Māori migration canoes

He explored its coast and killed the sea monster Te Wheke-a-Muturangi, finally returning to his home to spread the news of his newly discovered land.

Finally, in 1350 CE a 'great fleet' of seven canoes – Aotea, Kurahaupō, Mataatua, Tainui, Tokomaru, Te Arawa and Tākitimu – all departed from the Tahitian region at the same time, bringing the people now known as Māori to New Zealand.

These were advanced, warlike, agricultural tribes who destroyed the Moriori.The Great Fleet scenario won general acceptance, its adherents including the respected Māori ethnologist Te Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck), and it was taught in New Zealand schools.

However, it was effectively demolished during the 1960s by the ethnologist David Simmons, who showed that it derived from an incomplete and indiscriminate study of Māori traditions as recorded in the 19th century.

Their joint work was published in two books, in which Jury and Smith falsely attributed much of their information to two 19th-century tohunga, Moihi Te Mātorohanga and Nēpia Pōhūhū".