In nearly every Polynesian language, moana simply means the open sea or vast ocean. It evokes not only the physical expanse of water but also ideas of horizon, depth, and the domain of Tangaroa/Kanaloa—the great Ocean‑God who links all islands. The word appears in:
- Māori – Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa (“the Great Ocean of Kiwa”) is a poetic name for the Pacific.
- Samoan – moana designates deep water beyond the reef, in contrast to tai (coastal sea).
- Tongan – moana likewise marks the deep blue beyond the lagoons.
- Hawaiian – though less common in everyday speech, moana survives in older chants and place‑names.
Because Polynesian cultures see the ocean as highway, larder, and ancestral realm, the term carries spiritual resonance. Chants describe te moana as a living, breathing entity whose winds and swells speak to voyagers; genealogies sometimes trace descent from sky to land to moana, emphasising kinship with the sea itself.
Broader Cultural Usage
- Regional Identity – Contemporary Pacific Islanders often call their shared region Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, underscoring the ocean’s role in uniting distant peoples far more than separating them.
- Personal Names – Moana is used as a given name (traditionally female), embodying qualities of depth, dynamism, and connection.
- Modern Popular Culture – The 2016 Disney film titled Moana introduced the term to global audiences, but its storyline blends and simplifies several traditional voyaging motifs. In everyday Polynesian contexts, the word still points first to the ocean itself, not to the film.
Conceptual Significance
- Wayfinding & Navigation – For master navigators, the moana is a readable “blue continent”, alive with star‑paths, swells, bird‑flight, and cloud‑shadows that reveal hidden landfalls.
- Spiritual Realm – Many traditions hold that spirits travel along pathways in the sea or that deities reside beneath its surface, making the moana both highway and underworld.
- Cultural Memory – Oral histories encode routes across the moana—Kupe to Aotearoa, Hotu Matu‘a to Rapa Nui, Lo‘au toward Pulotu—so the word carries ancestral authority.
The Voyage of Mo‘ikeha (Hawaiʻi)
Long ago in ancient Hawaiʻi, two brothers of the high chiefly family of Maweke – Olopana and Mo‘ikeha – set out on an extraordinary journey. Olopana had married Lu‘ukia, a chief’s daughter of Kohala on the island of Hawaiʻi (the Big Island). Their lands in the verdant Waipiʻo Valley were lush and well-tended. But a great flood swept through the land, carrying all before it. Olopana and Lu‘ukia fled to Kahiki (Tahiti), leaving their fate to the gods. Some say that it was there in Kahiki that Mo‘ikeha, younger brother of Olopana, was living. Mo‘ikeha fell deeply in love with Lu‘ukia, who remained beautiful and faithful. Olopana, kind at heart, raised no objections to this affection. However, a jealous suitor named Mua spread lies that Mo‘ikeha had been slandering Lu‘ukia, so she would no longer look upon him. Heartbroken at losing Lu‘ukia’s favour, Mo‘ikeha decided to leave. He entrusted his lands to Olopana and, under cover of night, embarked in a small double canoe with a band of loyal companions.
The voyage that followed was both perilous and fateful. Mo‘ikeha’s canoe swept westward across the open Pacific, paddling on starry nights and praying for calm seas. Eventually his canoes beached upon the windswept eastern shore of Kauaʻi, a lush isle then called Waimahanalua. There, on the sands of Kapaʻa in Wailua, he encountered the two beautiful daughters of Chief Puna, who were out surfing at dawn. The maiden surfers took Mo‘ikeha as their husband. When Chief Puna died, Mo‘ikeha succeeded him as ruler of the fertile Halele‘a district on Kauaʻi. Thus the exile from Hawaiʻi found a new home among strangers.
