Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/59

Rh kingdom of that name in the Malayan peninsula, may be connected with Hawa-iki, but we want to know first what language the name belongs to.

In Maori legends, it is clear that even this most ancient name of Hawaiki was applied to more than one place, or home of the people, and that their first home had several qualifying epithets applied to it; for we have Hawaiki-nui (the great Hawaiki), Hawaiki-atea, the meaning of which I apprehend to be Hawaiki-the-happy (atea enters as a descriptive word into several of the ancient names, as Wawau-atea, etc.), Hawaiki-roa is another variant of the name, meaning "the long, or extensive Hawaiki."

In some of these epithets of the ancient Father-land, it is clear to me that a continent rather than an island is referred to, and this is the description given to me of Hawaiki-nui, by Tare Watere Te Kahu, a very learned member of the Ngai-Tahu tribe, a people that have retained up to fifty years ago probably more of the ancient knowledge of the Maoris than any other. "Hawaiki-nui was a mainland (tua-whenua) with vast plains on the side towards the sea and a high range of snowy mountains on the inland side; through this country ran the river Tohinga." The Deluge stories of the Maoris are connected with the river Tohinga, showing how ancient Hawaiki is. The following names of mountains are also given by the Maoris as being situated in Hawaiki:—Apaapa-te-rangi, Tipua-o-te-rangi, Tawhito-o-te-rangi, Tawhiti-nui, and Hikurangi. These mountains are mentioned in another legend referring to the Father-land in which it is named Te Paparoa-i-Hawaiki, or the "Great extending Hawaiki," again indicating a continent. Here—says the tradition—"was the growth or origin of man,