- My ancestors arrived here in Maketu over 700 years ago,
bringing with them the things they needed to survive in a new land ―
plants, tools and the cultural know-how to explore and settle the world's largest ocean.
Their waka carried the plants they needed for food and clothing.
The one that became most important here was the kumara,
which was not just critical to our survival but tells a story that connects us right across the Pacific.
I want to retrace the journey of our ancestors from Aotearoa all the way to South America and theMarquesas
to help me understand where our tupuna went, who they met, and what they saw.
In this episode ― I make surprise connections at the top of the world
and go looking for the origins of haka.
(ALL PERFORM HAKA)
I want to understand how we became Maori,
how we connect to the rest of the Pacific, and how our ancestors explored such a vast ocean.
Join me as I follow the path of my ancestors.
www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023
When my tupuna first sailed south from Hawaiki,
the great explorer Kupe had told them to look for Parinuitera, the great cliffs of the sun.
- A very special place to all the voyagers. It was integral to Kupe's knowledge.
If you're far out at sea, you knew to look for the tohu of Parinuitera.
- Ahuahu became a nursery for our waka plants.
Rock walls warmed the soil
to help cultivate the precious seedlings we needed to survive on these new islands.
- Became known as the home of the kumara and the taro.
And, you know, if any of the tribes down the coast lost their kumara tubers through frosts and floods,
even in war, you know, where the enemy would take their― pick their gardens,
take what was going in their gardens,
they knew they could replenish their tubers by coming back to Ahuahu.
- The early spread of kumara throughout our country
paints a picture of how and where our tupuna were able to settle.
Kumara played a key role in making this land home.
But those kumara plants came from many thousands of miles away ―
from the South American coast, where they were a staple for the indigenous people there.
So how did the kumara get here to Aotearoa?
I'm on my way to Whakatane to talk to a kumara whisperer. He reckons he may have some answers.
(BIRDS CALL)
- Just a little technique ― when you plant them... - Yeah.
- ...we plant them so they're shaped like a jade like that. - Ah! Yeah.
- So push them in that way. And then this part here is on the sunny side,
cos this is north over here; south over here.
Just hold it like that. - Yeah.
- Push it in about that deep and cover it over.
- Where do you think kumara came from? When did it get here to Aotearoa?
- Well, the interesting thing is our tipuna, when they first came here,
they didn't bring kumara with them.
They brought other things ― taro, hue, all those kinds of things.
And then there's this long period where there was some mahi growing those kai,
but, essentially, we lived off the bush and the ocean,
and then these other waka came later on and bought kumara down then.
By experimentation, by trying different things, it was able to flourish.
- So, you are of the firm view that kumara came from South America.
- If you go over there to South America, they'll say, 'Oh, we've grown this since the beginning.'
And there's signs of kumara that's 8000 years ago.
You know, you go to the people that have had it the longest and talk to them.
- Science tells us kumara came from South America.
But how it was brought into the Pacific is a mystery I hope to understand.
In your opinion, is it possible for our ancestors to travel from Eastern Polynesia to South America?
Is that possible? - Yeah, of course it is. I mean...
when we left here in 2012
to sail to Rapa Nui,
we followed that path.
- If Polynesian waka did travel to South America,
one possible route was from Rapa Nui, when the winds were right, down to northern Chile,
then following the Humboldt Current up the coast,
meeting people and trading kumara, chickens and DNA,
they would have sailed downwind all the way to Marquesas.
- They've been everywhere in the Pacific.
They developed everything that they needed to know to be able to cross the oceans.
- As an expert in our traditional ways of navigation,
how do you link the origin of the kumara, our tupuna going to South America,
and then our traditional narratives around the origin of kumara?
- So you've got all these stories of how the kumara came, you know,
and, and I think that just shows that there...
there were lots of voyages happening with people bringing, you know, that resource with them.
And so from my perspective,
a practical sense of being able to cross the ocean and having all this matauranga
and having a duty of care for your people,
that you find the things that you need to be able to survive.
- Did our ancestors get all the way to South America?
Tu mai e nga...
'It sounds like I need to go and see for myself,
'but before I do, I've got to pay my respects to our Te Arawa kumara god Matuatonga.'
