Voyage of Kupe and Ngahue from Eastern Polynesia to New Zealand

The story is that Kupe and Ngahue (whose other name was Ngake) were natives of the Society Isles, and that they sailed from their home in two vessels. That of Kupe was page 22 named “Matahorua,” and that of Ngahue was “Tawirirangi.” These daring voyagers made their landfall in the far north of New Zealand, and, after a brief sojourn in those parts, ran down the east coast of the Island. Great Barrier Island was named “Aotea,” and the North Island “Aotearoa,” by these explorers. The name “Aotea” is said to have been derived from a white cloud (ao tea) that was the first sign of land seen by the voyagers as they approached the North Cape region. After landing at Castle Point and Palliser Bay, they came on to Wellington Harbour and camped at what is now Seatoun. We are told that Somes and Ward Islands were named “Matiu” and “Makaro” after two relatives of Kupe, though no name appears to have been assigned to the harbour. From here the voyagers went to Sinclair Head; thence to Pori-rua; after which they sailed round the South Island. They are said to have discovered greenstone (nephrite) at Arahura, and Ngahue is credited with having slain a moa at that place. We are told that these isles were uninhabited by man at that time, and that the voyagers returned to eastern Polynesia. The period of this discovery of New Zealand has not been fixed. As a rule, the Maori has carefully preserved genealogies from the famed immigrants and chiefs of former times, and these have been checked by lines collected from different sources. In the case of Kupe, however, we have no satisfactory line, and are compelled to fall back on conjecture—a poor substitute.

The next Polynesian voyager said to have reached New Zealand was Toi, who flourished about thirty generations ago, and he found the northern half of the North Island occupied by a dark-skinned folk of apparently inferior culture. These people are alluded to by the Maori as “Mouriuri” and “Maruiwi,” but probably had no collective name for themselves. To judge from tradition, one must suppose that not less than eight or ten generations had elapsed since the discovery by Kupe, when Toi arrived here. Thus only can we account for the number of the original folk said to have been in occupation of Taranaki, the Auckland Isthmus, Hauraki, the Bay of Plenty, &c., when these first Maori settlers arrived.

The original settlers of New Zealand, the Mouriuri folk, are said in Maori tradition to have been castaways, the descendants of the crews of three canoes named “Kahutara,” “Taikoria,” and “Okoki”. These vessels had been driven from their homeland by a westerly gale, and, after a drift page 23 page 24 voyage, made the coast of northern Taranaki, where the castaways settled. The wind that caused them to drift to those parts may have been a north-west one, but scarcely a west wind, unless a southerly drift took place later. These unwilling colonizers may have come from the New Hebrides, but not from Tasmania or Australia, the natives of which lands constructed no vessels that could live to cross the intervening ocean. They are said to have come from a hot-climate land, and found the climate here unpleasantly cold. Maori accounts describe them as having flat noses, distended nostrils, bushy hair, and restless eyes. They wore little clothing, and were improvident as to food-supplies. One might well suppose that the description was that of a Melanesian people, they being also described as dark-skinned—that is, in comparison with Polynesians. Personal and clan names, &c., preserved are assuredly Polynesian in form, though these may possibly have been given by Polynesian immigrants, or altered by them in order to conform with their own rules of phonology. Some writers believe them to have been a mixed Polynesian-Melanesian folk. The Maori states that they were a slim-built people, which Polynesians are not, and the account of them reminds one of Forster's description of the natives of Malekula. The whence of these early settlers will never be known, for we possess no reliable information concerning their language. An interesting fact is that among our Maori folk we find certain customs, arts, and artifacts not known to the natives of Polynesia proper, the isles to the northward. If these—for example, such things as curvilinear designs in decorative art, and the custom of erecting defensive earthworks round villages—were practised by the original inhabitants, then they cannot have been the rude savages that Maori tradition makes them. I suspect that the description of the Mouriuri people has become confused and mixed with that of some inferior folk encountered by the ancestors of the Maori in far-distant lands. There is some evidence in support of such an assumption.

Had any reliable collector worked the southern part of the South Island field in early days we might have possessed some further information concerning the discovery and settlement of these isles. Our early missionaries we have little to thank for in connection with the collection and recording of Maori lore. A few fragments seem to show that a mine of wealth has been neglected in the South, and it is now too late to save it.