"ARIKI-TOA"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 90, 12 October 1929, Page 8

"ARIKI-TOA"

(To the Editor.) • 4i Sil'iT lt, was with a view to exposin" the blunder of calling the old Premiss* 5 residence "Ariki Toa" that I invited Hare Hongi to. give the meaning of the name. His interpretation and mine differ, but only slightly. Clearly whichever interpretation 1S given, a case has been made tor the immediate discontinuance of such an incongruous name. Ariki Toa as "victorious patriarch," as Hongi gives it, is too ridiculous for words as a name for this Home. Ike perpetrator o£ such a title must have been the victim of a Maoripakeha joke. i In my first letter I gave the meaning as 'Brave Chief," but that was largely because it was the accepted interpretation It l may presume to differ from an authi y i resl)ect an£l how to, I might say that Toa does cot mean victor or conqueror as Hare Hongi gives it-alfliough a .loa could be. both. I would prefer to interpret this word i£ into one English word-as "brave"-or to mean "a venturesome and brave leader of men." Ariki is a word totally misunderstood and in this ease almost blasphemously misapplied I agree entirely with Hare Hongi's interpretation. 1^ was used only in rare cases and for the very elect. It is the Maori equation for lord and master and used in nearly every appropriate prayer. It is the title given to the bishops. Thus "Ariki Toa" for a Prime Minister's residence is impossible.—l am, etc.,