Mo‘ikeha did not remain without legacy. He soon married Puna’s daughters and fathered many children. His eldest son, Hoʻokamaliʻi, settled on Oʻahu; another son, Haʻulanui-a-ikea, remained on Kauaʻi; and a third son, Kīla, eventually sailed back to the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. Other sons – Umalehu, Kaʻialeʻa, Kekaihawewe, and Laukapalālā – spread to various parts of the islands. Mo‘ikeha’s wives were Hoʻoipo-i-ka-malanai and Hina-uʻulua (or perhaps these were two names for one person). As he grew older, Mo‘ikeha composed chants and named lands; one famous chant declares “Eia Hawaiʻi – here is Hawaiʻi, a man indeed, a child of Kahiki [Tahiti]” – honouring his arrival from across the sea. Through Mo‘ikeha the noble lines of that island grew, and place-names from his voyage live on Kauaʻi and beyond. His story – of exile from Waipiʻo, the long canoe trip, and a new rule in Kauaʻi – remains one of Hawaiʻi’s great voyaging sagas.
Laka’s Quest (Maui and Hawaiʻi)
In the legendary past of Maui’s forests and shores, there lived a young hero named Laka. He was son of Wahieloa, a chief of Hilo, and Hina-hawea; Laka was raised by his grandmother Hina-howana. When Laka learned that his father had been killed on Hawaiʻi island and his bones left in a dark cave, he resolved to retrieve them. Laka first had to build a proper voyaging canoe – a daunting task. One night, after sawing through a sacred tree intended for the hull, Laka hid and caught the two mischievous forest spirits (the “menehune”) who had been causing the trouble. He offered them cocoanut oil to grease their mouths, and in return they did a marvelous thing: by morning two fine canoes were standing outside his door, ready to be lashed together and launched.
Equipped with these canoes, Laka gathered a crew of four seasoned men – each with a role. “Father Prop” held open cavern doors, “Father Torch” carried fire, “Father Seeker” was to find the bones, and “Father Stretch” would reach in. Under Laka’s command they set sail from Maui to Hawaiʻi Island. Landing at Pūnaluʻu on the Kona coast, they found the cave of the old woman Kaikapu who guarded Wahieloa’s remains. Laka offered her a steaming bowl of soup as a bribe. She tasted it and complained it had no salt, slamming the door before he could get her attention. Calmly, Laka instructed Father Stretch to scoop sea water from different places until he found salt from Puna. When Kaikapu accepted the soup and reopened the cave, Father Prop and Father Torch sprang into action. The cave was thrown open, the flickering torchlight showed Wahieloa’s bones, and Father Stretch fetched them out from the darkness.
In that moment the adventure reached its climax. Laka’s men killed the cannibal old woman Kaikapu to free themselves of her curse. By dawn the canoes were packed with Wahieloa’s bones and the bodies of the companions of old, and Laka steered the hulls back across the channel to Maui. They landed at Kaumakani near the sea-cliffs. There in peace Laka finally deposited his father’s bones in a secret cave at Papaʻuluāna. Thus Laka’s brave voyage – a quest to recover a chief’s bones from a far island – was completed. His success brought honour to his family: the cave at Papaʻuluāna is to this day said to hold those sacred bones. In recognition of this feat, chants were composed celebrating Laka and his helpers as they triumphed over the ocean. The story of Laka, and the mysterious night during which his canoes magically appeared, became one of Maui’s enduring legends. It shows both the supernatural aid the gods could grant and the skill of the Polynesian wayfinder.
Kupe of Hawaiki (New Zealand)
Among the Māori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), it is said that the first explorer to discover the islands was Kupe of Hawaiki. According to tribal tradition, fishing in Kupe’s homeland had become poor – a monstrous octopus belonging to the chief Muturangi had devoured all the fish. Determined to defeat the beast, Kupe set out in his great voyaging canoe (named Tāwhirirangi) across the wide Pacific Ocean. For days he chased the giant octopus through sun and storm, paddling ever westward into unknown seas.
At last the chase led him to a distant land – New Zealand – whose islands appeared beneath the long white clouds. Here in the strait now called Cook Strait (Te Moana-o-Raukawa), Kupe and his crew caught and killed the octopus at last. Many iwi (tribes) today cherish stories of Kupe’s travels: they say that as Kupe came ashore, his wife Kuramārōtini named the North Island Aotearoa – “Long White Cloud” – upon seeing the cloud-shadow over the peaks. Other place-names likewise commemorate Kupe: for example, Te Aumiti (French Pass) marks where one of Kupe’s birds broke its wing, opening the channel in the rocks.
