Iwi debate Kupe's return

Kupe is depicted in this sculpture on the waterfront walkway in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

He is a mountain of a figure in Maori oral history, who left these shores claiming he'd never be back.

But now Hokianga Maori are debating whether bones Tahitians claim are Kupe's should be brought back to New Zealand.

Dr Pat Hohepa, a former Auckland University academic, was invited to Maupiti Island last year to talk to local people about koiwi/bones and other artefacts first studied in the 1960s by a Hawaiian archaeologist. In the past decade they've also been re-examined.

During the visit, Maupiti people told Dr Hohepa's delegation that, based on their own oral traditions, they believed the bones were Kupe's. They also asked if Maori would be open to taking them back to New Zealand.

No decision was made but Ngapuhi, Te Rarawa and other northern iwi are discussing the situation.

Driving discussions is the level of evidence that the koiwi are the same age as Kupe. Current archeological dating puts New Zealand's first inhabitants here about the late 13th century, while discredited ethnologist Percy Smith picked 925 and some oral history puts Maori here earlier.

Dr Yoshi Sinoto from Hawaii's Bishop Museum excavated the Maupiti site in the 1960s. Carbon dating during the 1960s placed artefacts from 800 although in 2000 advances in technology dated them to the 13th century.

Dr Sinoto said there was evidence which suggests interaction with other Polynesian islands at the site. That includes the way some of the 19 bodies buried were found.

"The burial internment, we found some with the faces down, the head facing east and the feet west, which was also found in some early Maori burials."

Ornaments at the site including beads and pendants and fishhooks have similar stylings to early Maori cultural artefacts but similar items have also been found in the Cook and Marquesas Islands - meaning proof of a direct link from people who were in New Zealand and travelled to Tahiti is not conclusive, Dr Sinoto said.

Dr Hohepa, from Ngapuhi, said Maori were intrigued by both the oral history and the archaeological evidence.

"It is a mysterious story, we're excited but most are treating it as a tapu thing, which it is."

Aside from identification difficulties, Kupe's farewell words also have a significant bearing on any outcome. When he left, Kupe described the Hokianga poetically as a wellspring of light, but it was a place he was emphatic about never returning to. The harbour takes its full name Te Hokianga nui a Kupe -Kupe's great departing place - from those words.

While Ngapuhi based around the harbour's southern side have already met to discuss the issue, Te Rarawa on the northern side are meeting tomorrow at Waipuna Marae.

Te Runanga o Te Rarawa chairman Haami Piripi said there was a degree of scepticism among kaumatua and kuia about the bones and their relationship to Kupe, but many were open to discussion.

KUPE

* The Polynesian explorer is credited with discovering these islands while his wife gave Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, as a name for the North Island.
* Tribal histories diverge about who Kupe was, where he went and what he did. The exact timing of when he was here is also controversial.
* Northland iwi believe after living in the Hokianga for a time spanning two generations, the enigmatic voyager eventually returned to Hawaiki from Hokianga.