Cowan. — Maori Place-names. 119 



circa 1350. Two other immigrants by this Polynesian viking- 

 ship were Kirikiri-katata and Aroaro-kaihe. The former name 

 was given by the Maori explorers to the Mount Cook Range, 

 while that of Aroaro-kaihe was bestowed upon one of the icy 

 peaks of Aoraugi. The peak now known as Mount Tasman was 

 at the same time named " Horo-koau." " Aorangi " Avas the 

 term usually applied to Mount Cook by the Maoris on the west 

 coast ; those on the eastern plains generally called it " Kirikiri- 

 katata." Although said to be originally a personal name, it is 

 significant that these words may be used to denote a fissured 

 or cracked mountain-side of gravel, which would exactly describe 

 the deeply eroded couloir-riven end of the Mount Cook Range 

 as seen from the Tasman Vallev. 



Mount Sefton's Native name is said by old Canterbury 

 Maoris to be " Maunga-atua," meaning " the mountain of the 

 god " (or holy mount). As in the case of Aorangi, this name is 

 stated to have been conferred in honour of an ancestral chief 

 who arrived on these shores in the " Ara-i-te-uru " canoe from 

 the South Sea Islands. There is, however, a Native legend 

 (probably a comparatively modern invention) supporting the 

 title of " Maunga-atua " with the assertion that a spirit (atua) 

 dwells in these tremendous solitudes, and that its thundering 

 voice is heard in the crashing of the avalanches that contin- 

 ually fall from Sefton's ice-hung cliffs. 



Perhaps the most descriptive of the South Island mountain 

 names is that of Mount Aspiring, a very grand ice-clad peak 

 little short of 10,000 ft. in height — the highest mountain south 

 of the Aorangi alpine group. Its beautiful Maori name, never 

 before recorded, is well worth preserving — " Titi-tea " — which 

 may be interpreted as " steep peak of glistening white." 



Very few of the names of the high mountain-peaks in the 

 South Island map are Maori. " Tapuae-nuku," the highest 

 point of the Kaikoura Ranges, is one of the exceptions. It may 

 be interpreted either as " the footsteps of Uenuku " (full name 

 " Tapuae-uenuku ") — that is, the rainbow, which is the visible 

 sign or aria of the god Uenuku — or as " moving or sliding foot- 

 steps." The Maori name of the Blue Mountains in Otago is also 

 " Tapuae-nuku," which ^has been corrupted into " Tapanui," 

 the present name of the town near the foot of these mountains. 

 Mention of Kaikoura reminds me that old Ira Herewini, of 

 Moeraki, tells me the full name of the locality is " Te Ahi-Kai- 

 koura-a-Tama-ki-te-Rangi " — i.e., the place where the early 

 navigator Tama, the commander of the " Tairea " canoe, 

 landed and kindled a fire to cook a meal of koura, or crayfish. 



The expression " Te-Waka-a-Maui " (" the canoe of Maui "), 

 as an ancient name for the South Island of New Zealand, is still 



