Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2020 - When our Maori ancestors arrived on these shores, Aotearoa became the last major land mass on Earth to be inhabited by humans. Our genealogies tell me the names of those tupuna, those ancestors. But who really were they? In this series, I want to truly understand where we come from and how our people got here. There have been so many theories about our origins. Morena Maori na, no Ahia ranei tatou? Are we from Asia? Was there a great fleet? Were my ancestors great sailors or starving refugees? I want to put everything I believe to the test. I want to follow our stories back to Hawaiki, and then go further to find out what came before. Hono mai ki pau kia hikoi tahi tatou ki te Ao whanui me to tomo au o te wa. So join me as I travel across the world and through time. (RHYTHMIC DRUMMING) - # Au he. Ko Te Kore. # Te Kore-te-whiwhia, te Kore-te-rawea, # Te Kore-i-ai, te Kore-te-wiwia, # Na Te Kore Te Po, Te Po-nui, Te Po-roa, Te Po-uriuri, # Te Po-kerekere, Te Po-tiwhatiwha... - This karakia recites the creation of the universe. Out of darkness comes light. Our language, incantations and whakapapa remind us who we are and who came before us. - # ...Ki te Whai-ao, Ki te Ao-marama. Tihei mauri ora. # - And the carvings in my sacred wharenui depict our ancestors, including Tamatekapua, the captain of the voyaging canoe that carried my tupuna here hundreds of years ago from Hawaiki. But even with the many stories that have been handed down, there's still a lot I'm not sure of. So I'm challenging myself to step outside of my comfort zone and see what I find when oral history meets contemporary science. (CHILDREN LAUGH) Hei whakamahara I te... te wahi I ahu mai tatou. So, these are my three lovely children` our three lovely children, of course. I didn't make them myself. This is Hawaiki. He's named after our homeland. Most Maori people will say, if you ask them what Hawaiki means, they'll say it refers to our homeland, whether that be a physical place or ancestral place. And then Kurawaka. Kurawaka, generally, in our oral traditions is the place where the first human being was created. The texture of the soil there is the same as human skin. And our deities created the first human being there at Kurawaka. Kurawaka is in Hawaiki, so there's the connection between the brother and the sister. And then this is Maiana, taku potiki (SMOOCHES), and Maiana refers to one of the currents that flows around Hawaiki. So, Hawaiki, Kurawaka, me Maiana. (CHILDREN GIGGLE) (FAMILY LAUGHS, CALLS) (GENTLE ELECTRONIC MUSIC) Every iwi has its own story of arriving in Aotearoa. My people, Ngati Whakaue, arrived on the Arawa waka, captained by Tametekapua, our illustrious ancestor. And in our oral traditions, our waka, our canoe, had a different name. And that name was Nga Rakau Kotahi Pu a Atuamatua. On the voyage, Tametekapua became attracted to Kearoa, the wife of the tohunga navigator Ngatoro-i-rangi. Ngatoro-i-rangi became suspicious, and while he was guiding the waka at night, tied a cord to Kearoa's hair, holding the other end to ensure her loyalty. Tametekapua loosened the cord and tied it to a beam while he made love to Kearoa. He returned night after night until one night he forgot to retie the cord and was caught by Ngatoro-i-rangi, who flew into a rage and summoned Te-Korokoro-o-Te-Parata, a huge whirlpool in the ocean, which began to swallow the waka. They were almost lost, but Ngatoro-i-rangi took pity. The people were saved by a great arawa shark that led them to safety. In its honour, they renamed the canoe Arawa. The Arawa sailed on to make landfall at Maketu, giving its name to our tribe, Te Arawa, who settled in the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua. I believe the Arawa waka left from a real place, a geographical Hawaiki, and I want to go there. I want to see it for myself. But how will I know that I've arrived at the real Hawaiki? (GENTLE ELECTRONIC MUSIC) - There's a whole lot of Hawaikis. The last Hawaiki is the one in the Pacific. And the other Hawaikis where they named in India, in Africa on their way moving towards the Pacific and wherever they stayed, that place was called Hawaiki. So there are many Hawaikis, but the Hawaiki that seems to have survived is the Hawaiki that we talk about, and the Hawaiki that we talk about keeps on pointing back to Rangiatea. - How important is Hawaiki now for us? - It is important. We want to know where we came from. - I know my oral history, but what does archaeology have to say? There's a site at the top of the South Island that may hold answers to the origin of the first people to settle Aotearoa. (SPEAKS IN TE REO) Now, Hawaiki