Hawaiki

Hawaiki is the Māori name for the mythical land in which some Polynesian cultures see its origin and provenance.

Importance

In a second meaning Hawaiki in many Māori stories the name of the underworld. In the language of Mangaia Cook Islands Avaiki always denotes the underworld.

The Māori name Hawaiki is especially found in the legends that describe the arrival of the Māori in Aotearoa ( New Zealand). Very similar legends exist in other Polynesian cultures and languages ​​, for example as Hawaiki, Havaii, Avaiki. The name Hawaiki has prevailed in English.

The Samoans, one of the oldest Polynesian cultures, not a legend to know about their origin from another place more, but the name of the largest Samoan islands of Savaii, can connect to Hawaiki recognize. It is the same with the name of the most famous Polynesian island of Hawaii. The Okina () indicates a very short end of the larynx and replaced in some Polynesian languages, the k

Other Related Hawaiki words are saualii ( "ghost " on Samoan ) and houeiki ( " chiefs " in Tongan ). Some scientists came here over to the hypothesis that the word Hawaiki ( and according to the words of Savaii and Haiwaii ) originally did not necessarily have a reference to a geographical location, but rather refers generally to ancestors and chiefs, as in the pre-colonial social structures of Polynesia were common.

Legends

The legend tells that Polynesians settled by Hawaiki from the Pacific Ocean, in open canoes, which are little different from today's canoes of Polynesia. The Māori of New Zealand tell their ancestors had arrived in groups in about 40 different canoes ( waka ), and to this day they call their waka when they imagine someone.

Other Polynesian legends report that the souls of the dead return to Hawaiki. In New Zealand such trips begin back to the origins of Spirits Bay, Cape Reinga at or on the Three Kings Islands in the far north of the North Island. This suggests at least the direction of Hawaiki.

Modern Science

Anthropologists cherished for a long time doubt that it might be possible to migrate voluntarily in canoes across the Pacific. Rather, it was considered that migratory movements were more random, by involuntary drifting of canoes in the direction of uninhabited land, for example. 1947 sailed Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki, a ship made ​​of balsa wood, from South America towards the Pacific islands to show that it was the South American cultures in principle possible sailing with simple techniques, and with the wind, the Pacific from the eastern shores to settle here.

Later DNA tests suggested the conjecture that the Polynesians colonized by East Asian islands of the Pacific, for example, from Taiwan. Receiving support this theory by linguists classify the Polynesian languages ​​as a major subgroup of the Austronesian languages ​​, and see their common origin in Asia.

On the other hand, would such a settlement " against the wind " to be done and therefore just not involuntarily and accidentally. It is believed that navigators from the pre -Polynesian and Polynesian time could be followed the pulling directions of birds to find islands beyond the horizon.

The possibility in principle of such voluntary migration movement has been proven in recent decades by boat builders in the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Using historical materials and techniques ocean-going canoes were built and operated with historical methods of navigation on the assumed migration routes to the respective islands.

Swell

• Māori mythology
• Mythological island