The South Auckland Lines.

In the following list of Maori place names applied to the Government railway stations, I continue the series dealing with the South Auckland lines. The pronunciation of the Maori language was explained in the opening number of this series, to which readers in doubt can refer. The stressed broad sound of vowels in some names are indicated wherever necessary. The names given here include the short line to Waiuku, the Waikato line, the Waikato-Thames line, and the East Coast railway from Paeroa to Tauranga and Taneatua.

The Waiuku Line.

Patumāhoe:

Patu, to strike or kill; or a weapon; mahoe, the tree called whitewood, (Melicytus ramifloris). A tradition of the Ngati-Tamaoho tribe narrated to the writer by the old chief Tohikuri-o-Waikato states that a war-party from the Tamaki district attacked the Mauku - Patumahoe people about three hundred years ago. The pa of the Ngati-Tamaoho tribe was on the Titi hill on the present road from Mauku to Waiuku. The battle began on the western side of the place where the Mauku railway station now stands, near the church. Huritini, the chief of the invaders, was killed with a blow delivered with a mahoe stake, or part of a sapling, snatched up hurriedly from the ground by a Ngati-Tamaoho warrior who had dropped his weapon. The invaders were defeated and driven from the district. Hence the name of Patumahoe hill and settlement.

Mauku:

Small ground ferns.

Waiuku:

Clay water; stream with bed and banks of clay.

The Waikato Line.

Tuakau:

A combination of the words for stand (tu) and shore or coast (akau). The name originally of the high bluff hill on which the Alexandra Redoubt (still well preserved large earthworks) was built by the British troops in 1863.

It stands immediately above the Waikato River, and commands a view for many miles down the river.

Pokeno:

Po=night; keno=the night of death, the underworld.

Taupiri:

Closely-clinging; a lover. Hoataupiri, the beloved one; intimate friend.

Mahuta:

Called after Mahuta, the third Maori king of Waikato, son of Tawhiao.

Rotowaro:

Roto=lake; waro=coal-mine.

Pukemiro:

Hill of the miro tree (Podocarpus ferrugineus.)

Ngaruawāhia:

The food-stores (rua) broken open. Name derived from an incident of olden days when the chief of the place, in entertaining a large party of visitors, directed his men to wahia or break open the stores of kumara lately harvested; these stores, pits roofed over, were usually not touched until a special occasion arose to open them for a feast. The name is sometimes erroneously thought to refer to the meeting of the two rivers here, the Waikato and the Waipa (rua=two and wai=water).

Horotiu:

Swiftly flowing. This is the name applied to the Waikato River above its junction with the Waipa, where its current, as the Maori explorers ascended the river in their canoes, became strong and swift.

Ruakura:

Pit in red earth.

Mātangi:

Wind, breeze; usually wind from the north.

Hautapu:

Hau has numerous meanings. Here it may be taken as referring to a religious ceremony, hau being sacred food used in the removal of tapu from a person, or a newly-built house, etc.; also a portion of an enemy slain in battle, or something used in a rite to ensure good fortune. Hau also is the spiritual quality or essence which ensures the vitality of man. Tapu = sacred.

Waikato-Thames Line.

Piako:

One meaning is shrunk, another is hollow. But the name is an ancient Polynesian place name, given to the lower part of the Piako River by the Tainui immigrants from the Eastern Pacific.

Tatuanui:

Large girdle; the waist-belt of flax, often folded to carry valuables or food.

Waihou:

New river; fresh water.

Te Aroha:

The affections. The two mountain peaks of Te Aroha were so named by explorers of old because of their love and regret for their distant friends. Ihenga, of the Arawa people, and Rakataura, the priest of the Tainui, each ascended the mountain and looking towards the distant lands of their tribes chanted songs expressing their longing for them and they named the peaks Aroha-ki-tai (“Love landward”) and Aroha-ki-uta (“Love seaward”). The beautiful range may therefore be called the Mountain of Love.

Tirohia:

Look, behold.

Mangaiti:

Manga = creek, branch of a river; iti = small.

Paeroa:

Pae = ridge; roa = long.

Komata:

End, extremity, as of a range or hill; various other meanings.

Hikutaiā:

Hiku = the tail or end; taia = neap tide. (On the Waihou or Thames river).

Wharepoa:

Whare = house; poa = bait, or lure; also sacred food.

Omāhu:

The place or home of Mahu.

Puriri:

Ancient hill, pa above the Lower Waihou River, so named because of the abundant and large puriri trees which grew there.

Matatoki:

Edge of the axe.

Kōpu:

Numerous meanings, including the planet Jupiter; the belly; full; several kinds of fish, etc.

Parawai:

The Maori papa-kainga or village site near Thames town, at the mouth of the Waihou River. Principal meaning is a fine kind of flax robe or cloak, white, with a decorative border.

(Continued from page 24.)

rived from New Zealand, and forced the mate and crew to take them to the coast near Poverty Bay. Then followed Te Kooti's three years’ combat with the Government forces, and his career as the spiritual leader as well as the military hero of thousands of his fellow-Maoris.

In the Rotorua Country.

