Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/208

196 their ancient home in the Pacific, to avenge the insult offered to him, the place he went to is called Tawhiti; in another, Tawhiti-nui-a-Te-Tua, where again the last two words represent a man's name. In another account still, it is stated that Te Tua was the chief of the land to which the above expedition went.

Now, I was told in Tahiti that Te Tua is the name of a high chief, and has been so from time immemorial. The name Nga-toro-i-rangi, the celebrated priest of Te Arawa canoe, is known in Tahiti as 'A-toro-i-ra'i (they do not pronounce the ng), but it is there the name of a god, and of a place. Possibly this celebrated priest Avas deified there. At the same time the two names may have nothing to do with one another.

In one of the Maori "Uenuku" legends is mentioned the name of a mountain (Arowhena) wnich was somewhere in Hawaiki. Now, Oro-fena or Orohena is the highest mountain in Tahiti. I have shown that this same Uenuku lived (part of his life at any rate) in Rarotonga, and that voyages between there and Tahiti were frequent, and that he made voyages from Rarotonga to the country where this mountain was, though the name of the island is not given—Hawaiki being understood.

Pari-nui-te-ra is the name of the place to which some of the Maori traditions say their ancestors returned from New Zealand to fetch the kumara. I gathered from an old man on Moorea Island that there is such a place, near Pape-ete, on the north shore of Tahiti.

In Mr. Best's "In Ancient Maori Land," p. 41, will be found the Ngati-Awa of the Bay of Plenty account of the coming of the Mata-atua canoe, with the name of a tribe of Tahiti named Te Tini-o-te-Oropaa. The tribe of Te