New Zealand place names shared with Central East Polynesia

Abstract

Place names shared between New Zealand and elsewhere in the Pacific can be used to infer spheres of pre-European Māori contact, a fact used by Best (1917) to support a theory that the ancestors of Māori had sailed as a fleet from a single origin in the Society Islands. The present article is the third in a series that sets out the results of a more open-minded study that surveys shared place names across a wider region. The first two drew attention to the surprisingly high incidence of New Zealand Māori place names shared with southern islands along the Tropic of Capricorn (Crowe 2012), and with the Hawaiian Islands (Crowe 2013). This third article shows how toponyms on several islands in Central East Polynesia manifest similarly strong links to New Zealand, pinpointing the islands on which the strongest links occur. The relevant names are listed by archipelago. Their incidence is also analyzed in the context of other evidence pertaining to contact between each island group and New Zealand, confirming an association not only with the Society, Southern Cook and Austral Islands, but also with three neglected regions, namely the Tuāmotu Archipelago, the Northern Cook Islands and Rapa Iti (Bass Islands).