(ETHEREAL MUSIC)
- My ancestors arrived here in Maketu over 700 years ago,
bringing with them the things they needed to survive in a new land ―
plants, tools and the cultural know-how to explore and settle the world's largest ocean.
Their waka carried the plants they needed for food and clothing.
The one that became most important here was the kumara, which was not just critical to our survival,
but tells a story that connects us right across the Pacific.
I want to retrace the journey of our ancestors,
discovering the three corners of the Polynesian Triangle
and their voyage to become tangata whenua.
I'm following the clues left by our tupuna,
archaeology, science
and the mystery of a humble sweet potato.
In this episode, I travel all the way to Rapa Nui,
where I'm overwhelmed by the mighty moai,
and I find missing pieces of the puzzle in Hawai'i.
Everything's come together here.
(DRIVING PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
Join me as I follow the path of my ancestors.
www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023.
(MYSTICAL MUSIC)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
Rapa Nui was discovered during the same push from eastern Polynesia
that led to the discoveries of Hawai'i and Aotearoa,
and those voyagers carried with them the same canoe plants as the voyagers who arrived to Hawai'i
and, of course, Aotearoa.
And one of those waka carried the great chief Hotu Matu'a, who led his people ashore here at Anakena.
I've long wondered about this distant, isolated island,
so it's an honour to be welcomed by a rangatira, Victor Ika.
(GENTLE ETHEREAL MUSIC)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
- (SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
Tena koutou. Tena koe. - Tena koe. Mm.
- Oh, that's just like...
Just feel, yeah.
Just feel.
Does each moai have a name? Is there a particular ancestor?
They look like potae. They look like hats.
But is that makawe? Is that like the hair,
tied up into a tihi? Yes. - Yeah, hair, yes, exactly.
- Yeah.
Just feels like they're all focused on you right now.
They all... The energy and the power just all coming straight at you,
eh. It's, like... (WHOOSHES)
What a feeling!
I wasn't expecting to feel such a connection to the moai
and even less to be able to talk to Victor so easily.
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI) - (SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI) - A Ture Huke.
- Ture Huke te ingoa? - E, Ture Huke te ingoa.
- Jeez, bro, your reo is... - Similar. - Phew.
- More similar than you thought. - More than similar. It's just pretty much the same.
- Yes. - Amazing.
You stand in front of the ancestors, it's just like standing in front of ours.
It's like me going home to Tamatekapua, our meeting house, and standing in front of our tupuna.
They're saying to me, 'Ki te patai mai koe kia matou ko wai koe no hea koe, anei te whakautu.'
My next stop is to meet Rapa Nui historian Cristian Pakarati
at an ancient ceremonial site at Akahanga.
- Hotu Matu'a spent some of his early life on the island,
configuring how the power on the island should be managed
and how the different communities had to be established.
- Tell me a little bit about the moai. Would they be―
Obviously, they would have been standing back in the day. - Yes.
When they were standing, the moai are
the most important landmark of the community.
If you go towards the interior of the island,
as long as you turn around and you still see them, you know it's your land, you know you'resafe.
It's the land of your clan, of your people.
But if you go too far inland, and they are no longer visible,
in that case, OK, you're in nobody's land, and you're on your own, right?
No longer protected by that mana.
So that's why they try to make them as tall as possible,
because the taller they were, the more land they cover.
- The further inland you can go, because you can still see your ancestor.
- That's right. - Looking over you.
- Yeah. It's a way of claiming more land, right?
(MYSTERIOUS PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
- Moai line the coast,
but they were all carved out of a single inland mountain.
At the quarry here in Rano Raraku,
you can see them at all levels of creation.
It's as though the carvers just walked off the job.
- Most cases, they would carve the front first, then both sides.
Takes a few months, of course.
Depends on the size, of course ― the bigger they are, the more time it takes.
It could take up to a year or maybe even more.
The most difficult part was to release them from the bedrock,
and that involved starting to chop out pieces of...
of rock from under the back.
And then they would put some heavy rocks at the base,
to support the weight of the moai, and only then they cut it,
sliding them down the slope on their backs,
and then they fall into some kind of a pit
that was excavated beforehand,
so the moai would fall in the upright position.
