Waka across a watery world

How and when did New Zealand Aotearoa begin? In human history the short answer is recently. New Zealand was the last major landmass settled by people, which is fundamental to understanding New Zealand’s distinctiveness. Before humans arrived, birds and lizards were the dominant land animals. Archaeologists have agreed, after decades of debate, that the first humans arrived from the late thirteenth century, about 750 years ago. These adventurers undertook epic, oceanic voyages in large, double-hulled waka hourua (voyaging canoes) from their legendary homeland of Hawaiki, in East Polynesia, southwards to the temperate region of ‘South Polynesia’, a term coined to encompass both New Zealand’s main islands and its outlying islands. Today, the indigenous people trace their ancestors to over 40 celebrated waka (canoes). South Polynesia as a concept reminds us that New Zealand is a far-flung archipelago that stretches from Raoul Island, in the subtropical Kermadec group, to the subantarctic Auckland Islands, and to the Chatham Islands, which lie 800 kilometres to the east of the South Island.