During the 'Seventies Mr. Smith's professional and official work lay largely in the country between Rotorua and Taupo, where he carried out much important survey work, and at the same time gathered all he could of the traditional history of the district from his Maori assistants and the old chiefs of the Arawa. In the early 'Eighties he laid out the new Government spa township of Rotorua, and it was his foresight that gave it its splendid wide streets. Immediately after the Tarawera eruption, when he was Chief Surveyor for the Auckland province, he made an inspection of the Tarawera - Rotomahana region and wrote an excellent report on the occurrence and the results of the eruption. This was followed by an account of the disaster by that eminent geologist, Professor A. P. Thomas, of the Auckland University College. These are the two standard scientific authorities to-day on that event of a thousand years.

An interlude in Mr. Smith's professional work in 1878 was his despatch to Sunday Island and the other islands of the Kermadec group in the Government steamer Stella in 1878, for the purpose of hoisting the British flag and proclaiming the annexation of the group to New Zealand, in conformity with the decision of the British and New Zealand Governments. Mr. Smith, in his later researches, identified Sunday Island as the Rangitahua of Maori-Polynesian tradition, a place of call on the ancient wonderful voyages of the navigators of the Pacific from their Eastern Pacific homes to the new land of Aotearoa.

The Lore of the Maori.

It was in the 'Nineties, when Mr. Smith was Surveyor-General of New Zealand, that I first made his acquaintance, and greatly I treasure the memory of the friendship that became established when I came to know him well, chiefly through our common interest in Maori-Polynesian research. He was always a most kindly mentor and guide whenever I sought his advice on matters of history and such recondite lore as the interpretation of difficult passages in the olden traditions and poems I collected from the elders of the tribes. Often they were not agreed themselves, those elders; they repeated the songs as they had been handed down, and some words had become obsolete and many passages cryptic. But Percy Smith and his friend, C. E. Nelson, of Whakare-warewa—a greatly-learned linguist who knew Arabic and Hebrew besides Maori and many European languages—were bright torches of enlightenment in the mazes of the ancient tales and poetic recitals.

The Search for Hawaiki.

Percy Smith and his staunch friend and fellow-student of Polynesian problems, Edward Tregear, were the chief pillars for many a year of the Polynesian Society, of which Mr. Smith was the chief founder, and the journal editor for many years. He was its long-term president, and its great pioneer in field work among the islands of the Eastern Pacific. In 1897 he spent his first year of leisure after his long period of Government service in cruising from island to island in his enthusiastic search for the last Hawaiki of the Maoris. His knowledge of the Maori tongue was the basis on which he soon built up his Polynesian linguistics, and he found many willing helpers among whites and natives in the Islands. The result of his enquiries clearly showed that the chief homes of our Maoris before their ancestors migrated to this country in their skilfully-navigated sailing-craft were Tahiti and its neighbouring islands of Porapora (now popularly and carelessly called Borabora), Taha'a and Raiatea (Maori Rangiatea). On their way to New Zealand most of these daring sailors called at Rarotonga. The fruits of Mr. Smith's researches, which took him also to Samoa, were embodied in his book, “Hawaiki,” the standard work of reference on the subject; it has gone through several editions.

Books of a Lifetime.

Two other great and valuable works of history from Mr. Smith's never-idle pen are “The History and Traditions of the West Coast,” embodying a Maori history of Taranaki from the ancient times, and “Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century.” Copious in detail, reliable in dates and places, written out of the fulness of his knowledge obtained from both Maori and pioneer pakeha sources, they are the two most useful histories to-day on their special subjects. But for Mr. Smith's intimate knowledge of the Maori and the mutual confidence and sympathy of their relations with each other, much of what is now on record would have been lost for ever, for the old generation has passed, and the young Maori of the North and the West Coast must go chiefly to Percy Smith's books for knowledge of his tribal past.

Percy Smith's work towers above that of all his brother Maori historians. His extraordinarily close and diligent study of the ancient traditions and genealogies and related lore laid a solid foundation for the scientific younger generation of recorders who have taken the Pacific as their field of exploration and enquiry.

The Lawgiver at Niue.

In 1901 the Government availed itself of Mr. Smith's knowledge of the Polynesian races and his sympathy and insight in native affairs by despatching him to Niue Island on a special mission to introduce a form of administration somewhat more consonant with British ideas than the then existing one. This proceeding was rendered necessary by the annexation of Niue and many other South Sea Islands to New Zealand under a proclamation made at Auckland on June 11, 1901, by the present King, then H.R.H. the Duke of Cornwall and York. Mr. Smith was an admirable lawgiver; he would have made an ideal administrator for such a place as Samoa, had he lived in this generation, judging by his excellent work at Niue. He modified some of the missionary and native laws, but interfered as little as possible with the patriarchal rule of the chiefs and he won the hearts of the people by his regard for their ancient institutions. The result of his lawgiving for Niue is seen in the consistently peaceable conditions there and the popularity of New Zealand's mild control. Mr. Smith profited by his four months’ stay on Niue to collect data for a book, “Niue-Fekai (or Savage) Island and Its People,” which is to-day the standard work on the island. One of our pictures shows Mr. Smith and Colonel Gudgeon (New Zealand Resident at Rarotonga) at a meeting with the people on the green in Avatele village, with the veteran Niue missionary, the Rev. F. E. Lawes, interpreting the speeches.

To this review of Mr. Smith's distinguished career in the service of the Government, it must be added that his son, Mr. M. Crompton Smith, also saw much of pioneer survey life. In 1883 he was cadet and topographer with Mr. Baber in the first flying survey made of the Urewera Country, a rough expedition in an all but unknown region, in which the survey was complicated by Maori suspicion and obstruction. Mr. Smith was Chief Draughtsman in the Survey Dept. when he retired from the Government Service.

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