Ruatapu was a son of the great chief Uenuku, and a master canoeist in Polynesian tradition who is said to have lived around 30 generations ago. Most Māori stories agree he was an older half-brother of Paikea and 69 other sons, while traditions recorded from the Cook Islands sometimes state he was Uanuku Rakeiora's only son.
Rarotonga is the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands. The island is volcanic, with an area of 67.39 km2 (26.02 sq mi), and is home to almost 75% of the country's population, with 10,898 of a total population of 15,040. The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga. Rarotonga is a very popular tourist destination with many resorts, hotels and motels. The chief town, Avarua, on the north coast, is the capital of the Cook Islands.
In Polynesian mythology, Hawaiki is the original home of the Polynesians, before dispersal across Polynesia. It also features as the underworld in many Māori stories.
Hōkūleʻa is a performance-accurate waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it is best known for its 1976 Hawaiʻi to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusively traditional navigation techniques. The primary goal of the voyage was to explore the anthropological theory of the Asiatic origin of native Oceanic people as the result of purposeful trips through the Pacific, as opposed to passive drifting on currents or sailing from the Americas. DNA analysis supports this theory. A secondary project goal was to have the canoe and voyage "serve as vehicles for the cultural revitalization of Hawaiians and other Polynesians."
Mangaia is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga. It is a roughly circular island, with an area of 51.8 square kilometres (20.0 sq mi), 203 kilometres (126 mi) from Rarotonga. Originally heavily populated, Mangaia's population has dropped by 75% in the last 50 years, mainly due to the decline of the pineapple industry in the 1980s and a subsequent economic crisis in 1996.
Waka are Māori watercraft, usually canoes ranging in size from small, unornamented canoes used for fishing and river travel to large, decorated war canoes up to 40 metres (130 ft) long.
Sir Thomas Robert Alexander Harries Davis was a Cook Islands statesman and medical researcher. He served as Prime Minister of the Cook Islands from 1978 to March 1983, and again from November 1983 to July 1987. He also worked as a medical officer, and as a medical researcher for the US Army and NASA. He was a founder of the Cook Islands Voyaging Society and constructed and voyaged in several replica vaka, including Tākitumu and Te Au o Tonga.
Manuae is an uninhabited atoll in the southern group of the Cook Islands, 100 kilometres south-east of Aitutaki. Manuae is not administratively part of Aitutaki, however, it is part of Arutanga-Reureu-Nikaupara Constituency on Aitutaki for electoral purposes only.
The Parliament of the Cook Islands is the legislature of the Cook Islands. Originally established under New Zealand’s United Nations mandate it became the national legislature on independence in 1965.
Tākitimu was a waka (canoe) with whakapapa throughout the Pacific particularly with Samoa, the Cook Islands, and New Zealand in ancient times. In several Māori traditions, the Tākitimu was one of the great Māori migration ships that brought Polynesian migrants to New Zealand from Hawaiki. The canoe was said to be captained by Tamatea.
Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometres of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. This island hopping was a solution against the scarcity of useful resources, such as food, wood, water, and available land, on the small islands in the Pacific Ocean. When an island’s required resources for human survival began to run low, the island's inhabitants used their maritime navigation skills and set sail for a new island full of possibilities. However, as an increasing number of islands in the South Pacific became occupied, and citizenship and national borders became of international importance, this was no longer possible. People thus became trapped on islands with the inability to support them.
Dorice Reid, also known by the chiefly title Te Tika Mataiapo Dorice Reid, was a Cook Islander tourism official, businesswoman and judge. Reid enjoyed a long career in Cook Island business, politics and tourism from the 1970s until her death in 2011.
Polynesian multihull terminology, such as "ama", "aka" and "vaka" are multihull terms that have been widely adopted beyond the South Pacific where these terms originated. This Polynesian terminology is in common use in the Americas and the Pacific but is almost unknown in Europe, where the English terms "hull" and "outrigger" form normal parlance. Outriggers, catamarans, and outrigger boats are a common heritage of all Austronesian peoples and predate the Micronesian and Polynesian expansion into the Pacific. They are also the dominant forms of traditional ships in Island Southeast Asian and Malagasy Austronesian cultures, where local terms are used.
The Cook Islands Voyaging Society (CIVS) is a non-profit organisation in the Cook Islands dedicated to the promotion of Polynesian navigation, cultural ancestry, and environmental knowledge for future generations. It builds and sails replicas of traditional double-hulled voyaging canoes, undertaking voyages throughout Polynesia using traditional navigation techniques.
Te Au o Tonga is a reconstruction of a vaka moana, a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 1994 by former Cook Islands Prime Minister Thomas Davis and the Cook Islands Voyaging Society. It was used to teach polynesian navigation.
Rongomatane Ngaakaara Ariki was an ariki of the island of Atiu in the Cook Islands. He established Atiuan domination over the neighbouring islands of Mitiaro, and Mauke through a succession of raids. He was converted to Christianity in 1823 by John Williams of the London Missionary Society, and showed him the way to Rarotonga.
Gaualofa is a reconstruction of a va'a-tele, a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. It was given to the Samoa Voyaging Society in 2012, on the occasion of Samoa's 50th anniversary of independence. It is used to teach polynesian navigation.
ʻAunofo Havea Funaki is the first woman from Tonga to become a licensed sea captain. The owner of a business that takes tourists to "swim with the whales", she has captained a traditional Polynesian canoe that sailed from the Pacific islands to the USA.
Faʻafaite is a reconstruction of a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. It is operated by the Fa’afaite-Tahiti Voyaging Society and used to teach used to teach polynesian navigation.
