Hawaiki: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 15:49, 5 March 2006

Polynesians give the name Hawaiki to the mythical island to which they trace their origins. Polynesian legends say that the spirits of Polynesian people return to Hawaiki upon their death.

Spellings

The Māori language name "Hawaiki" figures in legends about the arrival of the Māori in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The same concept appears in other Polynesian cultures, and the name appears variously as Hawaiiki, Hawai‘iki, Hawaii‘iki, Havai‘i, Hawai‘ti, Savai‘i in the various Pacific island languages, though Hawaiki appears to have become the most common variation used in English. (The ii, i‘i, ii‘i variants represent attempts to phonetically reflect a long I sound, with a glottal stop in the middle replacing the "k" in some variants.)

Some say that the Polynesian islands of Hawaii, written Hawai‘i in Hawaiian, and Savai'i in Samoa take their name in commemoration of Hawaiki. Some pseudohistorical theories connect Hawaiki with the lost continent of Mu.

Legends

Legend has it that the Polynesians migrated from Hawaiki to the islands of the Pacific Ocean in open boats, little different from the traditional craft found in Polynesia today. The Māori people of New Zealand trace their ancestry to groups of people who reportedly travelled from Hawaiki in about forty named canoes (waka). (Compare the discredited "Great Fleet" theory of New Zealand settlement)

I hate Hawaiki

External links

Hawai'iki - The Ancient Land - Hawaiian Legend.
Oceania history websites, profiled

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 The [[Māori]] people of [[New Zealand]] trace their ancestry to groups of people who reportedly travelled from Hawaiki in about forty named [[canoe]]s (''waka''). (Compare the discredited "Great Fleet" theory of New Zealand settlement)
+I hate Hawaiki
-==Modern science and practical testing of theories==
-Until recently, many anthropologists had doubts that these legends described a deliberate migration, preferring to believe that the migration occurred accidentally when seafarers became lost and drifted to uninhabited shores.  In [[1947]], [[Thor Heyerdahl]] sailed the [[Kon-Tiki]], a [[balsa]] wood [[raft]], from [[South America]] to show that humans could have settled Polynesia from the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, with sailors using the prevailing winds and simple construction techniques.
-However, [[DNA testing|DNA evidence]] indicates that the Polynesians likely ultimately originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from [[Taiwan]], and moved southwards and eastwards through the South [[Pacific Ocean]].  The common ancestry of all the [[Austronesian languages]], of which the Polynesian languages form a major subgroup, also supports this conclusion.  This evidence indicates that at least some of the migration occurred against the [[prevailing wind]]s and hence deliberately rather than just accidentally. Proto-Polynesian and Polynesian navigators may have predicted the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.
-In recent decades, boatbuilders (see [[Polynesian Voyaging Society]]) have constructed ocean-going craft using traditional materials and techniques, and have sailed them over presumed traditional routes using ancient navigation methods, showing the definite feasibility of such deliberate migration.
 ==See also==