Whitiki kia mau, whitiki kia puta ki te whaiao, ki te ao marama. Tihei mauri ora.
No reira, mihi ana ki a koe.
Matuatona, tena koe.
Ko tae mai te hope o Tutanekai.
Tena koe.
This is a taonga that was brought over on the Te Arawa waka in the 1300s. Our tupuna brought itover.
They knew that they could utilise the mana of this taonga
to help them sustain themselves and grow their kumara here.
But where does the story start?
Did our tupuna go all that way to South America?
And was it just kumara that they brought back with them?
Kotahi ana kei te ara hai whai maku ― there's only one way to find out.
(TRAIN BELL DINGS)
- Our early Polynesian ancestors explored nearly a third of the earth,
and while many viewed the ocean as a barrier, our Polynesian ancestors viewed the ocean as a highway.
And after many thousands of years of exploration and discovery,
I wonder if they had any idea that far, far off into the east was the great landmass of South America.
These days when we hear Peru, we think of the Incas.
But there have been people here long before Machu Picchu.
The name Peru means land of abundance and the indigenous language Quechua,
and one of the things they grow in abundance here is kumara, which in Quechua is 'kumar',
a near certain linguistic link and the original clue for early contact between our people.
Rob said, 'Go to the people who have had it the longest and talk to them,'
and I'm told Alfredo is Peru's kumara whisperer.
What's the secret that you've got the best kumara in Peru? (CHUCKLES)
(LAUGHTER)
- (SPEAKS SPANISH)
- How many generations has your whanau been doing this mahi?
- Karakia. Hey!
- Todo, todo, todo, todo. Todo, todo!
- (SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
If our tupuna came here, was more than a plant exchanged?
I want to understand more about the cultures that would have been here at that time,
so I'm heading up into the clouds ― ara ki nga kapua.
I'm in the Sacred Valley.
The indigenous people here still speak Quechua, and many still live according to their ancient tikanga.
It's a calm day, very tranquil.
(PANTS)
Sun shining ― kei te whiti te ra ― but don't be fooled ― it's quite cold, and we're very highup,
so, you know, getting puffed quite quickly. (PANTS)
'Course, it's not affecting the tangata whenua.
- Hola.
- We're up at 4500m, and I'm carrying a koha of the coca leaves they chew to combat altitude sickness.
Anei te koha.
(MAN SPEAKS QUECHUA)
Tell me a little bit about those leaves.
- Yes. Before they start chewing the coca, they have to organise the coca with three coca leaves.
You have to blow. - Three?
- Three. To the Apus.
- This maunga.
- (SPEAKS QUECHUA) (LAUGHTER)
- Shush!
Straight in? - Just keep it in your mouth.
- Keep it in my mouth. - Like a gum and just chew it.
(MAN SPEAKS QUECHUA)
- (SPEAKS QUECHUA)
Now they are sharing their love with us.
- To Hawaiki.
My friend over here, you are laughing at me the most.
- (SPEAKS QUECHUA)
- (LAUGHS)
A huatia is their version of an earth oven.
Today they are burning alpaca kaka. I guess you use whatever materials you have available.
And it works ― they've been doing this for thousands of years.
(CRACKLING) Ooh! Listen to it.
It's loud.
Oh!
All done. We just want now ― 20 to 30 minutes.
(CONCH SHELL BLARES)
Very good.
What do you call this? What's the name? - Como llamas a esto?
- Pututu.
Pu-tutu. - Pututu.
Pututu.
We have an instrument that's very similar to this.
You call it pututu; we call it putatara.
- (SPEAKS SPANISH)
- Yeah, to announce an arrival or something important happening... - Mm-hm.
- ...which is the same― what we use a putatara for.
(BLOWS CONCH SHELL)
- Can stay now. - I can stay now. Yeah. (LAUGHS)
'It's not just the pututu that sounds familiar. I've heard other words that catch in my ears.'
Do you have a word 'hapai'?
- (SPEAKS QUECHUA)
- 'Apay' means 'to bring'.
- To... - To bring. To bring. - To bring, yes.
Is 'kanaku' fire here? No? Kanaku?
- Hay algo que sea kanaku que significa fuego? Kanaku?
