Polynesian Pantheonvoyaging canoe
Matahourua
- Ocean voyaging
- Carrying Kupe to Aotearoa
The voyaging canoe in which, in Māori tradition, Kupe crossed from Hawaiki, pursued the great octopus of Muturangi, and discovered Aotearoa.
About Matahourua
Kupe's canoe
Kupe is honoured by many iwi as the discoverer of Aotearoa. In widely told accounts he sails from Hawaiki in the canoe Matahourua (also spelled Matawhaorua), pursuing Te Wheke-a-Muturangi, the great octopus that had been stealing bait, across the ocean. The chase brings him to a new land, which his wife Kuramārōtini names for the long white cloud she sees on the horizon: Aotearoa.
After the voyage
Kupe kills the octopus in Cook Strait, names many places around the coasts, and returns to Hawaiki with sailing directions for those who come after. Northern traditions, especially in Hokianga, remember the canoe being refitted and renamed Ngātokimatawhaorua; that name was given in 1940 to the great ceremonial waka that is launched at Waitangi each February.
Many traditions
Kupe's voyages differ in detail and emphasis from iwi to iwi, and the name of the canoe itself varies. The 20th-century 'Great Fleet' dating of these voyages, popularised by S. Percy Smith, is no longer accepted, and this entry gives no date.
Origin
Kupe's canoe in the traditions of Hokianga and other northern and eastern iwi; in some traditions later refitted and renamed Ngātokimatawhaorua.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Māori oral tradition (Kupe traditions of Hokianga and other iwi); summarised in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, "Kupe"
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.