Hawaiki

[citation needed] Although the Samoans have preserved no traditions of having originated elsewhere, the name of the largest Samoan island Savaiʻi preserves a cognate with the word Hawaiki, as does the name of the Polynesian islands of Hawaiʻi (the ʻokina denoting a glottal stop that replaces the "k" in some Polynesian languages).

[3] William Wyatt Gill wrote at length in the nineteenth century recounting the legends about ʻAvaiki as the underworld or Hades of Mangaia in the Cook Islands.

Other possible cognates of the word Hawaiki include saualiʻi ("spirits" in Samoan) and houʻeiki ("chiefs" in Tongan).

This has led some scholars to hypothesize that the word Hawaiki, and, by extension, Savaiʻi and Hawaiʻi, may not, in fact, have originally referred to a geographical place, but rather to chiefly ancestors and the chief-based social structure that pre-colonial Polynesia typically exhibited.

[8] However, DNA, linguistic, botanical, and archaeological evidence all indicate that the Austronesian-speaking peoples (including the Polynesians) probably originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from present-day Taiwan.

[12] Austronesian and Polynesian navigators may have deduced the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.

[13] In recent decades, boatbuilders (see Polynesian Voyaging Society) have constructed ocean-going craft using traditional materials and techniques.

They have sailed them over presumed traditional routes using ancient navigation methods, showing the feasibility of such deliberate migration that make use of prevailing winds.