is a place that we always refer to in our tribal narratives, in our tribal histories, as being the homeland, our point of origin, a place where we come from, a place where we return to when we pass away. It may look barren now, but until the late 19th century, Wairau Bar was heavily occupied, and, in fact, as much as 700 years ago, it was a thriving settlement with fish traps, toolmaking, kumara gardens in the distant hills and waka coming and going from all around Aotearoa. The discovery of ancient burial sites here has uncovered some of the most important evidence of Aotearoa's first people. - So, down here in the 1840s was pretty much the town of Blenheim. - Here? - Yep, all through here. - A bustling metropolis, was it? - Indeed, yep. So, they used to come in over the bar and the trade used to happen here. And right in here was our tupuna's inn. So, it was a two-storey place known as MacDonald's Inn. But I say, cos I can, it didn't belong to MacDonald. It actually belonged to his Maori wife, our ancestress, Ria Te Rangi Hero. - In the 1930s, a chance discovery led to an archaeological gold rush. Drawn by the richness of ancient tools and taonga, people also took the remains of some of Aotearoa's earliest ancestors. - We had a report done on it and found that they were paying them �270 a burial to rob the burials. - And when we tried to stop them from taking any more, the police arrested a couple of our uncles. - They were sneaking away at night, taking our ancestors' bones away. - Those tupuna have been reinterred, but as part of the negotiations to bring them home, Rangitane agreed to have them DNA tested. - There is a group that we know now weren't born here. They were the first generation that travelled here, so we call them the first navigators. - Those people are our founding ancestors from the Pacific. - Mm-hmm. And they're here? They're right under here, kei raro i te whenua? - Yeah. (SPEAKS IN TE REO) Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou. Near those first arrivals is another burial site ` people who were born here. How many are here? How many ancestors here? - Nine. - Nine ancestors. - Nine in this burial. - So, these are the first born ` first tangata whenua. - Tangata whenua here in Aotearoa. First tangata whenua in Te Wai Pounamu. - Ae. Aotearoa was becoming populated by... not now by Polynesians in that sense, but by the original New Zealanders. - Mm. Some of those born here are believed to have lived elsewhere, but been returned to Wairau for burial, which would support a theory that first settlements like Wairau may actually have become their own revered Hawaiki homelands for early Maori as they settled other parts of Aotearoa. - So, we found that this hangi pit was around the 1310, 1320 mark. So it was a one-off event, and it was double-lined, and it had 67 species in it. - So that must have been some kind of big occasion. - I believe it was for one of these` one of these ancestors here. You know, a big event like that. - Perhaps even for one particularly special ancestor who's become a symbol of those first arrivals. - She was one of the first navigators. She came on the first waka. But, you know, it's been interesting. So, for years we called her Number One, because she was the number one taken from the site. When it came time for the settlement of the claims and to repatriate them, it felt wrong to call her Number One. - Mm-hmm. - So we just started calling her Auntie, eh? (GENTLE MUSIC) (SPEAKS IN TE REO) It all comes back to Auntie. - It does. - She's all of our auntie. (CHUCKLES) - She is all of our auntie. Those very first people who arrived here ` without their tenacity, I guess, and their belief, and their want for a better home for their uri, we would not have been here. - My Te Arawa origin story is very much a North Island one. Discovering the deep importance of Wairau Bar makes me wonder whether my ancestors came through here, and just how much of a hub it was in those early years. I realise how much more I have to learn about the discovery of this country. * - Rangitane elders Judith and Wayne are taking me to Canterbury Museum, where their taonga are currently held. - Kia ora. - Hi, brother. How's things, Richard? - How are you, Captain? - All right? - (JUDITH CHUCKLES) - How are you mate? - I'm good. Hello, my dear. - (SMOOCHES) Mmm. - Tena koe, professor. - Tena koe. - Scotty toku ingoa. - Richard toku ingoa. - Tena koe. Pleasure to meet you. - Haere tatou ki te whare he taonga. - Ka pai. Ka pai. - I'm astonished that I knew so little of Wairau Bar, and wonder if I still have connections to those first people. Their bones are back where they belong, but there's still