LEGENDARY HAWAIKI

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6438, 15 January 1924, Page 5

LEGENDARY HAWAIKI

THE MAORIS' ANCIENT HOME

The Maoris, said Professor Macmillan Brown, Chancellor of the New Zealand University, in an interview at Gisborne, came from Hawaiki. That, of course, is a well-accepted fact, though all do not agree on the location of that historic place. In his mind there was no doubt that Hawaiki is now sunken in the middle of the central Eastern Pacific. It had been sinking for generations, if not centuries, perhaps even thousands of years. As it subsided the people removed to higher parts, and some of the bolder spirits migrated. That, to his mind, was how the Maoris came to New Zealand. Why he considered that Hawaiki was the original home was that the name, or a modification of it, appeared very frequently in the Pacific. The westernmost island of the Samoan group, for instance, was called Saveli, and one of the outlying Tongan islands was called Hapaii. The most north-western of the islands of the Hawaiian group was Kauai. When a native died in Hawaii it was said that he had gone to Kauai. As Hawaii was sinking below the sea and the Maori wanted his spirit to go home, it was considered that, on death it went to the sunken island, and that explained why the most outlying islands were apparently all derived from the word Hawaiki. The Maoris of New Zealand still had the same idea, the soul in this case leaving the Spirit Land at the edge of North Cape for the future home below the sea. The Christian looked upwards towards the future home,' Heaven; the, Maori looked down below the sea to the home of his ancestors, Hawaiki.