In every telling, Kupe’s voyage from Hawaiki to Aotearoa is crucial. It provides the first chapter in Māori tradition and anchors Māori whakapapa (genealogy) to that land. From Kupe’s journey on came the first settlement by Toi and later by many other great chiefs. Descendants of Kupe’s crew maintain tribal ties throughout the North Island and beyond, as if each wave of settlement rolled from that first canoe. Thus Kupe’s saga – high adventure on ocean currents and battles with monsters – is remembered as the foundational epic of New Zealand’s discovery.
Paikea, the Whale Rider (East Coast New Zealand)
Another Māori legend tells how one courageous soul survived an ocean ordeal by the help of a whale. This is the story of Paikea. He was born Kahutia-te-rangi, a prince of high rank. But his half-brother, Ruatapu, grew jealous and cunning. One day Ruatapu invited Kahutia and many noble young men into a canoe, only to scuttle it in deep sea. Waves rushed in, and nearly all the sons of the chief Uenuku drowned – all except Kahutia.
Kahutia-te-rangi cried to the gods for aid. The sea god Tangaroa answered his prayers. From the depths rose a mighty humpback whale (called paikea in Māori). Kahutia clung to the whale’s back, holding on through all night and storm. At dawn the whale breached into the sunlight, and Kahutia realized he had been carried to safety on a distant shore. Trembling, he stepped onto the land of New Zealand’s east coast, far from home. In gratitude, he took the name Paikea, “whale rider,” in honour of the creature that saved him.
Paikea became an ancestor of tribes along the Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay coasts. His story is told by carvings and chants even today – a reminder of the sea’s power to destroy or to deliver. Māori art often shows Paikea astride a whale, and each generation recalls how his faith and bravery drew divine aid. Like Kupe before him, Paikea links the people of the land to their ocean journey from Hawaiki: he arrived from overseas on the back of a whale, and thus his lineage also hails from the Pacific beyond the horizon.
The Voyage of Loʻau and the Twins (Tonga and Samoa)
Far to the west of Hawaiʻi and New Zealand lies the ocean kingdom of Tonga. Here, centuries ago, a daring navigator named Loʻau lived in the great isle of Tongatapu. Loʻau was famous for his skill and knowledge; one day tired of local gossip about when he would next sail, he decided to prove himself by voyaging beyond all known horizons. He ordered his attendants – Kae and Longopoa – to help launch his double-hulled canoe (a tongiaki or kalia). One dawn he quietly had it dragged to the beach and filled with food and fine tapa cloths.
Loʻau told Kae and Longopoa to sail eastward, first skirting home islands Haʻapai, Vavaʻu and Niuafoʻou. They observed island after island disappearing astern – Niuatoputapu, Samoa, and even the distant shores of ʻUvea and Futuna. When at last they saw nothing but sky on the sea’s edge, Loʻau revealed his plan: they had reached the limits of Tonga, but he wanted to go beyond the sky, to seek Pulotu (the land of the spirits) or simply to test the strength of the world.
The canoe drove into the open ocean. Sail after sail took them over a white sea, then a sea of floating pumice, then a dark slimy expanse. Day after day they pressed on until one morning they came to “the end of the sky” – a sky-full of swirling clouds and a strange whirlpool, like a giant mouth opening at the horizon. The sea boiled around them; a towering reef with a single pandanus (puko) tree and a large rock appeared. The canoe’s mast snagged in the tree’s branches. With a final heave, the hull of Loʻau’s canoe slipped into the whirlpool and vanished from sight. Loʻau and some of the crew were never seen again – lost in the remoteness of the sea.
Only Kae and Longopoa survived. They had agreed that if Loʻau disappeared, each would save himself. That night, the waters receded. Kae and Longopoa climbed from the reef – Kae clinging to the tree, Longopoa to the rock. After a few moments they sensed it was safe to swim. Each swam to a different island.