a massive collection of their ancient taonga here at Canterbury Museum. - One of the most interesting things about the site, archaeologically, is the connections between Wairau Bar and other parts of the country. So, this is obsidian here from the North Island. All of the stone up here is from the top of the South Island, from D'Urville Island or from Nelson region. And in these drawers here, there's more artefacts from different parts of the country. This, of course, is from the West Coast of the South Island, because that's pounamu. They came to New Zealand with a very, very well-developed stone tool technology. This adze here and the one at the far back there ` they're very, very difficult adzes to make. But they were making them in French Polynesia; they were making them in the Cook Islands. So when they came to New Zealand, it would have been relatively easy for them to reproduce their technologies here. (GENTLE ELECTRONIC MUSIC) - The 20th-century race for artefacts means the back rooms here are full of tools, including this ancient patu muka ` a flax pounder. - Look at that. Feel the weight of that. - Jeez, they had everything, didn't they? - Yeah. You look at some of this bone here. Look at this ` the tuatara. - Tuatara bone there. - How old would that be? - These are all the same age. - All the same age? - Yeah, about 600 years old. - Whoa. - Wairau Bar is a particularly important and central place. We believe that from the archaeology; simply the scale, the size and the fact that it's on Cook Strait, which is the place where you can most easily access every part of the country ` both West and East Coasts of the North and South Island. - And is it the ultimate model for how a pa should be set up ` a settlement, a papa kainga should be set up? - It's actually the model that they had when they left the islands. All of the major village sites that we know of dating to the 1300s in tropical East Polynesia are on almost identical situations. They're located on sheltered reef passages where you can get large waka in, and where you're sheltered from the winds and storms. And so, what they did is they came out and they found exactly the same locations here. - But where did they come out from? There's one more clue that I'm hoping will point me in the right direction. (SCOTTY CHANTS KARAKIA) - Haumi e, hui e,... ALL: Taiki e. - E mihi ana ki a koutou nga taonga e takato nei. - This is a very special shell. And the reason it's really special is it came all the way from Hawaiki. It was a pocket knife that one of our tupuna would have had on him when he left Hawaiki. It's a really special taonga. - Mm. - You can see the bevel cut on that surface there. So, this is a Terebra shell. It's a tropical Polynesian shell, and in sites in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, we get a lot of these. So this is a very, very common artefact in sites dating to the 1300s, 1400s. - But it's not from here. - But it's not from here. So it would have been brought over from Polynesia to Aotearoa on the waka from the homeland. Yeah. - Mm. So this is the this is the big connection. This is the` - That's a tangible connection. We've got genetic connections. We've got stylistic connections in artefact form, functional connections, the way in which they're using tools. And here, we've got a tangible material connection between here and the islands. (GENTLE MUSIC) - This shell came with our first ancestors. It's a chisel. And this shell has taken probably 800 years-plus to arrive in my hands. Ki roto i toku ringaringa. It's had an 800-year-plus journey to arrive here. And that, my friends, is quite mind-blowing. It's out of this world. Stunning. Marvellous. (INHALES DEEPLY) Mihi ana ki a koe, e te taonga o te ao tawhito. (INQUISITIVE MUSIC) I'm fascinated by Auntie. So my next stop takes me to Dunedin, where I'm meeting a bioarchaeologist who was lucky enough to work with the remains of those first people before their return to Wairau. - Part of the work that my team did was to look at the chemical signatures in the teeth and in the bones, to look at the diet, and what we found was that all of these different chemical signatures align to quite strongly suggest that, yes, in fact, this people were most likely the first of the first people to the Wairau Bar, because they had a geological signature and a particular type of diet that is more likely to be found in tropical East Polynesia than the Wairau Bar. - According to some of the Rangitane people, they were buried in different` lying in different ways. - The community placed the people in the graves lying face down or prone. This prone burial, or lying down on the face, is actually something that we see in tropical East Polynesia. - So, one of the people that were uncovered in burial one ` Auntie. - Yes. Oh, her burial place. Yes. - Yeah, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about Auntie ` what you've found out about Auntie? - Yeah. So, Auntie, as she's affectionately known, was one of the first people. She's the only female from that group. - Using CAT scans with computer graphics, an Australian facial anthropologist was able to reconstruct this image of Auntie. When I look at her, I can see some of my cousins already. Just, you know, she looks like people I know. - Yeah. - She looks like relatives. