I hope that I have not triggered anybody in NZ with that “moreno” there. It means “dark” or maybe “brown”. How do you pronounce it?
So moreno to you. As it’s dark right now. A better term for “morning” might be “aho ra” no? Which in Spanish means ‘now’ but in Maori (and maybe Egyptian but that language is a little hard to access) might mean “shine sun”.
Anyway it’s not just Northlanders around Dargaville who suggest there might just be an earlier European story in New Zealand than Captain Cook albeit one that is still Maori.
It seems that the main newspaper in Spain also thinks so (yes of course you should click the picture for the link)
This really is not a far out theory. It stands to reason that the Spanish and Portuguese were here before the Dutch and that Maori, whoever they were at the time, interbred with them. And by the way Zeeland in the Netherlands had been at war with the Spanish at that time. The naming of this country by Abel Tasman may therefore have some bite to it.
And that Maori owe some (or even much) of their heritage to Europe is almost incontrovertible as Maori Y DNA, male DNA, is almost 50% European even if that upsets some.
Warning don’t look up what San Lesmas means in Portuguese if you’re fragile…..
Here's a video of a discussion on the topic of the ship San Lesmas. It's in Spanish but you can manipulate it to give you english subtitles although the translation is not that great (like anything AI)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEUbAf0XZ1I
There's always the Alexander the Greek's lost squadron theories. After Afghanistan, they moved south, then out to sea. Polynesians, just another invader.