White. — About the Native Navies for Places. 347 



wary also. Mr. Gill points out that the toa-tree is found on 

 the volcanic islands, and not seemingly on the coralline islands. 

 This would seem evidence that the people who used weapons 

 of toa wood could also obtain volcanic stone for weapons and 

 tools. This gentleman says of the Island of Atiu, " We sailed 

 nearly round the island to the landing-place. Everywhere 

 near the sea grew the tall graceful Casiiarina equisetifoUa, 

 closely allied to the ' she-oak ' of Australia, and which alone 

 furnished the weapons of war in the olden time." 



I have remarked on the European water-weed ("mares' 

 tails"), and now draw attention to the descriptive word for the 

 "toa," which means "foliage resembling the long coarse hair 

 of the horse." May not the aboriginal also have noted a like- 

 ness to the hairy feathers of some struthious bird? 



The Maori has a plant-name " rau-moa," or "leaf moa" 

 {Spinifex hirsutus ; hirsutus, hairy). Why so named if not 

 after the hair-like plumage of the bird moa. 



Art. XLI. — About the Native Names for Places. 



By Taylor White. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute.] 



The Maori of New Zealand having left us no written records, 

 it is a very difficult matter to collect fairly reliable evidence of 

 the past history of this people. Certain old legends, songs, 

 and tribal pedigrees have been collected and written down by 

 a few of the early colonists, and these scanty contributions 

 are all we are likely to obtain, unless some new method of 

 gaining information be started and followed up successfully. 



A useful study may possibly be in the collecting and 

 analysing the original names of places, rivers, or localities, as 

 a means of obtaining some insight into the thoughts of those 

 from whom such names originated. In this paper I will 

 endeavour to show that we still may find a part of the history 

 of the Maori people in local names. 



Take, for instance, the three names Tautane, near Cape 

 Turnagain ; Manawatu, the name of a large river and district ; 

 and Euahine, the central mountain-range of the Northern 

 Island of New Zealand. These names are found within a 

 radius of some forty miles, and at first sight would seem to 

 have no connection one with the other ; yet, by the light of 

 an old custom among the Maoris, it is evident that all three 