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, when we first presented these faces to Rangitane, that was exactly what they said. - Oh yeah. Yeah, which is probably why they called her Auntie. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah. - Every person I meet brings me closer to understanding who those first explorers were and where they came from. Just down the road is another surprise for this North Island boy ` another early South Island landing site I'd never heard of. Geographically, it's the same arrangement as Wairau Bar. But from out at sea, the sheltered lagoon must have been hard to see behind the Southern Ocean waves. This is Tautuku Beach, and this is where some of the early navigators came in and set up up there on that little hillock up the top there, at the end of the beach. And why wouldn't you come in here? It's beautiful. It's got everything that you need. I wonder how they would have felt coming in here from the tropical areas that they came from in the Hawaiki zone, making their way across the great expense of the Pacific Ocean, and then coming in here. What would they have felt? What would they have seen? (ANXIOUS ELECTRONIC MUSIC) Tahiti is mentioned a lot in our tribal narratives and in our old ancient karakia, our incantations, which are thousands of years old, and in them, there's Tawhiti-nui, Tawhiti-roa, Tawhiti-areare, Tawhiti-pa-mamao, which is basically the long and the distant Tahiti, a place that we refer to quite a lot, and a place that seems to be narrowing as being the Hawaiki that at least most of our waka visited before they made the journey here to Aotearoa. So that's where I'm going next. * Almost 5000km from that cold South Island beach, Tahiti-nui is the heart of French Polynesia, and sits right in the Hawaiki zone. French colonialism almost cost Tahiti its language and much of its ancient knowledge. The indigenous language, Ma'ohi, is no longer in common use here, but it may be starting to make a comeback. - WOMAN: Atu mo mai, te a mai nei i te hei o te aroha e te hei'a. Ia orana. (SHELL HORN SOUNDS) - Ia orana. - Haere mai. - This community school uses dance to rebuild language and connect young people with their own culture. - Toru, wha. And the vivo is arriving, so you let the vibration with the vivo. And you dance. If you are talking about the land, you put your hands down and you talk about the land. So do it. (LAUGHS) - Slowly, slowly. Not too quick. - (LAUGHS) - (LAUGHS) Don't want it to be over too quick. - (LAUGHS) Yeah, don't be too quick. It was forbidden to dance, and that's why we want them to know the holistic part and the spiritual part of our culture, so they can be proud of the DNA that they are not only teenage people from Tahiti, they are teenage people from the Ma'ohi world, and they are linked to ancestors, and they are linked to Maori, to everything like this. For us, it's important to do that. (DRUMS BEAT RHYTHMICALLY) So, in the ancient times, the song and those dance was about all the activities that we were doing every day ` the daily activities. You know, like making tapa, planting kataro, planting a taro. But when we have the period that all our culture was forbidden, you know, we cannot practice again. So that's why we lost most of them. And our goal, our role now in the Cultural Centre, is to rebuild it for our students. (GROUP CHANTS IN MA'OHI) - I've been lucky enough to be invited to lunch, and while the umu cooks, I get to try out my skills making coconut milk for ia ota, or ika mata as we know it at home. It's not a job I get to do in Aotearoa, because my ancestors couldn't get the niu, the coconut, to grow in our colder climate. (LAUGHTER, INDISTINCT CHATTER) Oh, yeah, heaps. Nui. - Good. - In oral cultures like ours, song and dance became a way of holding on to knowledge and history. In the same way that kapa haka helped spark a rebirth in Maori culture, Tahitian dance is helping the revival of indigenous culture here. How many other people your age can speak the indigenous language, the native language? - I