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The Maori Canoe

"Matatua"

"Matatua"

"Matatua" was another vessel of the fleet that arrived here about the middle of the fourteenth century. Some of her crew landed at Whakatane, in the Bay of Plenty, and intermarried with the numerous population already in occupation, the Tini-o-Toi. The Ngati-Awa, Whakatohea, and Tuhoe Tribes claim descent from the "Matatua" immigrants. Apparently most of the crew of the "Matatua" went northward, taking their vessel up the coast to the Nga-Puhi district, where they settled.

The Tahitians have also preserved a traditional knowledge of this vessel, as shown in the above-mentioned paper. "Matatua" seems to have made a voyage to the Marquesas ere she came to New Zealand. As the name of this vessel is often mispronounced by us, it is as well to state that the two first vowels are long—Mātātua.

We have seen that Polynesian voyagers always made Rarotonga their final starting-place for New Zealand, hence it might be thought that the natives of that island would possess some knowledge of such movements. This is so, for an old native of Rarotonga, one Tamarua, informed Mr. S. Percy Smith that in former times the following canoes left that island to convey migrants to a new home: "Te Arava," "Kura-au-po," "Matatua," "Mamari," "Tokomaru," "Tainui," and "Takitumu." Bearing in mind the fact that the Rarotonga dialect has dropped the aspirate and replaced w with v, we have here the same names that the Maori of New Zealand has preserved. Tamarua also stated that "Takitumu" returned to Rarotonga, which is corroborated by Maori tradition. This old man also said that a voyager named Ngahue went to New Zealand in olden times, at which place he obtained greenstone (nephrite) and page 402saw huge birds called moa, some preserved flesh of which he took back to Rarotonga in a calabash. If this is a genuine tradition it certainly agrees with the Maori version. Tamarua did not know the name of the "Aotea" canoe; he called New Zealand "Aotearoa," its well-known Maori name. The immigrants from the Society Group named many places in New Zealand after places at Tahiti, Raiatea, and other islands.

Colonel Gudgeon states that there is a place named Matatua on the Island of Rarotonga, and local tradition states that from that place the "Matatua" canoe started for New Zealand.