Māori Arrival in New Zealand

Our Pacific ancestors are the world’s greatest voyagers. They explored the vast ocean and islands around them, and beyond.

Their knowledge and skill have been passed on through generations.

Tā Hekenukumai (‘Tā Hec’) Puhipi’s compass shows where the sun, moon, and stars set and rise.
Image credit: Tā Hec’s compass from ‘Voyaging from the past into the future’ by Education Gazette editors. Education Gazette 98.1. Ministry of Education.

According to many tribal narratives, the first explorer to reach New Zealand was the intrepid ancestor, Kupe. Using the stars and ocean currents as his navigational guides, he ventured across the Pacific on his waka hourua (voyaging canoe) from his ancestral Polynesian homeland. It is said that Kupe made landfall at the Hokianga Harbour in Northland, around 1,000 years ago.

Stories about Kupe’s exploration differ from region to region but often feature a fight with a great wheke (octopus). The battle between Kupe and the giant octopus Te Wheke a Muturangi is depicted in this illustration by Cliff Whiting. Source: Te Ara

Although it was once believed that the ancestors of Māori came to New Zealand in a single ‘great fleet’ of seven canoes, we now know that many canoes made the perilous voyage. Through stories passed down the generations, tribal groups trace their origins to the captains and crew of more than 40 legendary vessels, from the Kurahaupō at North Cape to the Uruao in the South Island.

Great skill and courage was needed to sail across vast stretches of open sea.

This was at a time when sailors in other parts of the world were still hugging the coast. The island peoples of the Pacific held the knowledge and skills to explore the great ocean paths extending far beyond their homes.

They were not motivated by overcrowding or the need for resources. It may be that Pacific migration was driven by impulses which were both universal and personal – discovery, prestige, exile, a sense of adventure, wanderlust, curiosity.

The first people to reach New Zealand were Polynesians who set out from the central Pacific on deliberate voyages of discovery in large canoes.

Mythbusting: Māori Arrival in New Zealand was Lucky

The original Polynesian settlers discovered New Zealand on deliberate voyages of exploration, navigating by making use of prevailing winds and ocean currents, and observing the stars. We know that migrations were deliberate, because they involved taking the people, plants and animals needed to establish sustainable colonies.

Over the centuries that followed, Māori developed a detailed knowledge of New Zealand’s coast and interior and its flora and fauna.

The Name ‘Aotearoa’

While Aotearoa is now the agreed Māori name for New Zealand, there is some evidence that it originally applied only to  the North Island.

The most popular interpretation of the word is “long white cloud”. One version tells how the first voyagers to the new land were guided across empty oceans by day by a long white cloud and by night by a long bright cloud (the Clouds of Magellan near the star Canopus).

The more popular belief is that a strange white cloud was the first indication of land for Kupe’s weary crew after their long journey from Hawaiki. Kupe’s wife, Hinete-aparangi, cried out “He ao! He ao!” (“A cloud! A cloud!”). This first greeting, to which was added the word “roa”, meaning “long”, became the name of the land we now know as the North Island.