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In Māori tradition, Arawa was one of the great ocean-going, voyaging canoes that was used in the migrations that settled New Zealand. It was formed from a great tree in Rarotonga,[1] a place "which lies on the other side of Hawaiki" (Grey 1956:107). The canoe belonged to Tama-te-kapua, son of Houmai-tawhiti. When his father and brother had been killed in a series of battles between his family and the high-chief Uenuku, Tama collected his possessions and family, kidnapped Ngatoro-i-rangi, the navigator of the Tainui canoe, and set out in the canoe Arawa. The Arawa landed in New Zealand near Cape Runaway. Following his death, Tama was buried on the summit of Mount Moehau at the northern tip of the Coromandel Range. The modern descendants of the Arawa settlers live in the Bay of Plenty - Volcanic Plateau region. Detail from a tÄhÅ«hÅ« (ridgepole of a house), NgÄti Awa, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, circa 1840. ...
In Maori mythology, Uenuku is the god of rainbows. ...
In Maori mythology, NgÄtoro-i-rangi (NgÄtoro) is the name of a priest in the legends about the settling of New Zealand. ...
Tainui is a Maori Iwi Waka Confederation of New Zealand. ...
Cape Runaway is the eastern extremity of the Bay of Plenty in New Zealands North Island. ...
The Coromandel Range is a ridge of rugged hills running the length of the Coromandel Peninsula in the North Island of New Zealand. ...
Notes - ^ Given that 'Rarotonga' is a word of a type that occurs fairly commonly in Polynesian languages, and that it is also, for instance, a placename in New Zealand, it should not be assumed without further proof that this is a memory of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.
Rarotonga Island from space, September 1994 A picture taken in Rarotonga. ...
References - R.D. Craig, Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology (Greenwood Press: New York, 1989), 24.
- G. Grey, Polynesian Mythology, Illustrated edition, reprinted 1976. (Whitcombe and Tombs: Christchurch), 1956.
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