- K'anachiy. - Ka... - K'anachiy es quemar.
- K'anachiy. - K'anachiy. - K'anachiy means 'burn'.
- Burn. Yeah, same. Same in our language. - Dice que su idioma es lo mismo.
- Maybe our ancestors met many years ago.
(MAN SPEAKS QUECHUA)
You know what the incredible thing is, is that I'm 10,000km away from home, from Aotearoa,
and here I am eating kumara.
It's been cooked exactly the same way ― in an umu, in an earth oven;
tastes exactly the same as it does in Aotearoa, and they have the same word for it.
For most of the 20th century,
people believe kumara was carried into the Pacific on traditional South American rafts.
My next stop is down on the coast,
where local fishermen still work from caballitos de totora ― handmade reed boats.
Tucume was once a major regional centre known for its enormous pyramids,
but the recent discovery of a pre-Incan dwelling revealed the Huaca Las Balsas reliefs ―
images carved into stone of the type of ancient raft South Americans had
back when my ancestors were exploring the Pacific.
These are 1000 years old. - Yes.
(SPEAKS SPANISH)
- All the evidence, yes.
- There's the waka.
- Mm? - Mm.
- Mm-hm.
Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl believed these rafts carried kumara west into the Pacific
and built a replica to prove it.
But his raft was difficult to steer and, ultimately, wrecked.
If anything, he proved the opposite.
Unlike our waka hourua, it wasn't capable of open ocean travelling.
- Welcome aboard. (CHUCKLES)
- Tena koe. - Thank you.
I think the Polynesians arrived here.
They did landfall here, and they went back to...
to Polynesia with...
kumara.
If you compare, this is the ones thatwehad.
It's called square sails.
It's similar to the techniques used to go downwind.
But Polynesians had this type. Right?
This triangular type of Polynesian voyaging canoes.
Right? They're are actually easier to go 50 degree, 90 degree with the wind.
They knew where to get there, because they knew how to come back with this type of rigging.
- So they all get here. How long do they stay here for? And how do they get back?
- Normally, the prevailing winds and currents,
it's from May― March, April to July, August ― the trade winds.
They knew perfectly, and Polynesians knew perfectly when to sail, wait and come back.
- Where would they hit landfall? Where would they arrive first?
- Northern Chile. Northern Chile. - Northern Chile.
I've been fascinated by Peru, but now I have that arrival point in Chile on the brain.
Scientists have recently discovered DNA from Chile's indigenous people in the Pacific.
So I'm gonna follow some of those ancient DNA strands all the way down the coast towards Chile.
- Chile is famous for its rugged coastline,
and the theory is that it's here our tupuna would have first made land.
In 2020, that theory took another step towards reality
when a study was released showing Polynesians in the Marquesas Islands and Rapa Nui
had DNA markers from South America's Mapuche people.
Those markers arrived in the 13th century, along with kumara.
I'm here in the Araucania region in the south of Chile,
because this is the land of the Mapuche.
At the time of the great kumara DNA exchange,
the Mapuche people lived about 3000km north of here.
Known as a fierce warrior people, they were the only ones to resist the Inca and Spanish conquest,
staying true to their name, Mapuche.
Mapu ― whenua,
che ― tangata.
Mapuche ― tangata whenua.
Anei ra, tetahi o ratou toa.
And here stands one of their warriors, Lautaro,
and he's wearing what they call a toki kura.
Sound familiar?
(KULL KULL BLARES, DRUM BEATS RHYTHMICALLY)
- (SPEAKS MAPUDUNGUN) - Mari mari.
- En este espacio, en la ruca, son bienvenidos en el territorio Mapuche.
- In this place, you're welcome ― in the Mapuche territory.
- Kia ora.
(BOTH CHANT IN MAPUDUNGUN)
- (EXHALES SHARPLY) WHISPERS: Right.
(DRUM BEATS, MAN CHANTS)
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
When you called my ancestors
to come with me and join your ancestors, I felt that very deeply.
- (SPEAKS SPANISH)
- Ariel, do you believe...
that Polynesian ancestors came here and met your ancestors hundreds of years ago?
- It's hard not to draw conclusions. A Polynesian chicken called kollonka,
meaning water chicken and representing exchange
that arrived around the same time as kumara made its way into Polynesian hands.
