Cowan. — Maori Place -names. 115 



ancient name of Lake Manapouri. It means " hundred islands " 

 or " multitude of islands." If you visit Manapouri you will 

 readily understand why this name (which I do not think has 

 ever previously keen recorded) came to be given to the lake, 

 the most beautiful water- sheet in New Zealand. It is crowded 

 with islands of all shapes and sizes. All around you they lie 

 as you sail up the lake, some high and rocky, some tiny dots of 

 granite or sandstone, but all wooded so luxuriantly that they 

 seem like tree-groves floating on the surface of the water. No 

 matter how small the islet, if only the size of a table, it supports 

 as many trees and shrubs as it can well hold. The " Lake of 

 a Hundred Islands " must have been an ideal cruising-ground 

 for the neolithic Maori. The ancient Ngatimamoe gave the 

 lake this name " Motu-rau," according to the Murihiku Maoris, 

 who are in part descended from the Ngatimamoe ; but probably 

 the name is of even greater antiquity, and dates back to the 

 era of the Waitaha. 



" Manapouri " (a combination of two words meaning " autho- 

 rity " or " prestige," and " sorrowful ") is simply a modernised 

 rendering of the name " Manawa-pore " (or " Manawa-popore "), 

 signifying the violent throbbing of the heart, as after great 

 exertion or under intense emotion. " Manawa-pore " is stated 

 by the Southland Maoris to be really the name of the North 

 Mavora Lake, lying between Wakatipu and Te Anau. The 

 name is said to have been transferred in error to the larger lake 

 by the early surveyors and map-makers. Various more or less 

 fanciful interpretations of the corrupted name " Manapouri " 

 or " Manawa-pouri " have appeared in print, and imaginative 

 writers have connected it with the story of the fugitive tribe 

 Ngatimamoe. " Manawa-pore " was, however, originally the 

 name of a person, a tribal ancestor of chiefly rank, as was also 

 the name " Te Anau." 



Lake Te Anau, I am informed by the old Natives of Murihiku, 

 was named after a woman, the daughter of the chief Hekeia, 

 one of the early immigrants from Hawaiiki, after whom a South- 

 land mountain has been named. As in the case of " Manapouri," 

 many imaginary interpretations of " Te Anau " have appeared 

 in print. The latest invention in this direction appeared in a 

 Dunedin paper recently, when a long poem on Te Anau was 

 published, in which it was explained that " Te Anau " meant 

 " wandering lake." How, or why, or where the lake " wandered " 

 was left to the reader's imagination. The South Mavora Lake 

 is known to the old Maoris as " Hikuraki " (a dialectical variant 

 of the North Island " Hiku-rangi "), a common Maori place-name, 

 meaning " the tail of the sky " — the horizon. It is interesting 



