Voyages made from New Zealand to Polynesia

It is apparent that in former times a number of voyages were made from New Zealand to the isles of Polynesia. The movements of the ancestors of the Maori across the Southern Ocean were not confined to the voyages made from the northern islands to New Zealand, for many were made in the opposite direction. Some voyagers to these isles did not remain here, but returned to their far-away homes, as in the cases of Kupe, Ngahue, Nuku, and others already mentioned. We have also seen that the "Takitumu" canoe was taken back to the islands, and that another, named "Te Ara-tawhao," a local vessel, left Whakatane to fetch seed-tubers of the sweet potato from Polynesia. Tama-ahua, who came to these shores in "Kura-hau-po," is also said to have made the voyage back to his former home. The name of the vessel on which Tama-ahua returned to Polynesia was "Te Rona-waiwai." It is said to have belonged to page 417Karanga-hape, one of the Toi folk. Another immigrant, named Tumoana, who had landed at Te Tauroa, in the Ahipara district, settled at Hokianga, but finally returned to Polynesia. One Pourangahua is also said to have sailed from the east coast for the same destination, and to have returned here. Rongo-kako, father of Tamatea, the chief man of the immigrant vessel "Takitumu," also returned to Polynesia, and the Maori folk of New Zealand are acquainted with his further adventures after his return there—intelligence that must have been brought by later arrivals.

The Bay of Plenty natives have preserved a tradition that in times long past away a voyager named Tiwakawaka came here from a land named Mataora, in a vessel called "Te Ara-tauwhaiti," and settled at Whakatane. These folk were visited by another voyager, named Maku, who came from Hawaiki, and who returned whence he came. In the time of Rakai-hikuroa, of the east coast, who flourished sixteen generations ago, one Tuwhiri-rau commanded a party that sailed from these shores for Rarotonga. In later times a party under Mou-te-rangi sailed from Whare-kahika, on the east coast of the North Island, for the isles of Polynesia. From Reporua, on the same coast, yet another company, under a chief named Pahiko, sailed about two hundred and fifty years ago for the same destination. Intertribal warfare was the cause of this venture. This is the most recent case of a voyage from New Zealand to Polynesia that has been fixed. No corroboration has been noted of Thomson's story that a canoe left Tauranga early in the nineteenth century to go in search of Hawaiki, the former home of the Maori, as given in his Story of New Zeland. We have no proof that any canoes arrived at or left New Zealand for Polynesia during the past two centuries. The following are Thomson's remarks: "Mr. Hale states that about the year 1740 a party of Polynesians arrived at the Bay of Islands from Hawaiki…. Careful personal inquiry, in the year 1850, on the spot where Mr. Hale received his information, enables me to state that he has been misinformed, for no modern migration from Polynesia to New Zealand has occurred. About the year 1830 a canoe load of emigrants sailed from Mayor Island, in the Bay of Plenty, for Hawaiki, and they have never since been heard of." This last statement is, I believe, a doubtful one.

The following note by Colonel Gudgeon is interesting; it appeared in vol. 13 of the Journal of the Polynesian Society: "It is a very singular thing that the people of Penrhyn (Tongareva) and Manihiki Islands, lying north of Rarotonga, insist that their ancestors came from Hawaiki-tautau (which is the Rarotongan name for New Zealand)…. Before the time of Tangiia and Karika, of Rarotonga page 418(circa 1250), people came to these northern islands from New Zealand."

Here follow two traditions, collected by the late Mr. John White, of drift voyages from New Zealand to northern isles that occurred at unknown dates:—