don't know. Like, actually, the teenager don't really want to speak in Tahitian. It's kind of for the ancestors, you know? - Yes. - It's not really` - Not a young people's language? A young person's language? - They don't like to speak Tahitian. CHUCKLES: I don't really know why, but they don't like to. - But you'd sing in the language and perform in the language. - Yep. Yes. - But it's not your everyday language of conversation. - Yep. We speak just a little bit. - Look at this language in this song here. Like, it's almost` I could almost translate this. It's so close to Te Reo Maori. Te Reo Ma'ohi tenei. That looks like, 'Mamae, kura ngaro koe' ` 'I'm in pain and sorrow because you are gone.' It's a love song tenei. 'Moemoea', we all know that's kind of like a dream. 'E mamae nei toku ngakau' ` 'My heart yearns for you.' My heart is in pain and sorrow because you are not with me. 'Hoki mai' ` 'Come back'. Look at that. That's almost Reo Maori. Where's the bigger connection than that? It's all in the language. The connections are there. I feel sad that many Tahitians have lost touch with their language and face the same challenges we do reviving Te Reo Maori at home. But Hinetea's school gives me hope for a future inspired by the richness of their past. I'm looking for more evidence of how their past is shared with ours at the Museum of Tahiti. Tara. Tena koe. Nice to meet you, brother. - Yeah, thank you. - Thank you. Thank you for having us. - Yeah. - Kumara. - Kumara. - We know that one from home. - LAUGHS: Yeah. - Yeah. And, my friend, where do you think the kumara actually came from? - Ah, the kumara is 100%... origin from South America. It's the name. The plant is 100%` We made the DNA. We know exactly. People 1000 years ago have the capacity of sailing everywhere with plants, with people. We were able to land everywhere and make a living 1000 years ago. - In this temperature-controlled room is a waka plank that was found in a swamp on nearby Huahine Island. Scientists believe it was covered by a tidal wave about 1000 years ago, around the time the Eastern Polynesians were beginning a series of great voyages of discovery. - The plank I want... to show you. This plank. - This one? - Yeah. - This plank is 5m long. It came from a canoe that was at least 18m. Double-hull canoe. - Yes. - For me, there is two kinds of waka. Like, the waka for... short trip, like fishing or transportation, but for the huge canoe, for the ocean, the construction is very much more complex. It's always lots of planks. This plank was probably for a canoe of the time of the migration. - They also found a piece of timber which came from a tree tied so it would grow into the shape of a waka frame. - It's another part of the canoe. It looks like that it was a kind of a rib inside the canoe. - The technology that they developed all those years ago is pretty incredible. Yeah? - Oh, they were, I think, at the top at this moment, 1000 years ago. - After my first day in Tahiti, I feel a genuine connection. And I understand what Tara says about Eastern Polynesians being at the top of ocean sailing technology and skill. But there are over 4000km between here and New Zealand. Even today, it's a dangerous journey. * - Visiting Tahiti has given me a real hunger to experience what life would have been like on an ocean-going waka. Down on Papeete wharf, the crew of replica waka Fa'afaite are preparing a voyage to New Zealand, and it makes me feel pretty good ` the first person to welcome me aboard is a legend of Pacific navigation from back home. It's pretty simple for a navigator. He has to learn how to find a direction, and then he has to learn how to maintain a direction. And so you have to learn, first, the sun. The sun's most important. Sunrise and sunset. Because the sun, when it's at the horizon, you get an absolute direction. And as long as you know what that direction is, then you can orientate your waka to anywhere on a compass. A lot of people think the night-time is the hardest. It's not really. It's easier than the daytime. - What about wahine? Our wahine? - I believe that wahine played a role in the discovery. If we have a look at Hine-te-Aparangi being on board with Kupe, there's a couple of korero that she's the one that first uttered those words, 'He ao, he ao, he Aotearoa'. To me, that's a signal that she was most likely that person trained to see the signs of land. I always say it's almost always the navigator that sees the land first. - After all of the voyaging that you've done and all of the matauranga that you've collected, in your opinion, where do you think Hawaiki is? - I think Hawaiki is an ideal. It's an ideal. It's one of those ideal