Creating a new life

It makes sense that; you’ve got to have waka that carry food and people. And so one waka wouldn’t be able to do it all… maybe?

I mean one thing’s very clear in terms of the food. The presence of the kurī, you know the Māori dog, the kurī, things like kūmara, it shows that…and the kiore, the rat, they were all brought over as food sources on the waka. So you are absolutely right, that they must have brought food with them, and not just survived on fishing on the way over.

And also they came as complete communities. It wasn’t just men who came, women came as well, presumably children also came because they came here to create a new life. They didn’t come you know as accidental voyagers, they came here quite deliberately and brought their food, their people, a complete community.