New Zealand place names shared with the Hawaiian Archipelago

Abstract

A survey of place names shared between New Zealand and East Polynesia found by far the majority in the Hawaiian Archipelago. Given that the immediate origin of Māori is generally thought to lie in the ‘central East Polynesian interaction sphere’, this is surprising, inviting an exploration of other links between these two widely separated corners of the ‘Polynesian Triangle’ in the context of evidence for and against prehistoric contact. A full list of the names found to be shared between these two island groups is given, along with a statistical comparison of New Zealand place names found to occur on other East Polynesian archipelagos. A proposition is made here that, despite the isolation of both the Hawaiian Archipelago and New Zealand at European contact and the immense distance between them, they may have been in direct contact with one another.