Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/123

Rh has an analogy in the Maori account of "felling with an axe" the storms and difficulties they met on the voyage to New Zealand in later times.

Whether the theory hinted at above as to Māui being a real historical person or not is correct, must be left to the decision of some one who will study the whole body of legends relating to him as derived from all branches of the race; but the Rarotongan account in a measure supports Fornander's hypothesis that this series of legends is older than the migration into the Pacific. There have been very many Māuis in Polynesian history, and in process of time the deeds of some ancient and mythical Māui have become confounded with those of men who lived in later ages. The Rarotongans do not, so far as I know, trace any descent from Māui of this period, though Hawaiian's and Maoris do from one who lived in a later age.

the period of Vai-takere, when, as appears undoubted the people were living in Indonesia, down to that of Tu-tarangi, whose epoch has been shown to be about A.D. 450, there is again complete silence as to the doings of the people, and nothing whatever is related of the sixteen ancestors who separate the two people mentioned. In Tu-tarangi's time the people were living in Fiji, for that place and Avaiki are named as his country, which from the names of other places now for the first time mentioned, such as Amama and Avarua, means Avaiki-raro, which