Toto

A chief of Hawaiki, and the father of Rongorongo, the wife of Turi, and Kura-maro-tini, the wife of Hotu-rapa. He hewed down a tree, which grew on the banks of Lake Waiharakeke, and split it, breaking it length-ways into two parts; out of one part of the tree he made a canoe, which he named Matahōrua, and out of the other part he made a canoe which he named Aotea. The first he gave to Kura-maro-tini, and the second he gave to Rongorongo.

The Matahōrua was the canoe in which a large part of the world was explored, and Reti was the name of the man who navigated it. The other, the Aotea, was given to Turi, and became one of the famous canoes of the Migration of the ancestors of the Māori people to New Zealand.

Toto also had a son, Tuau.

References

Sources

  • Grey, Sir George. (1855). Polynesian Mythology. Auckland: Brett, p. 128.
  • Tregear, Edward. (1891). Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary. Wellington: Government Printer, p. 537.