to the west; and the latter name, like Navau, is a mere variant of Vavau or Wawau. We next find it in the track of the migrations as an island now unknown, to the north of the Fijis, and in Vavau, one of the northern islands of the Tonga group, whose beautiful harbour of Niuafou is well known to tourists. In Samoa, so far as I am aware, it is not retained as the name of a traditional land, but it there means "old, ancient"—significant meanings which it is permissible to suggest meant originally, "Old as Vavau."[1] We must pass now to Eastern Polynesia to find the name again, and in Porapora of the Society group learn that the ancient name of that island was Vavau. It was from this Vavau, I have little doubt, that the ancestors of the Ngati-Whatua tribe of Kaipara came to New Zealand in their canoe, the "Mahuhu," long before the fleet in 1350. To the eastward of Tahiti, the name is found as Mature-vavao, the native name of the Actæan group, and in Vavau, another name for Rangiroa or Deans Island. Still further to the east, the Marquesans have recorded in their traditions the name of one of their stopping places, an island named Vevau, which apparently lies to the north of the Fiji group, and which I am inclined to identify with New Britain.
The Tahitian traditions mention a Vavau in connection with Samoa (besides the old name of Porapora) which is probably the Tongan island of that name—it is shown on Tupaea's chart, which that old Tahitian priest drew for Captain Cook in 1768. The name, as Wawau, was also known to Hawaiian traditions.
A Maori variant of this name is Ta-wau, and Ta-wawau, which is said in tradition to be an island near Tawhiti (or Tahiti) and is probably Vavau, or Porapora.
- ↑ Mr. John White gives the meaning of the word in Maori, as "oblivion," possibly derived from the same source as the Samoan word. But I do not know it with that meaning in Maori.
