The Maori people believe that this is where their spirit goes on their journey to the Afterlife, before departing to Hawaiki. |
They believe that this is the place where a person's spirit comes after death and departs to their enternal home of Hawaiki. |
The Maori chief was said to have made his own way from Hawaiki on the back of a ray. |
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. |
It's based on the legend of man who lived with his brothers in Hawaiki. |
Maori are the tangata whenua of New Zealand, landing 1000 years ago from the mythical Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki. |