- And then how would they transport it? - Well, that's one of the mysteries.
The oral tradition of Rapa Nui claimed that the moai
walked towards the final destination. - Mm.
Walking could have been a gentle rocking using guided ropes
or a metaphor for pulling on rollers.
(CURIOUS MUSIC)
Since colonisation,
the outside world has projected its own stories on to Rapa Nui,
imagining, rather than asking the people here,
how they might have moved the enormous moai,
and creating a fable of a people who destroyed their environment
to build them.
Western historians once believed that the island
lost all its trees to the people here trying to move the moai.
But, in fact, the forests were lost in early settlement,
and a combination of rats and poor soil meant they never grew back.
This led to the development of a matauranga
that scientists like Dr Sonia Haoa call lithic,
or rock gardening.
(LAUGHS)
Yeah.
Mm.
And it wasn't just gardening ―
their lives depended on their clever use of rocks.
Well, now that you point it all out, yeah, I can see it all.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's like a little papakainga things, a little home for yourself. Yeah. - (LAUGHS) Yeah.
BOTH: Yeah.
- That adaptation led to a deep understanding of how volcanic rocks
could be used to help feed and water
their crops in this harsh environment.
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
Mm-hm.
Sonia has taken this lost matauranga
and helped to bring it back to life at the local high school,
where students are taught to grow crops in the traditional way.
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI, CHUCKLES) - Taki, tena koutou.
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
- Tena koe.
This is how the ancestors would grow kumara,
like this? - Yes. Ancestors.
- (SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
- Kia ora.
Nene? Nene?
I don't know if our ancestors chomped on raw kumara,
but, hey, I'll give it a try.
First couple of chews, it's like... There's a bit of dirt,
but once you get into the juicy bit,...
reka, eh.
(MYSTICAL MUSIC)
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
(GENTLE WONDROUS MUSIC)
- Now, this huge crater behind me here at Rano Kau
is a traditional source of water, food,
shelter and protection for the people here in Rapa Nui.
It's also a very sacred place because right over there,
on that cliff face, ko te maea hono o Hotu Matu'a.
It's there that the great ancestor of the Rapa Nui people, Hotu Matu'a,
passed away. He put his hands into the land and transferred his mana
into te pito o te whenua, hai oranga mounga uri,
as sustenance for the future generations of Rapa Nui.
Hotu Matu'a helped establish a culture and a way of life
that sustained the people here until the arrival of colonisation,
which took the population down to a heartbreaking 111.
Under rule by distant Chile,
the culture and language of the Rapa Nui people was almost lost.
- WOMAN CALLS:
(ROOSTER CROWS)
- Kia ora. - (LAUGHS) Kia ora.
- (SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
Manahau. Manahau. (LAUGHS) Mauru-uru. Mauru-uru.
(CHILDREN CHATTER)
I feel like I've walked straight into a kohanga at home.
And, in fact, their language revival and teaching method
is inspired by ours in Aotearoa.
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
Tena koe. 'Iorana.
(ALL SPEAK RAPA NUI)
(CHILDREN SPEAK IN RAPA NUI)
(GUITAR PLAYS, DRUM BEATS)
(GROUP SINGS IN RAPA NUI)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
- (SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI) - Ataahua. - Tahua.
- A-taahua. - Ataahua.
Mauru-uru. - Mauru-uru.
- Eh. - Eh.
(THOUGHTFUL ACOUSTIC MUSIC)
Rapa Nui is surrounded by symbols that remind the people
they're still here, they're still alive.
But te pumanawa o te ahurea o Rapa Nui ―
the beating heart of the culture of Rapa Nui ―
lies within its tangata whenua.
The history of that tangata whenua is
inextricably linked with their majestic moai.
I'm here to meet an archaeo-astronomer at the ahu,
with the only moai that face out to sea.
So, how do these moai connect to astronomy?
What do they tell us? - Because they are perfectly oriented towards Orion.
