THE NAME AOTEAROA

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE NAME AOTEAROA

pronunciation ot tlie name ot the British flying boat, which reached Auckland lately has exercised the tongues of thousands, with varying results. The first lesson to Ixi learned is that the "A" must not miyt'n the h,ngli.«h sound, heard in ate, "ape," and "ace." "A" in Maori is always "ah." The next lesson is that the vowel "e" in written Maori is sounded "ay," "tay."

By . . . JAMES COWAN.

Iho whole name, in slow time, i* pronounced "Ah-oh-tay-ah-roa." Gradually speeding it up from that beginning, you got, the exact full wound of the beautiful name. It is often hyphenated thus: Ao-tea-roa. It is preforal>le, however, to make it Aotearoa, if you u«n a hyphen to ease the pronunciation. Better still, keep it as one and undivided, when ils pronunciation become* familiar.

As to the origin and meaning: Legend and tradition contain varying versions of the nnmo-giving. I have heard a variety of tradition* from Maoris well-informed in the history of their ancestors. Some of those stories attribute the name to a chief in one of the Polynesian sailing cannos which brought early immigrant* here from Tahiti and other island* of the Pacific. There is little or no support fo r the "J,ong White Cloud" theory. The name is more often given a* a reference to white cliff* of the Bnv of Plenty and the Kast Coast, where most of the ancestral canoes made their first landfall.

The idea of "cloud" an an equivalent for "ho" should, 1 think, be dismissed from interpretations of the name. "Ao" does literally mean cloud, in addition to other things, but the Maori i" more likely to use the word "kapua."

"An,'* for one t hirig. means world, land, nnd there in some justification for this translation of the name as "Long White World," nnd "Long Bright Land," ntitl variations of that equivalent. In writing 011 this subject in some of my hooks on the Maori. I put forward this translation, based on traditional evidence I had collected on the East Coast, f wrote also that "Aotea" signifies the aether, the bright light of morning, the clean light of day; it is really a variant of "Awatea," clean daylight, the full dawn. "Awatea." when the full range of it« significance to the Maori mind is considered, ta the most meaningful and beautiful word in the language.

The fust motor ship Awatea, which is popularly called "the Tasman taxi" on the waterfront. carries a name

which js very similar to the clipper flying l>oai of Empire Airways, and the meanings are identical, with the addition of the "roa" for the fiver. "Awatea-roa" the equivalent of our Xi'W Zealand name. The name is, indeed. a fascinating one to the si ekcr-ont of word origin* in Maori and other Pacific languages. Its u<e as a place name goes far hack in time. We learn from Hawaikian traditions that Aotea was an ancient name of the island of Tahiti. It inav he that when the navigators of old reached this coast from their homeland in the tropica they »ave it their home-name, with the addition of "roa" because of the prcat extent of coastline stretching away as far as the eve could see. That would Ik> a very natural namegiving; our British pioneers gave their own familiar names to manv places in these new lands. Tn the Pacific see how many "News" there are prefixed to the name of an Old-

World inland—New Britain, New Ireland. The Polynesian ocean explorers approaching this coast named the 'moiu Barriei Island after their ancient Aotea far away, perhaps localise it<s northern an<l eastern coast, with its high cliffs, reminded them of Tahiti. I hen, sailing on, tlicv would reach the mainland fur which Aotea-roa would suggest itself as a description. Hut we must go back still further into the mists of tradition for the first mention of Aotearoa. in a verv ancient chant, Maui's lifting soniz when he hauled up the island from the depths of the ocean, I find the name occurs. He addresses the great land-fish emerging from the sea as Aotearoa. There is, of course, fact lichind this famous legend. The "fishing up" was Polynesian symbolism; it described the actual discovery of this country by an explorer and navigator who was the Tasman, the Captain Cook of his day. a greater than Columbus. The Maui who fished tip new lands was no mvtli. He is not to be confused with that heroic Maui who was the centre of the sun and fire Naturemyths of the Polynesians. I have

discussed the Maui stories in previous articles in "Knzed Junior." Knough to say here that Maui, the exploit), who came fioin the land called Mataora—which was most probably Samoa—not only discovered New Zealand, but ieft several of his crew in the eastern part of this inland. men and women whose descendants became a community called "Te Jwi a Maui." or "Maui's Tribe.They do not exist to-day as a clan, but their blood is in several of the principal tribes towards the I'.ast Cape. So Aotcaroa is a very ancient name indeed. It.s innermost meaning is not revealed in a literal interpretation. It is linked with the most ancient of traditior.s, the story of the coming of the first dawn, the breaking of the long night of l'o. the darkness. In an old Maori chant of a sentry on the watch-tower the cry to the garrison to l>e on the alert changes to a plad note as the morning comes, lirst the gradual dawn and then the bright daylight: "Ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea." ("'Tis dawn, 'tis dawn, 'tis full daylight.")