He came from an unknown land--the first Maori did--then sailed back in his canoe and brought his tribe, and they removed the aboriginal peoples into the sea and into the ground and took the land.

That is the tradition.

That that first Maori could come, is understandable, for anybody can come to a place when he isn't trying to; but how that discoverer found his way back home again without a compass is his secret, and he died with it in him.

His language indicates that he came from Polynesia.

He told where he came from, but he couldn't spell well, so one can't find the place on the map, because people who could spell better than he could, spelt the resemblance all out of it when they made the map.