And Orion was a very important star together with the Pleiades,
because they had a cycle,
a yearly cycle of activities and ceremonies and rituals.
You have them in New Zealand also? - Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Matariki. - Matariki. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, is Matariki significant here.
to Rapa Nui? - Yes, it is the most important star of the island,
because when Matariki...
appears in June,...
this is a period in which people will dedicate to planting.
And then the Pleiades will disappear in June,
and you wouldn't see it again till October,
beginning of November.
And it was the opening of the fishing season, offshore fishing season.
- That's kind of like the new year as well.
- New Year. It was New Year. - Yeah. Just like they have in New Zealand.
- Just like in Aotearoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What do we call these? - Tupa. - Tupa.
- And this was where the priests that were in charge of,
uh, announcing the arrival of migrational birds,
turtles, all the... all the migration of food resources to the island.
All these tupa have a door.
And the door is, in this case,
it's oriented north-south.
And then you have these towers,
and these towers indicate exactly where the stars would appear and go down.
- On the horizon? - On the horizon.
So the stars, if you stand in that tower and you look here,
that is where the Pleiades would rise ―
Matariki. - Wow.
- It was a lunar calendar. - Yeah, lunar calendar.
Like us in Aotearoa. - Yeah, yeah.
- Edmundo also has a theory that nearby petroglyphs were created
to help interpret the observation of the stars.
- What do you see? Fishhooks and an octopus.
- Fishhooks and an octopus. - They're quite clear here.
- Oh, very clear.
And you think the reason they created these petroglyphs is...?
- Because you have a certain season
in which you can only fish for offshore fish.
And these are the types of fishhooks
that were used to catch tuna fish. That is the offshore season.
- So, this syncs up to the towers that sync up to Matariki.
- Matariki. - They read Matariki,
and then they feed this information. and this is where― almost like they're recording.
- Yeah. Yeah. - Yeah. So it's an ancient way of
communicating information
about seasons and times to do particular things,
like catch tuna. - Catch tuna.
- Matariki, eh? - Matariki.
- What will you do without matariki? - What will we do without Matariki?
Exactly.
Wonder how they connected all this up, how they worked this all out,
and then put all this together.
It's a mystery, but it's brilliant, eh.
(CHUCKLES)
It's amazing.
I feel sad that so much of this ancient knowledge has been lost.
- (BLOWS SHELL HORN)
- Their ability to navigate was lost long ago,
as the lack of trees meant they weren't able to build waka.
But the tide is turning with the rebirth of waka ama.
These teams are planning for a non-stop 320km race,
following a traditional navigational path.
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
(BOTH LAUGH)
- Yeah! Pai.
(GROUP SINGS IN RAPA NUI)
Along with paddling, dance here is having a rebirth.
I'm meeting Victor's dance crew for a goodbye umu ―
a chance to taste their traditional kai.
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
But I'm also in awe of the way they use the resources this island gave them ―
using stone for gardening, astronomy, resolving land disputes,
and, of course, for cooking ― just like us.
(GROUP SINGS IN RAPA NUI)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
(SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI)
(BOTH SPEAK IN INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES)
- (SPEAKS IN RAPA NUI) - Mmm. Mmm.
Whether we come from Hiva, Hawaiki, Marae Renga ―
it feels like we were all once together.
Nene. - BOTH: Nene. - (LAUGHS)
- Some of us went south to Aotearoa.
These beautiful people came east,
and some went all the way north to Hawai'i.
(PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
- Over a couple of centuries,
eastern Polynesian navigators explored the Pacific,
sailing thousands of miles and mapping hundreds of islands,
creating the Polynesian Triangle.
The triangle extends south to the sub-Antarctic Maungahuka,
east to Rapa Nui and all the way north to here, in Hawai'i.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
Their discovery and settlement across the open ocean of these remote,
widely scattered islands
is one of the world's greatest achievements.
I often think of the parallels between Hawai'i,
Aotearoa and the sacred home, Hawaiki.
Our ancestors were from the same area,
but mine jumped on a waka and went south,
while those who became Hawaiian jumped on a different waka and came north.
