Use of Ngati in Mangaian Society

Mangaia (traditionally known as Auau Enua, which means terraced) is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga.

The Cook Islands are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. They are in the South Pacific Ocean, north-east of New Zealand, between French Polynesia and Fiji. There are fifteen major islands, spread over 2.2 million square kilometres of ocean, divided into two distinct groups: the Southern Cook Islands, and the Northern Cook Islands of coral atolls.

The term Ngati is sometimes used as a synonym for "tribe" or even "family line", but this is incorrect. It was a prefix which required the addition of the ancestor's personal name. Examples of Mangaian tribal names are Ngati-Vara and Ngati-Amai. In the Ngati-Tane, Tane is not a human ancestor but a god, and the various immigrant groups of Aitu people, who were all worshipers of the god Tane, were conveniently grouped together under the alternative name of Ngati-Tane. The tribes using an ancestral name without the prefix sometimes used the prefix; but its dropping was a question of usage. Koroa, however, did use the term ngati by itself as the equivalent of "tribe," but he was using poetic license which does not enter into current speech.

The method of naming the tribes varied. The name of the eponymous ancestor was used without any prefix, as in Paparangi, Akatauira, Vaeruarangi, Manaune, and perhaps Te Kama. In three names the tribal prefix, Ngati, which is formed of the plural definite article nga (the) combined with ti and means "the descendants of" is used. Thus Ngati-Vara means the descendants of Vara and includes those descended from Vara in the male line.

Avaiki

Avaiki is one of the many entities by which the people of Polynesia refer to their ancestral and spiritual homelands. By no means certain, but certainly possible, its origin lies in the large islands of Samoa, namely Savaii. Variants include, in order of migration, Havaii, the old name for Raiatea in French Polynesia; the far better known Hawaii in the United States, Avaiki in the Cook Islands and Niue and Hawaiki in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

There are endless local variants. In the Cook Islands, for example, on the capital island of Rarotonga, northern facing volcanic rocks, tumbling onto the shore millennia ago and still set in place, are well known as the ancient departure point for souls bound for Avaiki - the afterworld or heaven. In fact each island, vaka or ngati (family line) has its own Avaiki or interpretation of it. For instance it would be somewhere in the manu'a islands group (American Samoa) for the Ngati Karika (Te au o Tonga tribe - Rarotonga)[1]. For the Ngati Tangi'ia (Takitumu tribe-Rarotonga), it would be at Tahiti. Others locate Avaiki at Raiatea...

In the mythology of Mangaia (Cook Islands), Avaiki is the "underworld" or "netherworld". It is described like a hollow of a vast coconut shell. Varima-te-takere, the mother of Vatea, lives in the lowest depths of the interior of this coconut shell. Nevertheless the famous maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck), gives a less mystical interpretation of this mangaian Avaiki. According to him, "when Tangi'ia came to Rarotonga from Tahiti, he brought with him some rankless "manahune". As they had no chance of rising in social status, some of them under the leadership of Rangi migrated to Mangaia to start a new life. Their antagonism toward Rarotonga made them conceal the land of origin and invent an origin from a spiritual homeland in the netherworld of Avaiki".