places, you know? So, one of those wondrous places from whence we came. And I think everywhere we settled, we had a Hawaiki. So in Aotearoa, we have a Hawaiki back perhaps to Rarotonga, perhaps to here to Tahiti-nui. Maybe Raiatea. So I think Hawaiki just might be Moana. - Moana? - Yeah. Just might be. - Ka pai. - Yeah. - Could Jack be right? Could the Moana, the ocean, be Hawaiki? It's certainly linked our ancestors together, and still links us to them now. The upcoming voyage has a wahine navigator. This will be Moeata's longest trip. Used to sailing tropical waters, it's not just a big challenge. It's like heading out into the unknown. What's the difference between sailing around the islands and then going to Aotearoa? - Well, it's always easier, huh? First of all, (CHUCKLES) it's the cold. We're not used to the cold, and that's for us a major challenge ` for all of us. And we change in latitude so much. It's rough in Aotearoa, yeah? It's rougher than here we believe. - But our ancestors went there, yeah? - Yeah. Yeah. And we admire them because we have foul-weather gear, we have rain gear. They only have a leaf cape. And we wonder how they did it. So, yeah, we have even more admiration for them now that we're sailing. We figure how strong they must have been to get there. (DETERMINED MUSIC) - The sails and the hulls are modern materials, and the crew carry safety gear, but this beautiful waka is run traditionally. This will be Captain India Tabellini's biggest voyage too, and she'll be entirely reliant on the knowledge and skill of her celestial navigators to find, first, Rarotonga, and then Aotearoa. Will Moeata look at, say, some of the stars at night and say to you, 'We need to be going a little bit more to the left', or, 'We're just a little bit off-course'. - I'm just gonna do what she says. - Yeah? - (LAUGHS) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's safe for the canoe, and Moeata has a lot of experience also on long crossings. She's been voyaging a lot also. So leadership on this canoe is shared. So it's not only one person. It's shared between, like, people. - Heoi ano kei te whai i nga tapuwai o nga matua tupuna pokai nuku, pokai whenua, ianaianei pokai moana. So, following, the footsteps, I suppose, the pathways of our ancestor here on Tangaroa. This kind of puts together everything that we've been talking about ` that knowledge that our ancestors had, the innovation, the creativity, the bravery ` all of those things are all fusing together, coming together in a tangible way. Pretty rough. A lot of wind. Tawhirimatea is up today. But you feel no fear, just because you've got confidence and you feel comfort that our ancestors did this, and these are the descendants doing exactly the same thing. This is just a shakedown voyage, but part of me wishes I was joining this Tahitian and Maori crew on their great adventure. Instead, I'm heading in another direction to the small, uninhabited volcanic island of Meheti'a, which Tahitian archaeologist Paul Niva reckons has some names I might find familiar. Going to an island that might share a name with the Te Arawa waka's final resting place is pretty cool. And to make it more interesting, the mountain also shares the name of a famous East Coast landmark ` Hikurangi, or Hi'ura'i, as they pronounce it here. (SWELLING AMBIENT MUSIC) (HELICOPTER ROARS) Eh? - Haere mai. - It's hard to imagine this isolated island once had nine marae and was an important doorway to the rest of the Pacific. Tahitian oral histories say departing waka would pick up mauri stones from this sacred island to take on their voyages. Why do you think they took that stone there? - Oh, Te Papa. - Te Papa? - Te Papa. - What's Te Papa? - Your mother rock. - My mother rock? - Your mother or your genealogy. Te Papa ` where you come from. - Yes. So, do you think that they took the stone and placed it in particular places, kind of how Europeans or Americans will go and put their flag down when they get to a place? - But the American way ` when they put the flag down, I'm arriving. In your` In our concept, no, your ancestor is following. - As Paul was saying, this is the place where all of our waka came to to get their last preparations done, do their last incantations and prayers and offerings, and then receiving a mauri stone or a papa, putting that on the waka and then taking the final journey to Aotearoa. So pretty awesome to be here in this place ` Maketu. Everything I've heard and seen here seems to be drawing me closer to an answer. And my next stop is an island many people believe is our actual Hawaiki homeland. - Half of young New Zealanders don't vote. And Ted here is one of them. SOFTLY: He's pretty much invisible, poor bloke. - (GROANS) - You're a vote ghost, aren't you, Ted? But we can fix that. - (GRUNTS) Uh, vote. * - At the beginning of my journey, Sir Toby Curtis pointed to Rangiatea as our surviving Hawaiki. It's known here as Ra'iatea. It's a name I've heard many times in our tribal stories, so I've had a long time to imagine what it might be like. An ancient Ma'ohi university of navigation, this sacred marae is called Taputapuatea. