Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/215

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SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE RACE
203

may—that the Maori accounts are very persistent in spying that Turi's spirit, after his death, returned to Hawaiki. One Maori story says that Turi was living at his home, Matangi-rei, on the banks of the Patea River, when the news came of the death of his son Turanga, killed in battle at Te Ahu-o-Turanga (named after him), Manawatu Gorge, and that the old man was sorely affected thereby. He went out of his house, and was never seen again—hence the Maori belief in his return to Hawaiki.

The above notes, taken altogether, seem to identify Turi, of the Aotea migration with Turi, of Ra'iatea; the fact of Toto, his father-in-law, being mentioned, and that of one of the name of Toi, being his contemporary, both by Ra'iatea and Maori story, also point in the same direction.


It is needless to point out how frequently the name Rarotonga occurs in Maori History, especially in the old chants, but there is nothing in them that indicates any lengthened sojourn in that island. Many places in New Zealand have been named after the old Rarotonga, as also after the old Hawaiki, but none of the first, so far as I am aware, have been given to the landing places of the canoes of the fleet; as has been done in the case of Hawaiki; such, for instance, as the final resting place of the Tainui canoe at Kawhia, and the ancient tuahu where Te Arawa landed at Maketu. This name appears to have been brought with the fleet and applied to the landing places of Te Arawa and Tainui canoes in fond remembrance of older places bearing that name. We find a Maketu in Rarotonga, in Atiu, in Mauke, and in Mitiaro, though none of these islands are mentioned in Maori History.

Of the other islands in the Cook group, only that of Mangaia appears to be remembered in Maori History, for I take Ma-mangaia-tua to be the same name. It is also, I