Great Migration

THE crew of each canoe that arrived in New Zealand with the great fleet of 1350 A.D. settled in a different part of the country. Thus the people of the Aotea canoe and their descendants formed the tribes of the west coast area. The Mataatua canoe made its landfall at Whakatane, and from this canoe descend many of the tribes of the Whakatane and Bay of Plenty districts. From the Arawa canoe, which beached at Maketu, come the people of the Hot Lakes and Taupo region. Tribes of the King Country and the Waikato call the Tainui canoe their own. Taranaki tribes claim descent from the T’okomaru and Kurahaupo canoes. From Takitimu and Horouta canoes come the people of the East Coast.

These and other voyagers claimed their tribal areas by right of naming and settlement. They brought with them from their homeland .the kumara, the taro, the yam. The native Polynesian dog came with them as an invited guest on their canoes, but the rat probably came by mistake as a stowaway.

From the very nature of its founding, each tribe was composed of people more or less closely re­lated to one another by blood. As the tribes increased in numbers, one group of relatives might break away to form a sub-tribe. But all the mem­bers of the largest tribal grouping would proudly trace their ancestry back to the founder of the tribe after whom the tribe was named.

Each tribe kept closely to the area of land which it claimed as its own and off which it made its living by cultivation, hunting and fishing. The people were settled in small villages, each near its own cultivations. In times of warfare the people retired to their fortified village or pa where they lived until danger was over.

The houses making up the village were all rectangular in shape. There was a rough cook­house for each family. The sleeping house used by several families was built for warmth. It was anything up to thirty feet long, with low walls banked with earth, a low door, a small window. There was no chimney. A small fire was kept burning during cold weather and the smoke escaped where it could. In larger houses logs of wood were laid on the floor to mark off resting places and to keep the bedding fern from drifting; about the floor.

The pride of the village was a large carved dwelling house occupied by the chief or reserved for honoured guests. It was sometimes seventy feet long, built with mighty carved timbers. The walls were lined inside with ornamental reed work and the rafters painted with intricate designs in red and white. These meeting houses of important

and powerful tribes were works of great Storehouses, both large and small, were  raised foundations. They were intricately on the outside and painted with red ochre with the meeting house, the work in de& the storehouse was meant to indicate the and prestige of the tribe.