Mark's Pages

"These similarities between the New Zealanders and the Tahitians mystified the English. The only logical explanation was a migration from Tahiti to New Zealand at some point in the distant past, but the thought of making such a long ocean voyage in canoes, even the Tahitians' huge sailing canoes, seemed preposterous. And yet that is exactly what had happened. Sometime between the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the eleventh, a group of men and women from central Polynesia, most likely the Society Islands or the Marquesas, made their way to New Zealand on a planned colonization expedition. They settled originally on the North Island, and by the time of Cook's visit had grown to a population of 100,000 to 150,000, divided among about forty tribes."

— Lynn Withey, Voyages of Discovery: Captain Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific