246 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
that it was Rarotonga or other islands of the Cook group; or 
possibly Tahiti of the Society Islands. 
These old Polynesians were experienced navigators and accus- 
tomed to long voyages, with a good knowledge of the currents, 
winds, seasons and stars. They were as bold and fearless as the 
old Vikings. Their great canoes, many of them double, were 
thoroughly sea-worthy and very well built, although without nails 
or iron in any shape. The labor involved in their construction 
was tremendous when we remember that only stone implements 
were used. Long experience had given a good practical knowledge 
of the proper lines for speed and safety. 
Mr. Best, in his ‘‘Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori,’’ 
says: ‘‘In pre-European times the stars were studied by the 
natives—not by all persons, be it explained, but by a limited num- 
ber of men of the tohunga (or adept) class, who devoted much 
time to the study of the ra rorika, or little suns, as they were 
termed. Such men would often pass long hours of the night in 
contemplating the stars, and would be looked upon as reliable 
weather prophets. Travelers and fishermen would consult them 
ere venturing forth, and their powers are also said to have en- 
abled them to foretell the general aspect of coming seasons, their 
fruitfulness or otherwise. Such were the studies of the tohwnga 
kokorangt, the Maori astronomer. 
‘These men knew well the movements of the stars; they knew 
when to look for their appearance, and always waited it in order 
to scan closely their aspect. One famous old wise man of the 
Wairarapa district of last century, devoted much of his time to 
studying the stars and planets. His contemporaries have told me 
that they have often known him to pass the greater part of the 
night on the summit of a hillock near his hut gazing continuously 
at the heavens—surely his thoughts would return to the old sea- 
faring ancestors who followed the stars across half a world, who 
sailed eastward and northward and southward until they lost the 
familiar stars of long centuries, and saw strange new ones appear 
above the far-off horizon, and then, further back his memory 
would recall the teachings of his elders concerning the hidden 
fatherlands, the mist enshrouded land of Irihia, wherein his an- 
cestors had dwelt ere the gleaming stars lured them forth on the 
great trackless ocean that was to be their home for so many 
centuries. ’’ 
The story of the discovery of New Zealand by the people from 
