Hawaiki

Polynesians give the name Hawaiki to the mythical island to which they trace their origins.

Name variants

The Māori language name Hawaiki figures in legends about the arrival of the Māori in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The same concept appears in other Polynesian cultures, the name variously appearing as Hawaiki, Havai‘i, or ‘Avaiki in other Polynesian languages, though Hawaiki appears to have become the most common variation used in English. Even though the Sāmoans (themselves forming one of the oldest communities in Polynesia) have preserved no traditions of having originated elsewhere, the name of the largest Sāmoan island Savai‘i is cognate with the word Hawaiki, as is the name of the Polynesian islands of Hawaii, written Hawai‘i in Hawaiian (the diacritical mark ‘ denoting a glottal stop that replaces the "k" in some Polynesian languages).

The word "Hawaiki" is also cognate with the words sauali'i ("spirits" in Sāmoan) and hou'eiki ("chiefs" in Tongan). This has led some scholars to hypothesize that the word Hawaiki, and, by extension, Savai'i and Hawai‘i, may not, in fact, have originally referred to a geographical place, but rather to chiefly ancestors and the chief-based social structure that was typical of pre-colonial Polynesia.

Mythology

Some pseudohistorical theories connect Hawaiki with the lost Pacific Ocean continent of Mu.

Legends

Legend has it that the Polynesians migrated from Hawaiki to the islands of the Pacific Ocean in open canoes, little different from the traditional craft found in Polynesia today. The Māori people of New Zealand trace their ancestry to groups of people who reportedly travelled from Hawaiki in about forty named canoes (waka). (Compare the discredited Great Fleet theory of New Zealand settlement)

Polynesian legends say that the spirits of Polynesian people return to Hawaiki upon their death. In the New Zealand context, such return-journeys take place via Spirits Bay, Cape Reinga and the Three Kings Islands at the extreme north of the North Island of New Zealand — giving a possible pointer as to the direction in which Hawaiki must lie.

Modern science and practical testing of theories

Until recently, many anthropologists had doubts that the canoe legends described a deliberate migration, preferring to believe that the migration occurred accidentally when seafarers became lost and drifted to uninhabited shores. In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl sailed the Kon-Tiki, a balsa-wood raft, from South America into the Pacific in order to show that humans could have settled Polynesia from the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, with sailors using the prevailing winds and simple construction techniques.

However, DNA evidence indicates that the Polynesians likely ultimately originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from Taiwan, and moved southwards and eastwards through the South Pacific Ocean. The common ancestry of all the Austronesian languages, of which the Polynesian languages form a major subgroup, also supports this theory. This evidence indicates that at least some of the migration occurred against the prevailing winds, and hence deliberately rather than just accidentally. Proto-Polynesian and Polynesian navigators may have predicted the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.

In recent decades, boatbuilders (see Polynesian Voyaging Society) have constructed ocean-going craft using traditional materials and techniques, and have sailed them over presumed traditional routes using ancient navigation methods, showing the definite feasibility of such deliberate migration.

See also

• Hawaiiloa

External links

• Hawai'iki - The Ancient Land - Hawaiian Legend.
• Oceania history websites, profiled