Kae’s adventure took him first to an island where dead whales littered the sand. He hid between two carcasses through the night. In the morning a gigantic bird (a kanivatu, like the rocs of legend) returned and swept Kae up by the leg. The bird flew him far over the ocean, dropping him at last onto Upolu in Samoa. There he was found by Chief Sinilau of ʻUpolu. Sinilau welcomed Kae into his house, granting him status and offering him a place to stay. After some time in Samoa, Kae asked Sinilau to send him home. Amazingly, Sinilau told him to ride the backs of Sinilau’s two pet whales, Tonga and Tununga, back to Tonga. Kae did so; the whales carried him swiftly back to Tongatapu.
Back in Tonga, however, Kae’s recklessness brought tragedy. He revealed Sinilau’s secret of the two sacred whales to everyone. On a great day, many Tongan chiefs gathered and slaughtered the whales on the beach, feasting on their meat. When Sinilau heard of this atrocity he was furious. He summoned a host of gods and tricked Kae: they carried the news of Kae’s deed back to Samoa in secret baskets of dung. Before sunrise the gods had flown to Tonga, seized Kae in his sleep, and returned him to Samoa. There in the night of Tuamatā they bound him and threw him to the waiting gods, who devoured him – a grim repayment for betraying Sinilau’s trust.
Longopoa’s fate was gentler. He had swum to another island with a solitary puko tree. When night fell, the talking tree spoke to him. It told Longopoa how to build an oven and cook one of its own branches. The next morning Longopoa found food and water miraculously supplied; then he told the tree he wished to return home. The tree whispered that the gods were about to fish, and that if Longopoa carried their basket, the gods would unknowingly fish all the way to Samoa. Longopoa followed these instructions exactly. He crept behind the fishing gods and knelt carrying their heavy basket as they sailed. As dawn approached near Samoa, Longopoa imitated a rooster’s crow. The gods, thinking morning had come, stopped fishing. They were shocked to find themselves in home waters, and Longopoa casually asked to be put ashore. With a branch he carried from the magical tree, Longopoa planted a new puko that would feed his people. Thus, both Kae and Longopoa returned from the very edge of the world, one by bird, the other by gods’ canoe, their stories joining the web of tales that span the Pacific.
Hotu Matu‘a, King of Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
One of the most famous colonizing voyages of all Oceania leads to the remote isle of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Here the first king, Hotu Matu‘a, is honored in legend as the patriarch of the people. His saga begins on a lost Polynesian homeland called Hiva (sometimes said to be in the west or north). According to Rapa Nui tradition, Hotu Matu‘a’s brother Machaa fell in love with a beautiful woman, but a rival chief Oroi sought her hand. The woman tricked Oroi into walking around their island without rest. During Oroi’s fruitless journey, she eloped with Machaa and hid. Furious, Oroi rallied his warriors to kill Hotu Matu‘a and all his family. Hearing of Oroi’s revenge, Hotu Matu‘a acted swiftly. He prepared two giant double-hulled canoes – each nine metres long – laden with food, slaves, priests and one priest-in-training named Haumaka. Under cover of darkness the fleet set sail, steering by the setting sun as their guide.
Hotu Matu‘a’s people owed their success to the spirit Make-Make. He had appeared to Machaa in a dream and told him of an uninhabited island to the west wrapped in fog and clouds. After two months of sailing into the endless sea, Machaa’s canoe was the first to sight land – Rapa Nui, at the sparrows’ field of Anakena. They beached their craft on the south side of the long sandy bay. When they stepped ashore the island had clear air and uncrowded beaches – a new world. A great turtle was found on the beach (one of the early arrivals was indeed killed by its flipper). Machaa and his party spent two months exploring, planting karaka trees and making the land habitable.
Shortly afterwards, Hotu Matu‘a’s two canoes arrived with 300 settlers. Oroi had stowed away disguised as a slave, but Hotu Matu‘a’s warriors caught him and cast him into a net. For years the new settlers fought fierce wars with Oroi’s people, but Hotu Matu‘a ultimately triumphed. The rivals were reconciled only after Oroi was captured and executed. (Legend says Hotu Matu‘a spared Oroi long enough to kill him with a festival drum.)
