The Context of Oral Traditions: The Oral Transmission of History and Maui the Navigator’s Visit to New Zealand

Abstract

The early settlement of New Zealand is implicit in traditional accounts of Maui the Navigator’s visit to New Zealand. It is clear from these accounts that Maui followed sailing instructions handed down from earlier navigators. The language divergence and cultural impoverishment of the indigenous peoples he met point both to a significant time depth since first settlement and to long isolation for the descendants of the first colonists. Following the East Australian Current led Maui to a landing on the west coast of the South Island, the landfall predicted by our paradigm and recorded in traditional histories. Maui’s “discovery” of the North Island, together with the descendants of earlier migrants, emphasizes the isolation of New Zealand from its Spice Island homeland since knowledge of the North Island had not reached the Spice Islands in 1,500 years. A matrilineal social structure obvious from Maui’s meeting with a chieftainess at Orokoroko matches evidence presented in Chapter 10 for the preservation of early matrilineal structures in New Zealand. Further, the fact that news of Maui’s death was brought back to New Zealand and preserved there supports traditional evidence for later colonizations of New Zealand spanning 1,300 years by Maui’s descendants claiming land rights in his name.