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Tainui (canoe)

Tainui was one of the great ocean-going canoes in which Polynesians migrated to New Zealand approximately 800 years ago. It was commanded by the chief Hoturoa, who had decided to leave Hawaiki because over-population had led to famine and warfare.[2] The ship first reached New Zealand at Whangaparāoa in the Bay of Plenty and then skirted around the north coast of the North Island, finally landing at Kawhia in the western Waikato. The crew of the Tainui were the ancestors of the iwi that form the Tainui confederation.

For other uses, see Tainui (disambiguation).

Commander

Hoturoa

Whangaparaoa, Bay of Plenty, Kāwhia

Crafting[edit]

The Tainui waka (canoe) was made from a great tree, at a place in Hawaiki known then as Maungaroa, on the spot where a stillborn child had been buried. According to Te Tāhuna Herangi the waka was named after the child who had been called Tainui.[3] The canoe was made by Rakatāura, an expert boat builder in the tradition of Rātā, or according to Wirihana Aoterangi by Rātā himself.[3] It was built with three adzes (toki): Hahau-te-pō ('Chop the night-world') to chop down the tree, Paopao-te-rangi ('Shatter the heavens') to split the wood, and Manu-tawhio-rangi ('Bird encircling the sky) to shape it.[4]


The first two times that the tree was chopped down, it was found to be standing again the next morning. On the third occasion, Rakatāura stayed at the site overnight and discovered that the tree was being magically reassembled at night by birds led by the porihawa (a relative of the Hokioi). An old woman, Māhu-rangi (or Maru-a-nuku) gave them some grated kumara which she instructed him to place on the stump and a karakia (incantation, prayer) for chopping down trees, called Te Karakia o te Tuanga o te Rākau ('The tree-felling spell').[5]


During the construction process, one of the workers, Kohiti-nui, covered himself with wood-chips and dust so that it would seem that he had been working hard and would take all the best food for himself. Rakatāura noticed this and killed him, burying him in the wood-chips. Because of this murder, when the canoe was finished, it would not move, it could not be hauled down to the sea, and the karakia o te Tōanga ('the hauling spell') did not work.[6] Then Hoturoa sung a special incantation, which sent Kohiti-nui's spirit out to sea in the form of a fly and the men were able to haul the canoe down to the sea.[7]


According to Pei Te Hurinui Jones the waka was named Tainui because when it first went into the water, it did not ride smoothly and one of Hoturoa's wives, perhaps Marama, shouted out "Hoturoa, your canoe is tainui (very heavy)".[8]

List of Māori waka

Craig, RD (1989). Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology. New York: Greenwood Press. p. 253.

Jones, Pei Te Hurinui; Biggs, Bruce (2004). Ngā iwi o Tainui : nga koorero tuku iho a nga tuupuna = The traditional history of the Tainui people. Auckland [N.Z.]: Auckland University Press. pp. 16–50.  1869403312.

ISBN

Stimson, J. Frank; Marshall, Donald Stanley (1964). . Salem: Peabody Museum. p. 485. ISBN 978-94-017-5862-8.

Dictionary of Some Tuamotuan Dialects of the Polynesian Languages

Taonui, Rāwiri (21 December 2006). . Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Archived from the original on 17 December 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2007.

"Canoe traditions"

Te Tumu O Tainui. 1986.

(2004). "Nga Korero o Nehera". Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou - Struggle Without End (Second ed.). Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books. p. 46. ISBN 9780143019459.

Walker, Ranginui