Te Ra Whiti

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 189, 9 May 1934, Page 11

Te Ra Whiti

Sir, —I believe it was Elsdon Best who first announced that Tarawhiti was the correct rendering of Terawhiti. He also stated that Captain Cook seems to have applied the name Terrawittee to Sinclair Head, and that in later times the name was transferred to where we now know it, the correct Native name of the district near Sinclair Head being Tarawhiti. Elsdon Best’s pronouncement on the spelling of Tarawhiti now has the support of the New Zealand Geographic Board. On present evidence the belief of Elsdon Best and the board does not seem to be justified. The most accomplished man accompanying Cook on his first voyage was Joseph Banks. A perusal of Banks’s printed Journal shows that he was nearer to rendering correctly Maori names than anyone else, and he expressed impatience at his companions’ employing a redundancy of letters when recording them. Banks advised the name as Tera Whitte. The accomplished Parkinson gave it as Teera Witte. Cook, if it is really Cook, seems to have floundered between Teiria Whitte and Teerawhitte. But the most interesting and significant rendering is that of the naturalist George Forster (second voyage), who gives Tera-wittee, the “a” being accented, and this is how we pronounce it to-day. In the Chart of Cook’s Strait, First Voyage, the. cape is properly placed, Elsdon Best having been misled by an ambiguity that may exist in Cook’s Chart of New Zealand. The early name of the cape is recorded as having been given to Cook and his party, January 31, 1770, when they were at Ship Cove. For a long time past doubt has been cast on the accuracy of it, writers believing that the Maori chief misunderstood the question put to him, hie reply conveying that in the land direction pointed out, the north-west part of tlie opposite coast, the sun. rose, hence his exclaiming Te Ra Whiti, the sun in Ihe east, or where the sun rises. On adduced evidence Te Ra Whiti 'would appear to be correct spelling of the place name, S. Percy Smith also writing it that way.—l am, etc., H. FILDES, Wellington, May 6.