Now, landing in different whenua means that
we established ourselves in very different ways.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
The Hawaiian ancestors made it here
around the same time my tupuna arrived in Aotearoa
and Hotu Matu'a landed in Rapa Nui.
Aloha, Mike. - Aloha.
- Our waka all carried what we now call canoe plants,
that enabled those settlers to adapt to their new land.
- All of these plants, except for one,
have their origin in the ancient migrations,
going up into, like, Southeast Asia and parts of Asia.
So it's pretty, pretty certain that they travelled throughout
the Pacific Islands with all the plants.
Of course, the one plant that was not with them from Southeast Asia
was the 'uala or the sweet potato, which they got from the Americas.
As a horticulturalist, as somebody who likes to grow stuff,
it always amazes me how well they
were able to travel with these plants.
They had to travel with live plant
parts and keep them alive on voyages that took who knows how long,
and then get them established on the island that they finally arrived on.
- So, of the 23 waka plants,
how many of them were taken to Aotearoa, do you think?
- Yeah, I'm pretty sure they took all 23 to Aotearoa.
Our ancestors were all such talented horticulturalists and farmers,
and they would have been able to make those plants grow when they first arrived there.
But the climate is so different from the tropics where we're at now
that not all of them would have survived the climate there.
And so they focused on the ones that that did well,
that were surviving the climate,
and cultivated those.
- I came here to learn about Hawaiian tradition.
Instead, colonisation has turned this place,
so rich in natural resources,
into a concrete jungle and American playground.
From the time I arrived,
I haven't really seen the indigenous people,
the indigenous culture, represented here.
But I think the people here are resilient
and are working towards reclaiming
what they've lost.
With Hawaiian culture at its core,
Oahu's Kamehameha School teaches a relationship with the 'aina ―
the land.
I've heard the term,
'aloha 'aina' a lot. What does that term mean to you?
- The 'aina is sacred, and it is elder sibling to us.
It is our kua'ana,
and it is the thing that we lean on the most,
because we have to.
Our survival depends on it.
If our 'aina is sick,
we're sick. If the 'aina is thriving,
we're thriving. - So, how do you, like,
express aloha 'aina?
What's some cultural practices and...
things that you do that express your aloha 'aina?
- Probably my favourite way right now is, as a po'e hula,
as someone who practices hula and teaches hula,
it's in the use of...
what I know and what I've been taught,
and the things that I can observe and see that's happening in my time
and being able to write about it.
- So, you teach hula.
How do you use hula...
to... maintain creation stories,
origin stories? - One of the most important things
about understanding hula is that hula doesn't exist without the words.
So, you have the dancer, who is the physical manifestation
of the meaning of the words.
(SINGS IN HAWAIIAN)
(SPEAKS IN HAWAIIAN)
- Ka mau te wehi. Beautiful. Beautiful.
- (CHUCKLES) Mahalo.
- Elsewhere on the school grounds is a recreation
of the ancient star compass.
It's used here to teach students the connection between
astronomy and navigation.
- The kukuluokalani, or the star compass,
is adapted with Hawaiian words and Hawaiian phrases
in relation to our ancestral knowledge.
And so a star that rises in 'Aina Ko'olau
rises in 'Aina Ko'olau, does a little ke'e, or a motion,
and it goes all the way across and ke'es right back
and sets in 'Aina Ho'olua. So that's the movement of the star.
So, if our navigators know the point where they're heading,
is it on the right side of the canoe? Yes.
OK, then we're heading north.
- It's exciting that this matauranga, once shared across the Pacific,
is being shared again.
- (SINGS IN HAWAIIAN)
- 'Awa, or kava,
is another canoe plant that would have been brought down to Aotearoa,
but it just didn't adapt to our climate.
- You know, these chants, these pule,
invoke the akua that is associated with 'awa.
For us and for me, the first apu,
or the first shell, always goes back to the land.
And so we use... And it's an acknowledgement of
the 'aina and the honua or the whenua and its role,
because without it, we don't exist.
And the whenua, the 'aina, will be here―
has been here before us, will be here way long after us.