Hotu Matu‘a then became the island’s first king. He divided the land among his chiefs and built ahu (stone platforms) along the coast. But before his death he followed his other brother’s dream as well. The priest Haumaka, whose spirit flew over Rapa Nui in a vision, marked the spots of three small islets and a mountain peak called Puka Kiripū (‘black cliff’) – these became sacred sites. Hotu Matu‘a heard the news, and the islanders welcomed him at what is still called “the king’s bay” (Hanga Rau o te Ariki). There Hotu Matu‘a built his first dwelling.
In Rapa Nui lore, Hotu Matu‘a’s voyage holds deep meaning. He brought Polynesian language and culture to that lonely rock in the Pacific. His story is preserved in songs and oral traditions – for example, chants describe the canoes that left Marae Roa (Hiva) and arrived at Anakena under the guiding sun. The famed moai statues that came later are said to have been first ordered by Hotu Matu‘a, linking him to the island’s sacred art. Hotu Matu‘a’s name still evoked reverence: he is sometimes called “the king of all Rapa Nui” in later chants. In every telling, the dramatic voyage of Hotu Matu‘a’s people – fleeing their boiling tropical home for a storm-wracked voyage and finally finding a distant land – stands as a testament to the grand tradition of Polynesian voyaging.
Significance and Cultural Heritage of the Voyages
These tales of Moana (the great ocean) are far more than fanciful stories. For Pacific peoples, they encode history, identity and wisdom. In every saga above, the characters master the sea – by stars, swells, birds and prayer – to reach distant islands. Indeed, Polynesians over millennia became unparalleled ocean navigators. They crafted double-hulled voyaging canoes capable of carrying people across thousands of miles, and they developed sophisticated wayfinding techniques based on nature’s signs. Navigation lore and route knowledge were passed down orally – in songs, chants and genealogies – from master to apprentice, often cloaked in mythic language. Each island maintained its own school of wayfinders: respected experts who could evacuate a community in famine or guide fleets of colonists to new lands. As one modern account notes, traditional navigation “was based on the knowledge passed by oral tradition from master to apprentice,” and even today skilled navigators still teach these methods in places like Taumako and across voyaging societies.
The voyaging sagas themselves serve a similar purpose. They link people across the Pacific. A Hawaiian chief exiled from one isle becomes ruler on another (Mo‘ikeha), a Māori hero from far-off Hawaiki slays monsters in New Zealand (Kupe, Paikea), a Tongan priest sails to the edge of the sky (Loʻau), and a Polynesian king colonizes Easter Island (Hotu Matu‘a). These stories tell each community who they are and where they came from. They provide spiritual and genealogical foundations: for example, Māori can recite descent from the canoe crews of Kupe or Paikea. The legends also preserve environmental knowledge: they mention stars, places, animals (like whales and octopi) and ocean currents encountered on the way. In this way, they are instructional as much as they are entertaining.
Over the last century Pacific peoples have revived many voyaging traditions once threatened by colonialism. The great sea canoes (called waka in Māori, wa‘a in Hawaiʻi, kalia in Tonga, etc.) have been rebuilt using traditional designs, and young navigators have learned the ancient paths. The success of the Hōkūleʻa and other Polynesian voyaging canoes – traveling thousands of miles using only traditional navigation – has inspired new generations to honor these old stories. Modern voyagers often reference the legends: for example, retracing Hotu Matu‘a’s route or telling Kupe’s tale as they sail through Cook Strait.
In sum, the Pacific voyaging sagas are living heritage. They remind us that long ago, ancestors defied the horizon’s mystery and turned the endless sea into a bridge between islands. These myths continue to be shared at family gatherings and on ceremonial marae. Each chapter of the epic – Mo‘ikeha’s journey, Laka’s quest, Kupe’s chase, Paikea’s whale, Loʻau’s odyssey, Hotu Matu‘a’s voyage – honors the courage and skill of those early navigators. Through them we glimpse the worldview of Pacific peoples: one where humanity, nature and the gods join on the waves of the Pacific Ocean. In that vast ocean, the voyaging sagas ensure that no island, no family and no story is ever truly alone.
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