KARITANE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3957, 14 January 1930, Page 62

KARITANE.

TO THE EDITOR. Slit.—l have read with much interest the letters of 11. J. Fletcher (Seacliff)) and R. H. Steele (Dunedin), with which' in the main I agree. I will not. however) tully put forward niy reasons at present) as evidence is being collected for a cone plete exposition which will be put forward in due course. I do not attach much importance to the supposed meaning of the word or the attempts to translate it. lhe late Mr T. Parata. M.H.R.. told me many years ago that it meant “men uiggmg, but he offered no explanation of that, and probably knew of none. The \ery fact that he had nothing to say about its origin is strong evidence of its • n ?o Q ~” old nauie -. Mi Parata was boru in 183 1, and was in constant association with much older men. As for the suggestion that it is in some way derived from the name of Mr Creed, 1 can only say that all the evidence contradicts it. A story is told to support an imaginary meaning—-told in good faith, too —under inyest'gation the story proves a fallacy. Philologists tell us of the mythical origin of “ Shotover ” and many other English place-names, ami the Rev. Walter Skeat, the greatest of modern English philologists, cautions us against accepting such stories. It must however, be admitted that sometimes Maori placenames arose out of trifling incidents —

I umai is an example—but far more are ancestral names brought from the north or even from the Pacific. I have for more than 35 years kept a gazetteer of Maori names in Otago. My information (derived from Mr Parata) with reference to this place is thus entered:

Karitane is the name now given to the post office at Puketeraki. The name really belongs to a creek or gully down near Drake s, near to the schoolhouse. I he little creek, however, comes through the paddocks from the post office, so that Mr Parata was right in taking it to be the name of the block in which his home and the ]>ost office stood. The name has nothing to do with cither the peninsula or the site of the mission house. As to this. I am in agreement with Mr Cowan. Mi' H. Beattie, and others, besides your recent correspondents.-—I am. etc.. Fredk. R. Chapman.