Tena koutou. (LAUGHS)
- ALL: Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo!
- (CHUCKLES)
(ALL CHANT)
That's the chants.
That's the chants, the native chants of celebration.
Chile's urban protests often make international news. It's a very political country.
Less known are the rural tensions,
where Mapuche have had to fight to hold on to their land, culture and language.
I've seen these huge carvings that remind me of our pou at home,
so I'm here to meet Colelo,
who is working to reclaim Mapuche culture through traditional music and carving these beautifulchemamull.
- Chemamull. - We say 'pou whakarae'.
- Pou whakarae. - Mm.
Like, uh...
guardians.
Ancestral guardians.
- Ah.
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
- (SPEAKS SPANISH)
- Kia ora.
- # Esta la decision.
# Y amor, dejar las injusticias...
- Just like the fry bread at home, eh?
- # Dejara que maneje la ilusion.
# Es tu futuro, tu presente y tu pasado.
- Mapuche have faced three waves of colonisation, and they're still here,
still fighting for their land, for their trees and their rivers.
Although, our fish are bigger in Rotorua.
Tena koutou.
- # Amotinando palabras. #
- What's your dream for your people, for Mapuche people, into the future?
- (SPEAKS SPANISH)
(CHUCKLES)
- (SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
For the chief.
No reira ― therefore, a toki kura.
If the Mapuche toki kura did come from us,
this may not be the first time a toki kura has been gifted between our people.
- # Y la mire y usted tiene que saber,
# que aqui en esta tierra se eleva puro querer.
- Hey. Perfecto.
(LAUGHS)
- # Duena celeste... #
(BLOWS TRUTUKA)
- My last stop in Chile involves other toki kura that were found around the necks of ancientskeletons
in an anthropological dig on a coastal island.
The skeletons were larger than the people here, and some had unique Polynesian jawbones.
(CHANTS IN TE REO MAORI)
'The museum in Concepcion has arranged a special viewing.'
Tiri o te wananga, te tiri o te pukenga, te tiri o te taura...
te tiri o te tauira.
'For cultural reasons, we're not allowed to film the skeleton,
'but I am allowed to hold the ancient toki kura that was found around his neck.'
...to iwi anei ko tai mai nei Aotearoa.
Na te hau koe kawe...
na te hau koe kawe...
na te hau koe kawe.
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
To me, this is from Aotearoa, this is from New Zealand. It's.... exactly what we have.
It was found...
on his chest and hanging around his neck.
It's beautiful.
Very privileged to be able to touch something this old and something this ancestral.
(SEA BIRDS CRY)
If you put the toki kura alongside the other clues I found here,
it all points to our tupuna landing on these shores around 800 years ago.
And if that's the case, they would have followed the birds here from Rapa Nui.
But evidence suggests their journey would have started in the Marquesas, so that's where I'm going next.
- The Marquesas is an isolated island group in French Polynesia.
The traditional name is Fenua 'Enata or Henua 'Enana, depending on dialect,
which translates to land of people.
I'm roughly 7500km from South America.
It's a vast distance, but it's downwind from there to here, so an easy sail.
It's also the other end of the DNA story of the South American people.
Finding evidence of indigenous South American DNA here in the Marquesas
confirms that not only did our Polynesian ancestors, the early explorers of our ancestors,
meet up with the indigenous people of South America, but they also coupled up.
Along with South American DNA, this is where kumara entered the Pacific.
Although, culturally, their important waka plant is the breadfruit, or mei.
Tiki are important here too. There are statues everywhere.
I wonder if they connect to our people at home.
Scattered throughout the Marquesas are sacred marae
that have survived years under the protection of the ngahere.
And some of those marae are home to the oldest and largest tiki in the Pacific.
- Before going in the marae,
I just call the tupuna to have their permission
and welcome us to go in.
(SPEAKS MARQUESAN)
- Edgar Tetahiotupa is an anthropologist
who has studied the history of these marae and their ancient tiki.
Kia ora. Thank you very much. Beautiful. - The ancestor agree.
- Oh, well that's good. I'm glad. - Yeah. (CHUCKLES) - Glad they agree.