And so I'd like you to join me in taking that first apu back to the 'aina,
if that's OK. - Oh, yes, thank you.
- And then I'll pass this to you,
and then we'll go take a walk.
We're just pouring it right back on to the whenua.
- Rangi e tu nei,
Papa e takoto nei. Tahi ano atua.
I've always thought of kava as someone else's thing,
but how would our culture be different if we'd been able to grow kava?
Maybe we'd have this ceremony.
Thank you. That was an honour. - Yeah, thank you.
- The land and the materials the land can grow
helped shape our culture.
We don't have the 'awa ceremony, but,
at last, I feel as though I've really connected.
Oh!
Tena koe, bro.
(GENTLE WONDROUS MUSIC)
(ROPE HUMS)
This is the last leg of my journey across the Polynesian Triangle.
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
And those connections, those hononga, are undeniable.
What I'm really keen to find out now, though,
is how did our ancestors navigate their way
across a third of the Earth's surface?
(BIRD CHIRPS)
The Bishop Museum holds taonga from across the Pacific.
The great historian and politician, Te Rangi Hiroa,
Sir Peter Buck, was once director here.
He devoted much of his life to studying the similarities between
our Pacific origin stories.
- There are multiple stories that talk about our origins.
We have the Kumulipo ― it's the creation story of Hawai'i ―
but we also have stories that talk about
our ancestral homeland of Kahiki.
What we really believe is that, you know, we are part of the Pacific.
We are connected with the ocean,
and we are one contiguous family connected by the sea.
- Over thousands of years,
different environments and materials lead to the development of different
style waka for different needs.
- They all have the same function, that they're meant to get someone
from one place to another safely. - Mm.
- But it's the various forms that they take,
um, based off of the environment that they're part of.
I think it really showcases, you know,
the differences between deep-sea voyaging canoes,
versus more shallow-water travel.
The need for speed versus the need for the transportation of
mass quantities of people or materials.
- The revival of traditional sailing matauranga
wouldn't have been possible without Hokule'a,
which was built to revive ancient navigational knowledge.
On its maiden voyage, Hokule'a travelled from Tahiti to Rapa Nui,
proving these waka were capable of sailing east.
I'm here to meet Captain Ka'iulani Murphy.
- Once you leave land, and you get out to sea,
um, I feel like, you know, things just seem a lot simpler,
easier. You're more attentive. There's less distractions.
So, you know, watching every sunrise
and sunset or watching every moonrise and moonset,
just seeing the way that the stars move across the sky at night.
So I think things like that were also
clues that our kupuna were so close
with the natural surroundings and reading the signs,
and, yeah, I think that was part of the explorations.
We're gonna keep going east and see what we can find.
- Our navigators in traditional times,
how do they compare with the navigators from elsewhere in the world?
- Elsewhere? Oh, well, it's... (CHUCKLES)
- And feel free to just, you know, blow your own trumpet and say, 'We're the best'.
- Yeah, I was gonna say. - (LAUGHS) - I'm a little biased, so I think...
yeah, I think our Polynesian ancestors were just amazing.
You know, the astronauts of their time, really, right?
The things that we're learning about how to navigate today,
and to imagine them figuring that out before having,
you know, the technology that we do today.
When people ask me, they'll go, 'How do you think they knew where they were going?'
And I think it's just they were smart enough to know,
as far as they got, you know, if they were gonna run out of food or water,
they could always turn around and go back home.
- So, based on your experience and your expertise and all your knowledge,
could we have sailed from the Pacific,
here in eastern Polynesia, all the way to South America?
- Absolutely. (CHUCKLES) - Absolutely? - Yes.
- No doubt? - No doubt. - No doubt.
- I think ― um, especially if we're looking at coming from Taiwan part
of the ocean, coming into Polynesia ―
I think that's almost harder to get to all the tiny islands.
But then from these tiny islands to get to the continent,
I think that would be almost a little easier.
Just continuing that trek east.
- Taputapuatea in Raiatea, French Polynesia,
was the sacred marae where my ancestors learned to navigate.
Its equivalent here is Kukaniloko,
an ancient birthing ground where the ariki shared knowledge
they then took back to their villages.
