Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/212

200 Tahitian name is Hiro, but on the east coast of Tahiti, at Hitia'a (Maori, Whitianga), I found they pronounced his name Firo. Wawau, as has been shown, is a very old Polynesian name, which, like Hawaiki, has been applied to several places in the Pacific, in memory of a more ancient Wawau.

Of Turi, the great ancestor of Taranaki, Ngati-Ruanui, Nga-Rauru and the Whanganui tribes of the West Coast, North Island, New Zealand, and commander of the Aotea canoe, it is well known that he arrived here about twenty generations ago at the same epoch as the fleet, of which however, the Aotea did not form a part. This would be about 1350. Turi—I believe the same as the Maori ancestor—is well known in Tahiti, but up to the present, a promised genealogical table from him to people living, has not arrived. Therefore the evidence is incomplete. The following is what I learnt about him; and though the stories are much mixed up with the marvellous, as so often occurs with distinguished Polynesian heroes, the historical part is easily sifted: Turi was a great chief of Tahiti, and born at Mahaena, on the north-east coast of that island, where he grew up to manhood. He there married his first wife, Hina-rau-re'a, of whom he was very fond, but very jealous. On one occasion, before going inland to procure feis (wild bananas) he enclosed his wife's house in a hedge of prickly thorns so that no one might go near her. Presently Turi's two sisters appeared and declared it was a shame so pretty a woman should thus be shut out from all enjoyment, and finally persuaded Hina to go with them to the beach to indulge in the favourite pastime of fa'ahe'e-'aru (whakaheke-ngaru in Maori) or surf-riding. Hina was a novice at this amusement, but Turi's sisters were adepts. On coming ashore, Hina trod on a he (Maori whe) or caterpillar, "which had been endowed with supernatural powers by Turi, for