- This is the place called the I'Ipona.
And the I'ipona means a strong mana.
- Would you say that tiki in the marae...
are the core of culture in the Marquesas?
- It's an energy. How to represent in nature a shape known by human ―
shape as the man. Yes.
And they take the red colour, because the red colour is the is the blood. And the blood is life.
- Mm. - Yeah.
It's not a statue. Statues are representation. - Yes.
- But that's representation, represent an energy ― an energy of the universe.
- Are these representations of my tupuna?
Our Te Arawa tribe is one of the few tribes in Aotearoa to consider tiki as an original ancestor.
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
And in our korero,
Tumatauenga creates the male,
and there's a succession of males that couple with
some of the female― early female celestial beings and create our people.
And they all go back to tiki.
And then here I am, standing in one of the oldest tiki in the world.
Miharo ana.
It suddenly feels very personal.
And I'm astonished to learn from my boat captain Humu
that tiki is one of the creation stories of these islands.
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
- (SPEAKS MARQUESAN)
- I'm staggered by how familiar these concepts are.
And the closeness of our language becomes more apparent as I explore the island of Tahuata.
Hello, brother. - Kaoha nui.
- Tena koe.
- Tehautetua. - (SPEAKS MARQUESAN)
- Tena koe. Te manahau. - Te manahau.
Oh, manahau, OK. - Manahau. (CHUCKLES)
Pai to whare.
- 'This is startling to me. Tumeke ka to au.
'I'm almost 6000km from home, and I can speak to these people in my language.'
- These words ― hei kaki, whai, honu, hei mo te ringa.
(TRADITIONAL MARQUESAN MUSIC PLAYS)
It's so easy to think the ocean separates the islands here,
but, actually, the ocean is what connects them.
The Marquesas have been described as the tattoo capital of the Pacific,
and early accounts by European explorers describe whole bodies covered in tattoos.
The scale of marking is unique to the Marquesas.
In Nuku Hiva, Heretu is spearheading a tattoo revival, which celebrates the importance of tiki.
- What happened here is tiki took a very important place in the religion of the Marquesan people,
and through that religion came out
some graphic expression, which are in honour of tiki.
This graphic expression, we call that 'mata tiki', meaning the face of tiki.
- Face of tiki.
- And there is...
two main elements
to understand in the tattoo.
Two main purpose.
The first one is protection.
Those symbols are on the body to protect ― protect you from attacks from bad spirits.
We call that pa'iuiu.
The second main element is to channel the power of creation.
Yeah. And they would reach out in the environment they live in,
and they would put this mana inside the body.
Polynesian culture is what we call a holistic culture.
The way they perceive the world and their science are not based on mathematics;
it's based on myth,
on poetry, on art,
on beauty.
- I'm blown away by just how similar our cultural structures are.
It's a way of thinking. And even though we're thousands of miles and hundreds of years apart,
we've still been able to maintain these tikanga, the pillars of our cultural belief.
- In the 1840s, the Marquesas were colonised by the French, devastating their culture.
Before colonisation arrived with guns and disease, there were 75,000 people living here on theseislands.
By 1920, there were 2255.
Te Fenua 'Enata, the Marquesas Islands, had gone from being the cultural capital of the Pacific
to losing almost everything.
But some of its secrets survived deep in the bush.
Marae in hidden valleys guarded by kuia like Mama Yvonne,
who uphold ancient matauranga and act as gatekeepers to these papa kainga.
- (SPEAKS MARQUESAN)
- (SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
- YVONNE:
- CHANTS: Waerea, waerea,
waerea.
He waerea te rangi e tu.
He waerea te Papa e takoto nei.
(CHANTS IN TE REO MAORI)
'This marae may look different to ours, but I can feel the wairua of the people who lived here
'and hints of a lost history we may have once shared.
'I think this place is happy. I think this place is thinking,
'"Well, we haven't heard this for a while.
'"Someone's here, and it's someone we know and is speaking to us in a language we know."
'So, yeah...
'it just makes everything complete.'
Haumi e,
hui e,
taiki e.
(EXHALES SHARPLY)
Kei a koe, Heretu?
This sacred marae of Kamuihei was occupied by 3000 people in its heyday.
