﻿W. T. L. Travers. — Traditions of the Xew Zealanders. 59 



the quarter where the sun first flares up 3' but Poturu answered him, ' But I 

 say nay, nay, let us proceed towards that quarter of the heavens in which 

 the sun sets.' Turi replied, 'Why, did not Kupe, who had visited these 

 Islands ' [speaking of the Islands, it will be observed, in the present tense] 

 ' particularly tell us, now mind, let nothing induce you to turn the prow of 

 your canoe away from that quarter of the heavens in which the sun rises 1 " 

 Poturu, however, appears to have prevailed, and having started from 

 Rangitahua, the party followed his lead in the ' Ririno,' but soon came to gi'ief, 

 the ' Ririno' being wrecked. The ' Aotea' then changed her course accoi'ding to 

 Kupe's original instructions, and ultimately reached Aotea, on the West Coast 

 of the North Island, Kupe himself having first made the land on the East 

 Coast. 



All the particulars of this voyage, and the acts of Turi and his people on 

 their arrival at Aotea, are related in the narrative with great exactness and 

 detail, but the sailing directions given by Kupe are evidently quite different 

 from those which could have led him to the East Coast, and from those which 

 were used by the 'Arawa' and the ' Tainui,' which, as will shortly be seen, arrived 

 from the eastward. It would, indeed, be difficult to conjecture, from Kupe's 

 sailing directions, the locality from which Turi and his people had started, no 

 land lying to the westward or north-westward of New Zealand, except 

 Australia, from which, it is very clear, the New Zealanders did not come. 



Nor do some of the other circumstances stated with respect to this voyage 

 add to the credibility of this particular narrative. 



As I have before observed, the " Traditions " give us accounts of at least 

 two independent discoveries of these Islands by voyages from Hawaiki, before 

 any of the " migrations " took place, namely, that by Ngahue and that by Kupe, 

 and we are led to believe that in both cases the discoverers found no difficulty 

 in performing the voyage here and back. We are further told that the 

 instructions for the voyage were so simple, that Turi and his people, as well as 

 the commanders of the ' Arawa ' and the ' Tainui,' were enabled, by following 

 those instructions, to make their land-fall with as much certainty as the most 

 experienced navigator of the present day could do. All this becomes the more 

 astonishing when we know the great straits to which shipwrecked Europeans, 

 even with the aid of the compass, have been reduced in attempting to reach 

 land far less distant from the scene of their disaster, than New Zealand is from 

 the nearest land which can possibly be looked upon as Hawaiki. 



Turning now to the migration of Tama-te-Kapua, and those who accom- 

 panied him in the ' Arawa,' the ' Tainui,' and other canoes, we are informed, 

 by the legends, that on the return of Ngahue to Hawaiki, he found the people 

 all engaged in war, and that when he reported his discovery and the beauty 

 of the country, some of them determined at once to emigi-ate to it. The chief 



