The Voyage of Toi and Settlement of Polynesians in New
Zealand: "Te Paepae Ki Rarotonga" Brings the First Polynesian
Settlers to Aotea-roa

The voyager Toi, whose full name was Toi-te-huatahi, was a native of the Island of Tahiti, formerly known as Hawaiki. He flourished some thirty generations ago, which, allowing twenty-five years to a generation, would mean about the end of the twelfth century. His grandson Whatonga, shown in the table below, was connected with the famous voyage of Toi, and settled in New Zealand.

The primary cause of Toi coming to New Zealand, and of the first settling of natives from eastern Polynesia on these shores, was one that has a very important and far-reaching effect in the discovery and settlement of the isles of the Pacific: it was a drift voyage. A number of natives from an island known as Ahu were on a visit to Tahiti when they issued a challenge to the natives of that place to engage in a canoe race. This was accepted, and took place some time afterwards in the lagoon known as Pikopiko-i-whiti, at Hawaiki, the people assembling at a place called Whanga-ra. The spectators gathered on the hill Puke-hapopo saw that "Te Wao," the canoe of Whatonga, was leading as the racing craft passed out of the lagoon into the open ocean. The contest was continued for some distance, when suddenly a strong offshore wind sprang up, and the racing fleet was in difficulties. Those vessels nearest land succeeded in returning to shore, but those farther out were carried away by the gale across the ocean. Some of these waifs were carried as far as the Samoan Group, where castaways were subsequently found. The vessel of Whatonga got separated from the others during the gale, and, when the storm at last ceased, a sea-fog obscured all surroundings, so that aimless paddling resulted. When the fog lifted, land was seen at some distance, which our drift voyagers made for. That land was the Island of Rangiatea, now known as Raiatea (Ra'iatea)—for the natives of the Society Group have lost from their language the two sounds ng and k since the ancestors of the Maori left those parts for New Zealand. Our ocean waifs safely reached page 392this island, where they met with some curious adventures that we have no space to relate, and remained there for some time. We will there leave them for a while, and return to Tahiti.

When the storm had abated, the distressed friends of the drift voyagers manned several vessels for the purpose of searching for the absent canoes and their crews. Toi set forth to seek his grandson Whatonga in a vessel named "Te Paepae ki Rarotonga," and visited many isles to the westward, as far as the Samoan Group. Not succeeding in his quest, he sailed southwards, still seeking his relative, until he reached Rarotonga. Finding no trace of the fugitives, he resolved to cross the Southern Ocean to Aotea-roa, the land discovered by Kupe in past times, in case the drift vessel of Whatonga might have reached these shores.

Toi did not succeed in making his landfall on the coast of New Zealand, as he kept too far to the eastward, but he discovered the Chatham Isles, after which he seems to have wandered about the ocean until he sighted the North Island, eventually landing in the Tamaki district (Auckland Isthmus), which he found occupied by the aborigines. These folk are said to have been so numerous that the place was compared to a rua row, or ants' nest. As, however, the aborigines are shown to have cultivated no food products, they could not have lived together in large numbers; doubtless exaggerations have crept into these old tales.

After sojourning among the aborigines for some time, Toi and his companions went to Aotea (Great Barrier Island), thence down the coast to Mayor Island, which he named Tuhua, after the island of that name in far-away Polynesia, an island also known as Ahu and Maiteka. He then proceeded to Whakatane, where, with his companions, he settled. Here we will leave him for the present and return to Polynesia, there to observe the further adventures of Whatonga.