High up on the marae, Heretu has come to show me ancient petroglyphs carved into the stone.
- So, to make it clear, the best way is to put some water on it... - OK.
- ...and it will reveal itself. - Ooh.
Sounds cool.
- Here is a higher place of the to'ua.
It used to be tapu; only priests and chiefs could access this area.
- Almost like a tohunga could come, look and read it and know what it meant,
but another person wouldn't quite pick that up, wouldn't understand the meaning.
- It was not open for most of the people.
What I understand is in the ancient religion, once your soul leave your body,
it goes to Hawaiki under the ocean, and at night, it comes up in the skies.
And sisters are the stars.
Stars are reincarnation of the soul of the ancestors.
And they are gathered together as a constellation. - Mm-hm.
- And they are fish that swim in the ocean of Hawaiki.
And on this petroglyph, we see a lot of fishes and honu.
- The honu, or turtle, symbolises travel and navigation.
Maybe here a guide to the spiritual world,
which would be in keeping with the secret beneath this ancient banyan tree.
- And here we have this...
peephole,
which is a gateway to Hawaiki.
Of course, its name is Tainui.
- Taunui. - Tainui, the great ocean.
- Yeah. - Yeah. - Wow.
It's pretty obvious to me that there's really strong connections here.
And it's just the knowledge base, the principles, the values that's in everything they do
that connect us so strongly that I feel in my heart of hearts that we're definitely part of their story,
and they're definitely part of ours.
It's almost like a little missing part to the puzzle.
(SPEAKS TE REO MAORI)
I feel like I'm heading even further back now to the breathtaking Ua Pou.
It's where haka in one of its deepest forms is still being performed today.
(WOMEN PERFORM KARANGA)
I'm overwhelmed by this breathtaking karanga me te powhiri.
They sound like my aunties back home. Instantly, I feel welcomed.
Ua Pou, which in Maori would be Rua Pou ― the two pillars of the Marquesas.
I'm here to meet Kahu, who has promised to induct me into the world of their haka.
- (SPEAKS MARQUESAN)
(SPEAKS MARQUESAN) - Tena koe, brother.
What does it mean to you, the traditional haka here in the Marquesas?
- I mean, it presents a lot, because it's our way as male to show who we are
and also to show that warrior side of who we are.
Because back in the day, Marquesans, they were warriors.
Today, we can't really do war. We can't really eat people. There's no more cannibalism.
So we still need to revive that mindset, to revive that spirit,
because there's something that we need to keep in ourselves,
cos there's also positive energy from it. That's why we still perform haka. Yeah.
- Was it nearly lost through contact, colonisation, Christianity?
- That's why it disappeared. They banned it. All those practices, the rituals just disappeared with it.
- The haka that we're about to learn and have a bit of a practice of, is it a particular typeof haka?
- It is. It is. It is. The haka toa.
(PERFORMS HAKA)
- Ooh.
- How are you feeling? Good? - Feels good. Feels good doing it.
Feel energised straight away.
We call that ihi. - Ihi.
- It's that energy that you get when you... - Got the same.
- ...go into it. You got the same? - We call it i'i!
- I'i. - I'i.
(PERFORMS HAKA)
(ALL PERFORM HAKA)
- The language and culture feels so close to ours. There are echoes in everything.
I've never really known about the Marquesas,
but from now on, these islands will be written into my history.
(GRUNTS)
(PERFORMS HAKA)
(GROUP PERFORMS HAKA)
Whoo!
Visiting the Marquesas has been an eye-opening experience and a really heartfelt one too.
So many connections here ―
whakapapa, haka,
tiki, marae,
the language. So many connections.
I've been right across to Peru, to the origins of the kumara,
and then its journey all the way from the Americas to here, to the Marquesas and into the Pacific.
But I still have a few more questions, so join me next time,
when I head to the northernmost point and the easternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle.
(ALL SPEAK MARQUESAN)
Next on my journey ― I stand in the shadows of the great ancestors of Rapa Nui.
Te Pito o Te Whenua ― a true wonder of the world.
And I find connections in Hawaii that link us all together across the Pacific.
(PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
Na Te Puna Whakatongarewa nga kupu hauraro i tautoko.
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