The legendary Pacific homeland of the Maori people, from which they are supposed to have travelled to New Zealand and to where their spirits are believed to return after death.
there were seven canoes that came from Hawaiki, so there are seven tribes
Example sentencesExamples
The Maori chief was said to have made his own way from Hawaiki on the back of a ray.
The Maori people believe that this is where their spirit goes on their journey to the Afterlife, before departing to Hawaiki.
Many more canoes journeyed from Hawaiki, bringing the people who settled the land and who lived there for many hundreds of years before the arrival of the Pakeha.
It's based on the legend of man who lived with his brothers in Hawaiki.
Maori are the tangata whenua (indigenous people) of New Zealand, landing 1000 years ago from the mythical Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki.
They then move through the underworld on a long journey to their spiritual home of Hawaiki.
Maori are not an indigenous people - they all claim attachment to individual canoes that brought them here from Hawaiki.
They believe that this is the place where a person's spirit comes after death and departs to their enternal home of Hawaiki.
In one version of the story, Kupe was a fisher in the ancestral homeland called Hawaiki, who was annoyed by a great octopus which kept stealing his fish.
As a storyteller he unlocks the legend and lore from the voyagers of Hawaiki to the volcanoes of Tamaki