| The Maori chief was said to have made his own way from Hawaiki on the back of a ray. |
| They then move through the underworld on a long journey to their spiritual home of Hawaiki. |
| Maori are the tangata whenua of New Zealand, landing 1000 years ago from the mythical Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki. |
| This is where Maoris believe the spirits of the dead depart on the journey to their heaven, called Hawaiki. |
| It is not widely known that New Zealand was the last significant temperate land mass to be peopled, the first Polynesian migrants arriving from Hawaiki about 700 years ago. |
| 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. |
