ʻAvaiki
/ʔa.vaː.i.ki/noun
ʻAvaiki is the ancestral homeland or origin place in the mythology of several Eastern Polynesian peoples, especially the Cook Islands.
Did you know?In Cook Islands traditions, ʻAvaiki can function as both an ancestral origin place and a realm associated with the dead, making it simultaneously homeland and underworld.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Polynesian
Proto-Polynesian
*Sawaiki / *Hawaiki
“A reconstructed ancestral place-name; the precise original meaning remains debated.”
Proto-Eastern Polynesian
Proto-Eastern Polynesian
*Hawaiki
“An ancestral homeland remembered in oral traditions as the place from which people originated.”
Early Eastern Polynesian
Eastern Polynesian
Hawaiki
“A mythic homeland-name preserved across several Polynesian cultures.”
Traditional period
Rarotongan Māori
ʻAvaiki
“An ancestral origin realm and, in some traditions, a destination associated with the dead.”
Modern English
English
Avaiki / ʻAvaiki
“A Polynesian mythological homeland, especially in writing about Cook Islands traditions.”