both ancient names, but are now known to very few, the name of Aotea-roa having replaced them.
Some of these "Log-books" may now be quoted. That of the Maoris is extremely meagre; it is stated by the east coast tribes that they came from Tawhiti-nui, to Tawhiti-roa, to Tawhiti-pa-mamao, to Te Hono-i-wairua, and thence to New Zealand. Of course there are innumerable other names of places mentioned in Maori tradition, many of which have been noted, but this is the only statement I remember that gives the course of the migrations in regular sequence. The identification of these names is very difficult. It has been shown that the first of these names is that of a mountain in the original Hawaiki-nui, and Tawhiti-nui may here be used as a synonym for that name. Tawhiti-roa (Long Tawhiti) may be intended for Sumatra, Java, or the whole of Indonesia. Tawhiti-pa-mamao (the nearer Tawhiti) may be either Fiji or Tahiti, and Te Hono-i-wairua cannot be identified.[1]
There are indications in their traditions, but not precisely stated in sequence, that the later course of the migrations was viá Mata-te-ra, Waerota, Waeroti, to Whiti, (Fiji). All of these islands can be shown by the traditions of other branches to lie to the north and west of Fiji though not now known by those names.
The Rarotonga account is more full; it is embodied in a karakia, or recitation called a kauraura, to be found in
- ↑ Tawhiti, in Maori, means distant, but in no other dialect of the Polynesian language is anything like it to be found. I therefore think it is a modern word in this sense, coined since the arrival of the people in New Zealand, and derived from the island whence they came—Tahiti—and really meant when first used, "as far off as Tahiti." Ta is a prefix of a causative nature, whiti, or hiti, is to rise up, as the sun.
