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Category The Wakas

Wakas: Part 2

February 18, 2014 Posted in  Kurahaupo, Mataatua, Matawhaorua, Tainui, The Wakas No comments

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Tahitian sail types

Society Islands sails, 1770’s

During Cooks first Pacific voyage in 1769, Joseph Banks recorded in detail an ocean-going vessel he saw. In particular he noted the raised bow and high stern, and also the nature of the sail arrangement. In this description he distinguished between boats used for fishing – ‘ivahas’ and those used for ocean travel or fighting – ‘Paheis’.

While describing these canoes he also said ‘when fitted for sailing’, implying that this could be a temporary arrangement; that the same vessels could be rigged both with, and without sails. It appears to have been normal practice that the hulls might be used singly for coastal work, but then paired for voyaging. When a hull was used singly, and with sail, then an outrigger was added for stability.

In th...

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Wakas: Part 1

February 15, 2014 Posted in  Kurahaupo, Mataatua, Matawhaorua, Tainui, The Wakas 2 comments

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Oxford English dictionary definition of ‘waka’:
Waka (n) A traditional Maori canoe.

Model Waka

Model waka.

The Maori use the word ‘waka’ to describe all types of boat. Whilst ‘canoe’ might be appropriate to describe most contemporary Maori boats, which are used for inshore purposes, it is very misleading when used to describe the type vessel employed to settle New Zealand. The boats the Polynesians arrived in were large catamarans, they had sails, and they could transport up to seventy people… none of this suggests ‘canoe’. The Polynesians did not paddle here.

The Polynesians settled the Islands of the Central and Eastern Pacific in quick succession from about 100 AD onwards...

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Hawai-iki

February 12, 2014 Posted in  Kurahaupo, Mataatua, Matawhaorua, Tainui, The Wakas No comments

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Language groups in the Pacific

Language groups in the Pacific. (Click to enlarge)

When Tupaia landed in New Zealand he was able to converse readily with the local Maori… James Cook described this ease as being “perfectly understood”, and Cook declared surprise at this. They were 60 days sailing away from Tupaia’s home; nearly 1/10th of the way around the world, yet Tupaia and these natives spoke the same language. In fact, if Cook had traveled a similar distance East from Tahiti, Tupaia would have been able to do just the same.

Tupaia’s language was spoken widely across the Central and Eastern Pacific, and this remains the case today. Apart from dialectic differences, the same language is spoken in; the Society Islands, Tuamotu Islands, Marquesa’s Islands, Austral Islands, and Gambier Islands...

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Origins

February 9, 2014 Posted in  Kurahaupo, Mataatua, Matawhaorua, Tainui, The Wakas No comments

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maori chief

A Maori chief as seen by James Cook and his crew during his first Pacific voyage in 1769

When Abel Tasman arrived in New Zealand in 1642 he found the land inhabited… but the people that were here, the Maori, were not aboriginal; they had traveled here and settled.

So where had they come from?

The answer to that question troubled historians for a long time, but the convergence of oral traditions, Archaeology and most recently DNA analysis has removed doubt.

The Maori are descendants of migrants from Eastern Polynesia. But the islands in that remote region of the pacific are small and widespread, and humanity hadn’t independently evolved on each of them… they too had been settled by immigrants. So where had those Eastern Polynesian people come from?

We need to look further back into ...

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