llawaiki at ihe same time, but only two—the "Takitumu'' ■ and the ■'Horouta"—ever attained to the shores of Aotearoa. There is little in this of consequence beyond the fact . that it could scarcely have been expected that five vessels could lie kept to- / gether for any length of time if the| : space to be traversed was very great ' over one thousand miles. This is story I number six. The story of the "Arawa''] and •'Tainui" is interesting. The two canoes did not sail at the same lime. Tama-te-Kapua's and Ngatoro-i-rangi's , people settled at Jtakcln and Motiii. . In llawaiki, Maunia, the brother-in-law of Xgatoro. had been left. and. quarrelling with his wife one day, he deeply . cursed Xguloro. Thereupon Manaia s wife sent her daughter across the sea , lo Motili to acquaint her brother with

tin- fact of the curst-. It is stated that it ordinarily took a canoe seven days to cross the water to Maketu; in the case of HaiiaiVs daughter and Iter four companions, the distance was esteemed so short Hint the gods experienced no difiioiiltv in wafting tliein across in the twinkling of an eve. When Ngato.-o learned of the curse immediate action was taken. A canoe—'-The Tree Dug from the earth" was constructed aad crowded with warriors she sailed for Hawaii;!, where she duly arrived, without serious misadventure. The battle of Ihumotomototokia was fought; the I own of Whai-tiri-ka-papa'\vas assaulted •in-! taken hy storm; and then another hatlh—Tarai-whcnua-Kuro—took place. Having slaked his thirst for vengeance, the victorious warriors sailed awnv again, and it is expressly staled that it took them seven days to ■return to

Maketu. Certain authorities have invited the student to believe that Jlawaiki, according to them situated in b'ar.itongn some Kind miles distant from »w Zealand, was reached by 141) warriors sailing in an open boat, the "Tree Dug from the Earth"; that on arrival at Hawaiki in TJarotongn, so far from solVering from any distress, they -were able to capture fortresses and light great battles: that immediately after these great performances they came back to Maketu. some two hundred miles down (he east coast, in seven days, travelling a! the rate of over 214 miles per dav! This is story number seven. The last that will here be given is in the nature of a continuation of numlier seven. A brave man and a true Maori, Mamiia in his turn resolved upon vengeance. C'ihering cpiite a lleet of canoes stored with water and provisions, and having on board his chosen warriors, Mnnnia. sailed from Hawaiki to accomplish the destruction of Tama tc Kapua and Ng:i lero at Motiti. On arrival -at Motiti this licet was destroyed by a hurricane, and every soul iinrished. From those traditions' it will be clear that there were not only single and double, canoes making voyages from Hawaiki to Aotearrm, returning again to Hawaiki, and setting forth for the new land a second time, but whole fleets of canoes, an I this could scarcely have been accomplished if Hawaiki lay at any great .stance—audi as 1300 milos-away.

Indeed, as may be read, the question of returning to Hawaiki to fetch the kumera was treated very lightly—a trip involving no great danger and only a matter of a few days' time. A New Zealand writer,* who claims to be accepted as an authority in regard to all matters Maori, says: "ft is said in legend that two persons, named respectively Taukata and Hoake, brought the kumera from llawaiki to New Zealand, and Hoake returned as a guide to the canoes 'which started to get more; but Taukata was sacrificed, and his blood was sprinkled upon the door-posts of the store-house in which the first crop of kumera was placed, lest the spirit (mauri) should vanish and return home." This is another instance to ue added to those already given of Maoris who voyaged to New Zealand, returned to Hawaiki, and came back to New Zealand again; and it is to be noted that in tliis particular instance Hoake when he went back to Hawaiki acted as a guide to " canoes," which were employed to fetch the kumera—cargoes of kumera —to the new land. The canoes of the Maori were dug-outs, and as such, necessarily, their breadth of beam was gov ciuod by the diameter of a tree. Even when engaged in the making of long \oyagcs —sailing from one island to another—.paddles were used, but upon occasions sails were set, and sails, no doubt, were the principal means of propulsion, but again the breadth of beam governed the sail power. With a bea'n of only some six feet a canoe could not possibly carry much sail. Fitted witri three short masts and three small lugsails, crowded with men, water, provisions, weapons, and other tilings, the rate at which such a vesesl would progress could not have been very fast, and, according to tradition, the voyage from Hawaiki to New Zealand took only some six or seven days. Double , canoes would, of course, travel slower I than single. In short, the distance from the old land to the new was so short that the imagination of the. Maori cou'd easily conceive of five women being wafted across, and of a gigantic bird with a man on its back and laden with many weighty things besides, Hying over the dividing waters in a few hours. Yet, in spite of the traditions and the com- 1 monsense evidence, the authorities on Maori matters in New Zealand insist upon locating Hawaiki in the Friendly Islands, not less than 1385 miles away, or in islands a greater distance still. *" The Maori Race," by E. Tregcar. _ *" A Dictionary of the Maori Language," by E. Tregcar. (To be Continued).