Hawaiki

The Māori name Hawaiki refers to the mythical land to which some Polynesian cultures trace their origins. It may also refer to an underworld in many Māori stories, and in Mangaia in the Cook Islands.

Tregear (1891:392) records that the Cook Islands Maori word Avaiki means “underworld”. Buse however (1996: 90) in his dictionary Cook Islands Maori Dictionary with English Finderlist (edited by Bruce Biggs and Rangi Moekaʻa almost a century after Tregear’s work) writes this entry for ‘Avaiki:

‘Avaiki, prop. n. Hawaiki, the legendary homeland of the Polynesians. I tere tū mai rātou mei ‘Avaiki. They voyaged direct from Hawaiki.

According to various oral traditions, 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 traveled from Hawaiki in about 40 named canoes (waka).

Polynesian oral traditions say that the spirits of Polynesian people return to Hawaiki after death. Such return-journeys take place via Spirits Bay, Cape Reinga and the Three Kings Islands at the extreme north of the North Island — giving a possible pointer as to the direction in which Hawaiki may lie.