SCOTS PLACE-NAMES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3938, 11 August 1937, Page 10

SCOTS PLACE-NAMES

EXAMPLES IN NEW ZEALAND. MOSTLY IN THE SOUTH ISLAND. “Jack Frac Murihiku ” writes as follows to the Weekly Scotsman on a subject of New Zealand interest. The exiled Scot domiciled in New Zealand never forgets and never ceases to think of Scotland of the mist and the cloud. Loving thoughts are ever uppermost in their minds for the land of the heath and the heather, and are exemplified in the monuments that their patriotism, loyalty, and pride of race have prompted them to erect the Dominion oved in memory of Burns, Scott, and other illustrious Scots. The desire of others to perpetuate the name of some well-loved place, town, or river is evidenced as indicated by your Canadian and Tasmanian correspondents. You published recently a poem of the late Tom Bracken, “ Dunedin from the Bay.” Dunedin 2 Yes, Gaelic for Edinburgh. “ Princes Street, ’ Roslyn.” “ the Water of Leith,” “ Musselburgh ” —all these and others there are in that lovely city founded almost ninety years ago by the Scottish pioneers to New Zealand.

One has only to wander through the picture gallery in the hall of the Otago Early Settlers’ Association in Dunedin to obtain evidence of the noble and earnest types who, hailing from Caledonia stern and wild, turned land once covered by bush, fern, flax, and tussock into what is now one of the most solid and best-established .cities in the Southern Hemisphere, with its wonderful background of fertile plains mid grassy hills. AT INVERCARGILL. From Dunedin we may fly, motor, or proceed by train a distance of 1.40 miles to the city of Invercargill, the most southern city in the world, beautifully laid out with its wealth of parks and reserves. Glancing at the street name-plates we see such names as Leven, Esk, Dee, Tay, Gala, Leet, Yarrow, Spey, Don, Forth, Tyne, Eye, Tweed, Teviot, Ettrick, Bowmont, Earn, Biggar, Liddell, Kelvin, Deveron, Jed and Doon Ness Ythan, Conon, Nith, and Clyde. What memories these names must recall 1 What a pride in Scotland prompted the naming I

“ As o’er these names my memory wakes, And fondly broods with miser care, Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear.”

Our Highland, Caledonian, and Burns societies keep the Scottish history, customs, music, songs, poems, and tongue to the fore, and the skirl of the pipes and the braw lads in their kilts may be heard and seen in every town of note, particularly in this the South Island of New Zealand. And now, although the old original Scottish pioneers have passed on, they have left a heritage at least in the “diluted ” Scot—the New Zealander born of Scottish parents—who will and does endeavour to uphold the traditions and customs belonging to the land of their forbears. Proud of her reputation, achievements, and sons, he is at once jealous and resents any slight, intended or otherwise, to the land whose emblem is the thistle. He dares the cynic to sit on “ the wee thing that jaggit them a’,” and will not yield even one little bit to “ the real Mackay in his loyalty and love for Bonnie Scotland. The only regret 1, as a “ diluted ” Scot, have in respect of Scotland is that I cannot join with “ the real Mackay ” in saying: “ Doon on ma knees each morn I fa’, And thank ma happy lot For living on this earthly ba’, And being born a Scot.” But when he speaks of all the blessings conferred by Providence on the Scottish race alone, and winds up with: “ But crooning a’ is modesty, For though we are sae giftit, And blest in sic a high degree, Were no the least upliftit, I do agree with him.