Aloha. - Aloha.
- This is the very heart of the island of O'ahu.
Tena koe. - Come.
- Thank you again for today. It is so exciting.
(CHANTS IN HAWAIIAN)
- Like the petroglyphs in Marquesas and the moai in Rapa Nui,
this site demonstrates how our ancestors used the materials they had
to retain and share traditional knowledge across generations.
Enei wananga whakatere waka o te ao,
tawhito te ao, tau ki hoki tenei kia whakahuri.
Kia tuturu o whiti whakamaua kia tina!
Tina! Haumi e, hui e,
taiki e.
- OK. Maika'i. Thank you so much for that.
Yeah. You make me all, 'Whoo!'
- (BOTH CHUCKLE)
- Kukaniloko connects with birth practices,
it connects with genealogy and whakapapa ―
how does it connect with navigation? Does it connect with navigation?
- Oh yes.
This stone here is the navigator seat.
Well... Well, we call them the navigator seat.
But from this point here to the highest stone there,
that'll become the prow of the va'a,
you know, the front end, nosing up from the ocean.
So, this distance here is 60ft.
60ft.
From here, if you look upon all the stones,
they got little peck marks on them too.
So that would be like those star formations that we...
might be used to give interpretation.
- Mm. - Yeah.
- Tom has one more thing to show me ―
a whakapapa that dates right back and connects us all.
- It is a connection of all our people. - Mm.
- Yeah. - Ah, yeah, look, see, it comes down here to Hoturoa.
- Oh yeah. - Whakatau-potiki,
Hotuope, Hotumatapu. This is the whakapapa of Tainui here.
There's the Maori King, Potatau Te Wherowhero,
all the way back and connected right across the Pacific.
- Yeah. - Wow. - And it goes right up.
- I love this because now you can actually see, physically. - You actually see them.
Yeah. - You can see our connections to Rarotonga, Hawai'i,
Tahiti, Marquesas ―
the ancestors are all there. - You see how happy you are?
- Oh yeah. - Yeah? I imagine. - Yeah. I'm overwhelmed too. Yeah.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
I mean, that whakapapa ―
that's really woven everything together for me,
seeing that whakapapa. I could follow our genealogy
that was on that whakapapa, look at where it goes across
and see how it connects us with Hawaiians,
see how it connects us with Rarotongans,
see how it connects us with Tahitians, Marquesas.
You look at that whakapapa,
and you see the names of the ancestors that we all have in common.
That's what I've been looking for.
The whole time on this journey, I've been looking for something like that, and then I just saw it.
And so that's just, like...
Whoo, that's... (SIGHS) That's hard to put into words.
It's hard to put into words. It's almost...
Everything's come together here, in this circle,
on this island of O'ahu.
(MYSTICAL MUSIC)
- (SINGS IN HAWAIIAN)
- At the start of this hikoi, I saw the ocean as a great wall
that separated us from the rest of the world.
But now, I realise the ocean is actually what connected us.
(GROUP PERFORMS HAKA)
I've returned in time for the opening
of our navigation school in the far north.
It's the triumphant result of decades
of hard work by our pioneering navigators,
including the late, great Sir Heke-nuku-mai Busby,
who many of us are thinking of today.
- ALL: Au, aue ha!
- (BLOWS SHELL)
- And the Hawaiian whanau are here,
acknowledging our shared history as people of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.
- (SPEAKS IN HAWAIIAN)
(GROUP SINGS IN HAWAIIAN, DRUM BEATS)
- We started as one people,
and through our knowledge and skill on the ocean,
became separate cultures.
There's something beautiful about the fact
it's our rediscovery of the ancient science of navigation
that's bringing us back together.
Papa Hek nicknamed the Hawaiian navigators Ngati Ruawahia
after the star that sits directly above Hawai'i.
- Kia ora, a Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.
- ALL: Kia ora, a Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.
- This is our world, eh.
Our tupuna sailed this ocean.
They travelled this ocean.
Respect,...
Because they knew, you know,
we could sail through this ocean using our traditions.
You know, you learn how to feel the ocean through the canoe.
