Great Fleet

Various Māori traditions recount how their ancestors set out from their homeland in great ocean-going canoes (or waka). Some of these traditions name a mythical homeland called Hawaiki.

Among these is the story of Kupe, who had eloped with Kuramarotini, the wife of Hoturapa, the owner of the great canoe Matahourua, whom Kupe had murdered. To escape punishment for the murder, Kupe and Kura fled in Matahourua and discovered a land he called Aotearoa ('long-white-cloud'). He explored its coast and killed the sea monster Te Wheke-a-Muturangi, finally returning to his home to spread news of his newly discovered land.

Other stories of various tribes report migrations to escape famine, over-population, and warfare. These were made in legendary canoes, the best known of which are Aotea, Te Arawa, Kurahaupō, Mātaatua, Tainui, Tākitimu, and Tokomaru. Various traditions name numerous other canoes. Some, including the Āraiteuru, are well known; others including the Kirauta and the sacred Arahura and Mahangaatuamatua are little known. Rather than arriving in a single fleet, the journeys may have occurred over several centuries.

Percy Smith believed that while the Polynesian traditions may have been flawed in detail, they preserved the threads of truth which could be recovered using a method already well established for Hawaiian traditions by Fornander (1878–1885). This method involved seeking out common elements of tradition from different sources, and aligning these to genealogies to give a time frame for the events. Abraham Fornander, Smith, and others used this method to reconstruct the migrations of the Polynesians, tracing them back to a supposed ancient homeland in India.

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