808 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
Hawaiki decided to migrate to New Zealand in consequence of 
troubles that had arisen through land disputes and other causes. 
Then was the fleet of canoes Siegal which, as has been shown, 
arrived in New Zealand about the year 1350. One of these 
canoes was the “ Mata-atua,” and, luckily, most of the sacred 
karakias or prayers connected with her building and launching 
have been preserved. In the ¢aw or chorus used in hauling the 
canoe out from the forest occur the following lines :— 
Kapua hokaia i runga o Tahiti-nui-a-Te-Taa, 
Ka tatau ana ki runga o Kapu-te-rangi, 
Puke i Aotea, ko Toi te tangata o te motu. 
Clouds that stride above on Great Tahiti of Te Tua 
Will rest on top of Kapu-te-rangi, 
The hill at Aotea, where Toi is chief of the island. 
The above taw names Tahiti as the land of Te Tua, evidently 
some great chief, and it shows also at that time a knowledge of 
Aotea or Aotea-roa, of which Toi is said to be the chief, meaning 
no doubt his doscendamés. Miss Henry says that Tua is the name 
of a very ancient high chieftain family in Tahiti, which seems 
again to prove the Maori ‘knowledge of that island, and to show 
where the Mata- atua canoe was built. The tradition goes on to 
say that the people who received Tama-kihikurangi in Tahiti 
were the Tini-o-Te-Cropoa, and that the Mata-atua sailed from 
Paea. Both Oropoa, or Oropaa, and Paea are districts in Tahiti, 
but we must be on our cuard here, for these names may have 
been learnt in later days from Tahitians v isiting New Zealand in 
whale ships, and moreover, I think the 'Tini-o-Te- Oropaa people 
can be shown to be known to Maori tradition; but the name was 
not derived from the district referred to. It would take me too 
far away from the matter in hand to explain this. It is different 
with names embalmed in the karakias; they may be taken as 
correct, for it would have been sacrilege to have altered them. 
In reference to the name Maru-tai-rangaranga mentioned above, 
it is just possible that this is the same man referred to in the Rey. 
J. B. Stair’s “Samoan Voyages,”* as the father of Uenga. The 
genealogies preserved by both the New Zealanders and “Raroton- 
gans show the age at which he flourished to be very nearly the 
same—quite near encugh to allow of both the traditions referring 
to the same person. 
The evidence which has now been adduced shows pretty clearly 
that both Maoris and Tahitians were mutually acquainted with 
their respective countries in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies, if not long before, and that communication was not 
* Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 1v, pp. 103, 130. 
