L5: Canoe Migrations

• East Polynesian language relationships

  Te reo Māori groups with languages in Cook Islands, Society Islands, Tuamotu Islands as 'Tahitic' branch of Polynesian language tree

  
• Hawaiki must lie close to the islands associated with 'Tahitic' languages
• Archaic East Polynesian Assemblage


  • Almost identical throughout East Polynesia but quite different from anything found in Fiji or West Polynesia (Sāmoa, Tonga etc)

  
• Hawaiki Zone


  • Cook Islands
  • Austral Islands
  • Society Islands
  • Tonga
  • Samoa
  • Tokelau
  • Kermadec Islands
  • New Zealand
  • Fiji
  • Wallis & Futuna
  • Tuvalu
  • Vanuatu
  • New Caledonia
  • Santa Cruz
  • Niue
  • Chatham Islands
• Very high level of interisland voyaging and networking behaviour in tropical East Polynesia
• Hawaiki


  • Ancestral homeland
  • Not a single island or island group but a zone of islands
  • First settlers came from many different islands in zone
• Reasons for leaving Hawaiki

  • Migrants left to escape conflicts over land boundaries, gardens and fruit trees
  • Conflicts between men of rank seeking to marry the same woman
  • Turi (of Aotea waka) left after hearing a threatening song composed by his opponent and which his wife had overheard and sung to him
  • Traditions point to internal cultural imperatives being key driver for departures
• Hawaiki migrations


  1. Building of waka by teams of tohunga hired by migration leaders

  2. Rakatāura, chief builder of Tainui waka

  3. Some migration leaders: Turi, commander of the Aotea waka

  4. Tama-te-kapua, commander of Te Arawa waka

  5. Whakaotirangi, female leader, Tainui waka

  6. Waka names remember incidents in building: Horouta (Swallowed-land) because it was fast

  7. Tainui (Big-in-sea) because it did not sit right in sea and needed remedial work
• Cargo transported in Hawaiki migrations

  • Plants like taro, hue (gourd), aute (paper mulberry), karaka tree, kūmara (sweet potato)
  • Animals like kiore (Pacific rat), kurī (dog)
  • Other objects including tools, weapons, mauri (protective stones), figures of guardian atua
  • Migrants also transport their cultural knowledge (karakia, stories, ritual) in their memories
• Major settlement event shortly after 1300 AD


  Earliest dated archaeological site in Aotearoa in mid-14th century
• Multiple arrivals over a century or so involving a number of canoes arriving from Hawaiki
• Waka arrivals over two or more generations
• Certain ancestors visit and return to Hawaiki: Kupe, Irākewa (father of Toroa), Ngahue
• Returnees provide information and instructions to later migrants
• Multi-generational migration pattern


  1. Uruao waka encountered earlier people living in northern tip, Te Ika-a-Māui, and sailed for Te Waipounamu which was unoccupied

  2. Tainui's commander, Hoturoa, visits relations on Tāmaki River who had settled there two generations earlier

  3. Tutara-kauika waka leaders visit sister living in Aotearoa

  4. Earlier peoples from previous waka, or stayed over from visits of Kupe and other returnees to Hawaiki
• Mitochondrial DNA studies in modern Māori (measuring connections of individuals through female lineages) suggest at least 190 females must have been present in founding crews, making about 500 people as founding population
• Waka sail in company with one, two or more other waka; a pair of waka was common; some like Aotea sail solo to Aotearoa
• Wairau Bar


  • Early Māori settlement with strong evidence of direct link to Hawaiki
  • Mitochondrial DNA study of human remains shows none of the remains were maternally connected
  • Originated from different genetic communities, i.e., from different islands
• Other evidence for early site includes location of burials close to village, as in tropical East Polynesia, but in contrast to later Māori practices when bodies were secreted away from sites of occupation
• Waka voyage


  1. Leaders of waka: rangatira (commander at stern, other leaders supervising at bow, midships)

  2. tohunga (specialists, responsible for navigation, ritual protection from elements)

  3. Waka leadership imagery: kaihautū (person giving time to paddlers), kaiurungi (person steering boat)

  4. Crew comprising families and friends of leaders

  5. Crew numbers between about 22 to 70

  6. Selected waka names: Aotea, Horo-uta, Kurahaupō, Mataatua, Tākitimu, Tainui, Te Arawa, Tokomaru, Te Ara-tawhao, Te Ririno, Kairaerae
• Conflicts sometimes occurred between rangatira and tohunga


  • Some rangatira tricked tohunga on board: possessors of rare navigational and ritual knowledge
  • Te Arawa: Tama-te-kapua's affair with Ngātoro-i-rangi's wife, prompts Ngātoro to respond to Tama's actions
  • Ngātoro drives waka into Te Korokoro-o-te-Parata (Te Waha o Parata), a whirlpool, shoal or storm
  • People of Te Arawa plead with Ngātoro to show compassion (aroha); he saves the ship
• Challenges and hazards of voyage

  • Kurahaupō waka is wrecked and comes ashore on Rangitahua Island (Raoul Island)
  • Tuwhenua waka (also known as Moe-kakara, Te Wakatuwhenua) experiences leprosy
  • Ārai-te-uru loses crew and goods in rough seas (Moeraki boulders), capsizes at Matakaea (Shag Point)
  • Tākitimu has a long voyage and experiences hunger
  • Tākitimu encounters rough seas and nearly rolls over at Muriwhenua; loses crew and equipment; founders in Te-Ara-A-Kiwa (Foveaux Strait)
  • Horo-uta capsizes off Whakatāne
  • Tainui nearly founders when crew distracted by sight of large trees; stuck on Tāmaki-makaurau canoe portage (Auckland)
  • Mātaatua's men neglect ship's safety, Wairaka saves boat: 'E! Kia whakatane ake au i ahau' ('Let me act the part of a man')
• Waka landings


  • Te Tai Tokerau: Māhuhu
  • Tainui, Te Arawa
  • Te Tai Hauāuru: Aotea etc
  • Te Tai Rāwhiti
  • Te Wai Pounamu
• First actions on landing

  1. Erect a tūāhu (altar, sacred site) to thank the atua for their protection, comprising fire, mauri (special stones), wooden posts

  2. Karakia by Ngātoro-i-rangi

  3. Hinekauirangi of Horo-uta performs the whakaū ritual, clearing way for her exploration journey

  4. Exploration and naming of the landscape

  5. Establish claims to land by naming after body parts
• First actions of settlement

  1. Identify resource base of new land, especially its industrial grade stone resources

  2. Planting of crops: kūmara becomes dominant due to tolerating temperate climate

  3. Development of food storage techniques due to cooler weather

  4. Maintaining and adapting ancestral tool kits due to lost resources (pearlshell)

  5. Adaptation to rich local resources: animals (moa, sea mammals, birds)

  6. Exploring wider landscape from waka landing base

  7. Waka crew breaking up into smaller exploration parties under an ancestor

  8. Travelling together to new settlement

  9. Settling in dispersed settlements around landing place

  10. Disputes sometimes broke up settlements, with some ancestors seeking new home
• Development of colonising network of small communities interacting with each other
• Waka continue to travel between communities, establishing links through intermarriage, thus strengthening bonds
• Wairau Bar may have been a focal point of colonisation, maintaining links to various other settlements
• Intermarriage also between later and earlier waka migration groups
• Some migrants return home to Hawaiki
• Tākitimu Mountains


  Identification of settlers with the local world: Te Tai-o-Ārai-te-uru (Otago coast); Tākitimu mountains in Murihiku (Southland): the waka descendants become the tangata whenua
• A contemporary waka (Mangaia)