Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/63

Rh Indonesia. The next place we find it is as a name for the Fiji group, the proper spelling of which is Viti; under Viti-levu, it is the name for the second in size of the islands of that group. Coming to Samoa we find the name as Tafiti, or Tafiti-a-pa'au (the winged Fiji) a name given to the Fiji group. In the name of Tahiti Island it again occurs. In the Hawaiian traditions it is found as Kahiki (or, as it was originally Tahiti) which appears to be used both for Tahiti Island and for all the parts of central Polynesia known to the Hawaiians, i.e., from Fiji to the Marquesas, and some far more ancient place of that name, as in Kahiki-tu and Kahiki-moe (East and West Kahiki) which Fornander thinks are countries far to the west of Indonesia.

The Maoris of the East Coast have a saying which €ml)odies in a brief form, the stages of their migrations, e.g., they came from Tawhiti-nui, to Tawhiti-roa to Tawhiti-pa-mamao, to Hono-i-wairua, thence to New Zealand. It is difficult to locate these places, but they probably include Fiji and Tahiti, in both of which groups the ancestors of the Maori once dwelt. We next come to the name Tumuaki-o-Whiti (or Hiti) which is an expression used in the sacred chants of the Maoris and Morioris meaning the "Crown, or summit of Whiti"—Whiti being the same word as Tawhiti, for the ta is but a prefix. This expression is found in the karakias for the dead, where the spirits of the departed are sent off to Tumuaki-o-Whiti. It is a kupu nui, or word of great significance, having connection with their most sacred ceremonies; therefore, if Tawhiti-nui is a mountain in Hawaiki as has been said on a previous page, it would seem that this expression has reference to the summit of that mountain, to which the spirits of the dead went, and consequently would refer to some sacred mountain in the