Remembering Hawaiki

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 5

Remembering Hawaiki

NYTHING pertaining to those Polynesian voyages of discovery is as much of interest to the Maori people to-day as it was centuries ago. At night the people still sit about and talk of the great voyagers of the past who left that land of Hawaiki for the far south, for the land we now know as New Zealand. On returning from the island of Raiatea in the Society Islands, some years ago, I brought back to Waikato a piece of stone. Geologically, it was ef no interest. But the fact that it came from Tatu-

tapuatea, the most famous marae in all Polynesia, was an event of much sentimental interest to them, For days the old people spoke of Rangiatea-as this island is still called in legend and song. The stone is now kept in the carved house called Mahinarangi at Ngaruawahia. I could not have brought the Waikato people a gift that they would have valued more. Now, Raiatea is a little more than 100 miles from Tahiti. At one time it was known as Havai’ior as the Maoris say, Hawaiki. Of course, it was only one of many Hawaikis. But it was a very important one. For from this centre of Polynesian culture various groups went off to people other lands, taking with them a basic language, a common religion, and as Professor Peter H. Buck says, "a common cultural background of myth and religion." Many of my Maori friends had never heard of the island of Raiatea, but they all know Rangiatea. It is one and the same place.-(" Re-tracing the Canoe Tracks to Tahiti" by Eric Ramsden, 4Y A, January 29).