Havaiki
/haːˈvaiki/noun
A traditional ancestral homeland in Polynesian oral traditions, often associated with the origin place of a people or the realm of the dead.
Did you know?Havaiki is not one single universally located island: related forms across Polynesia can refer to an ancestral homeland, a place of origin, or a spirit world.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Polynesian reconstruction
Proto-Polynesian
*Sawaiki
“A reconstructed ancestral place-name, probably referring to a homeland or place of origin; its original meaning remains debated.”
Early Polynesian period
Proto-Polynesian
*s
“The reconstructed initial consonant was preserved in some Polynesian branches but changed to h or was lost in others.”
Traditional oral period
Polynesian
Hawaiki
“An ancestral homeland in Māori tradition, associated with the origins of the Māori people and with ancestral narratives.”
Traditional oral period
Rarotongan
Avaiki
“An ancestral homeland or origin place in the Cook Islands tradition; in some accounts it is also connected with the spirit world.”
Traditional oral period
Hawaiian
Hawaiʻi
“A related Polynesian place-name and the name of Hawaiʻi, traditionally connected by scholars with the wider *Sawaiki ancestral-place-name complex.”
Modern English
English
Havaiki
“A Polynesian proper name used in writing about ancestral homelands, migration traditions, mythology, and the afterlife.”