And then we were always taught by Maori, you know,
the navigator's your father, the canoe's your mother, and you're the child.
They take you and lead you into the ocean.
Yeah. - Ataahua. - Ae.
- If I got you, you know, the waka hourua,
and took it over to Rapa Nui,
and said 'Stan, can you sail this waka across to South America?'
You reckon you could do it? - Yeah. It's a straight line. - (LAUGHS)
Easy? - Easy. - (LAUGHS)
- As long as the weather's good, and the ocean's good,
there's fear with us, but yeah.
- It's not tropical here in the north,
but it's not far off shorts and jandals all year round.
So it's really interesting to me just how far south
some of those early waka travelled.
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
Archaeologists have found evidence our waka went all the way south
to the sub-Antarctic Maungahuka.
There was no permanent settlement there, but a new discovery near Dunedin
shows our ancestors were experimenting with kumara
far further south than archaeologists had believed.
I'm being shown over the site by Dr Ian Barber
and Rachel Wesley, who has whakapapa here.
What do we have here? - In the 15th century,
people excavated out rectangular pits
in the precise form of
rua kumara, the pits that,
further north of here,
were used to store kumara.
- How did they keep it warm enough? - We found some very large rocks ―
in fact, the size of boulders ― inside some of these pits.
And it may well be that when it got particularly cold,
people were able to heat up very large rocks and place them inside the pit,
because you need to have your pits at about 10 degrees Celsius,
uh, to ensure that your kumara roots,
uh, remain healthy and will live.
- How did you feel when you got the call from Ian
about this wonderful discovery of rua kumara?
- Surprising, but kind of not surprising at the same time.
- (CHUCKLES) And it must have been remarkable,
to have this kind of information,
the scientific information, to back up your oral traditions.
- It's always really nice when archaeology backs up, um,
our history and stories as well. - Yeah.
- It kind of makes sense in terms of storage considering, you know,
the trade networks that we had down here.
Things were moving from one end of the country to the other,
and also, Kai Tahu, any claim that we have to being, you know,
the best, the southernmost, the most forward at sea travel,
we'll take that. (LAUGHTER)
- So all of us people up in the North Island who've been rubbishing you for years,
say 'You can't grow kumara down there,' we're all wrong because here's the proof.
- Ana to kai. - Ana to kai, yeah! - (LAUGHTER)
CHUCKLES: Tena koe. Yeah, ka pai.
After a 3000km journey to Aotearoa,
we were still eastern Polynesians,
but our ability to adapt and survive here
enabled us to become tangata whenua.
Now, my ancestors say that when our waka, Te Arawa, landed right here in Maketu,
there was a wahine toa on board, Whakaotirangi.
She looked after the kumara all the way from Hawaiki to here,
and every waka would have had a wahine toa like her.
Aotea had Rongorongo and Horouta had Kahukura.
(GENTLE MYSTICAL MUSIC)
You know you're back home when you can smell that.
Whakaotirangi planted kumara here in Maketu,
which enabled us to settle, and
we're still growing and eating it here today.
This is it, mate. That's what it's been all about, e te iwi ―
kumara.
I love being back with the whanau,
and sharing a meal with everybody after being away for so long.
And been to Hawai'i, Rapa Nui, Marquesas,
corners of the Polynesian Triangle and Aotearoa,
everything seems to have come that much closer together.
- Kia ora.
- (SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
They brought with them all kinds of plants ―
hue, taro and, of course,
the mighty kumara, and it's still here with us today.
(SPEAKS IN TE REO MAORI)
Once they knew they could grow it here, they could live here,
and once they could live here, they became tangata whenua ―
the people of this land, Aotearoa.
Very good stuff. - Came a long way, that kumara.
- Came a long way. - That sweetness. Mmm.
There's a saying, yeah,...
I don't know how it talks, but... (LAUGHTER)
the kumara doesn't talk about its own sweetness.
- Kaore te kumara e te korero, full stop.
- After all this time and this journey,... - Yeah, why did you go away?
- ...I could have just come here and sat with the whanau and learnt all about it here.
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