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site, and my people identify it as the place that our ancestor Tametekapua left 21 generations ago. I feel as though I'm about to walk into one of my tribe's most sacred places. (KARAKIA CHANTS ECHO) (KARAKIA CONTINUES) (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) There must be more than marae here, yeah? So, there's` you've got Taputapuatea. Is that, like, a blanket name for the whole area, but there's many marae within Taputapuatea? - Yeah. Many marae. Many construction... representing Taputapuatea. - So when various waka came from around Eastern Polynesia to Taputapuatea, they'd come up over there? - Yeah. - So, the tohunga would be housed in this area? - Yeah. - Do you know any names of any of the tohunga that used to come here and... - Yeah. - ...teach. - Ngatoro-i-te-rangi,... - WHISPERS: Oh yeah. That's my toh` That's our tohunga from home. Ngatoro-i-rangi. He was here? - Ah, yeah. Ngatoro-i-te-rangi. He was one of the great priests for navigation. - Wow. It's amazing to think that Ngatoro-i-rangi lived here and taught navigation here. - Yeah. - Wow. - That's the one of` He belonged to one of the highest ranked family here. And this one over there. This is the (SPEAKS TAHITIAN) family. This is the marae of navigation. - Ah. - This is really the school. This is really where they prepare them for navigation. - Which waka do you think left from this Hawaiki, from the Hawaiki in Ra'iatea? - Oh, 100% Tainui. - Tainui. - Te Arawa. Tokomaru. - When they leave, there's a particular channel that they have to go through? - You see, you have.... two indicat` - Markers? - Yeah, markers. Yeah. And that this is the channel called Te Avamua. - Te Avamua. That's awesome thinking that our ancestors Tamatekapua, Ngatoro-i-rangi and our waka, Te Arawa, launched off here, headed out through there, over to Matangireia, and started to go to Aotearoa. Although I'm more than 4000km from home, that distance now seems small. There's one more person I want to meet, and over 700 years after my ancestors arrived in Aotearoa, he brings it all back to here ` to Ra'iatea. Kia ora. (SIGHS) - Ia orana. - Ia orana. - (SPEAKS TAHITIAN) Welcome home. - Welcome home. Whoa. Tena koe. Thank you. 'And what's more, we can understand each other.' He aha koe i korero pena ai? He aha koe i kia? Why did you say to me, 'Welcome home?' (SPEAKS IN TAHITIAN) (BOTH LAUGH) - Kia ora. Kia ora. Me Ngatoro-i-rangi, no konei hoki a Ngatoro-i-rangi? Is Ngatoro-i-rangi an ancestor from Ra'iatea? (SPEAKS IN TAHITIAN) - Mission, yeah. We had to talk slowly, but we could understand each other. It amazes me that after all the centuries that separate our people, we could just sit there and korero. I know that a lot of people say that there's a lot of different Hawaiki, and that Hawaiki can be a state of mind, Hawaiki can be in different places, Hawaiki can be where you want it to be. You know, all of the tribes around the country will have different versions of where Hawaiki is. But if you put all the evidence together and all of the korero that we've collected, it's hard not to at least start to entertain the thought that the Hawaiki that we talk about in all of our tribal narratives, in our oratory, could be here, would be here. This is a good place for us to pinpoint where Hawaiki is in my point of view, in my opinion anyway. Because when you come here, you'll feel it too. It's in your DNA. It's in your` (CLEARS THROAT) It's in your genealogy as Maori. You'll feel it. And I think if you take the time to come here, you'll feel it too, and it'll be an emotional and spiritual awakening for you, as it has been for me. Here... (CLEARS THROAT, BREATHES DEEPLY) in Hawaiki. (CLEARS THROAT) From here, my journey becomes far more complicated. Next time, I get to the bottom of some of our most enduring origin myths,... - You really need to go in with your eyes and heart wide open. - ...I follow a trail to the cradle of Polynesia,... - I actually feel like we can confidently say that we can rewrite Samoan history. - ...and beyond to Vanuatu, where I find a surprising connection. - Probably the last wave of colonisation of the planet. We are the start of it, and you're the end of it.