Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/229

Rh last of several, but at the same time by far the most important.

It seems probable, that between the date of Tangiia's settlement on Rarotonga in 1250, and the arrival of the fleet in New Zealand in 1350, occurred a number of solitary voyages to New Zealand under Tu-moana, Paoa, Kupe, Ngahue, and several others, the exact dates of which are very difficult to fix. Many of these people returned to Eastern Polynesia, leaving some portion of their crews in New Zealand. After 1350 we have the record of only one voyage back to Hawaiki, and that was in the same generation that the fleet arrived. Since that time down to the arrival of Capt. Cook in 1769, the Maoris, like the Hawaiians, remained isolated from the rest of the world.

It seems then from what has been said above, and from other evidence that might be adduced, that the Maori migration which came to New Zealand, circa 1350, in the canoes Tainui, Te Arawa, Mata-atua, Toko-maru, Taki-tumu, and Kura-haupo, came from the west side of Tahiti, and that they called in at Rarotonga on the way. On their further course to the S.W. they met with bad weather, the remembrance of which is retained in the Arawa Traditions, where the descent of the canoe to Te Waha-o-te-Parata is no doubt the description of a tempest given in the allegorical form so common to all Polynesian legends. The Taki-tumu account of the starvation they experienced, shows what straits they were put to. Their canoes all make the land in the neighbourhood of the East Cape, and from there coasted along to the places their crews finally settled in—Mata-atua, at Whakatane, Te Arawa at Maketu (both places in the Bay of Plenty) Tainui was hauled over the isthmus at Otahuhu, near Auckland, and then proceeded by the west coast to Kawhia where they settled; Toko-maru probably went round the North Cape, landing her