Williams. — Scientific Study of Maori Names. 357 



Some such process as this may accomit for the large number of cases in 

 which the same word has to do duty as a name in two or even three of the 

 groups — birds, fishes, or plants. 



When we turn to personal names we find an entirely different set of 

 conditions operating. It is hardly necessary to remark that in the past the 

 Maori had no surname, but considerations of convenience are causing the 

 rapid spread of the system. If an additional name was required for the 

 purposes of identification, the father's or husband's name would sometimes 

 be added, but more frequently the exact relationship would be expressed 

 in full. Now that they are adopting the surname, we sometimes detect 

 a quaint ingenuity displayed in the process of evolution. I knew a young 

 Maori by the name of Wakana Kiniha — a son of one Ha'pe Kiniha — and 

 was not a little amused to discover that the latter was the father's full 

 baptismal name, being nothing more or less than the transliteration of 

 Hopkins. Kiniha makes a quite serviceable surname if you once lose sight 

 of the fact that it is only " kins." The younger Maori of the present day 

 assumes the name of some well-known ancestor as his surname, and before 

 another generation has passed the system will be thoroughly established. 

 Sundry ceremonies attended the naming of a child, but the description of 

 those ceremonies is outside our present subject. What concerns us is the 

 principle which guided the parents in the selection of a name. In general, 

 the name was to commemorate some event ; and not infrequently the event 

 commemorated seems to European minds wholly trivial, or at best but 

 remotely connected with the person on whom the name is conferred. One 

 of the most frequent sources of names was the death of a relative, or some 

 disaster. And the most unlikely details in connection with the death m ght 

 be pressed into the service to provide the name. A girl was named Te 

 Ao-mihia (the day welcomed) in memory of her grandfather, because he 

 had discussed and welcomed overnight the indications of a fine day for 

 a fishing excursion, on which expedition he was murdered. The story of 

 her brother's name is more complicated. One Tu-moana-kotore died, and 

 was duly wrapped up, and carried oS to be deposited in a puriri tree until 

 his bones should be ready for the process of scraping, after which they would 

 be laid in the family burial-cave. The two men detailed for the work were 

 just returning from the tree when they heard a voice. They listened and 

 recognized the voice of the dead chief calling from the tree ; they at once 

 removed the wrappings, and found that the old chief had recovered from the 

 trance which they had mistaken for death. The boy who was born soon after 

 was thereupon called Tu-moana-kotore-i-whakairia-oratia — that is, " Tu- 

 moana-kotore was hung up in the tree while he was yet alive." This eupho- 

 nious and handy name, my Maori informant naively tells me, was shortened 

 in practice into Tuwkakairiora, which has been still further curtailed into 

 Tuwhaka, which will by familiars be clipped into Tu. The Maori who told 

 me this story, himself rejoiced in the name of Te Karu-harare (the sealing-wax 

 eye), a name which came about as follows : Ngati-porou had made a raid into 

 the Bay of Plenty, and suffered defeat at the picturesque fa of Wharekura, 

 where a chief, Te Fori, was killed. Following the strict rules of etiquette, 

 Te Pori's head was duly dried, and the sunken eye-sockets filled with sealing- 

 wax, a commodity but lately acquired by the Maori. A short time after 

 this, Te Rangiipaea, wife of the famous Pomare, came from the Bay of Plenty 

 to visit her friends on the Waiapu River. My friend, a nameless infant 

 almost able to crawl, was at once utilized as the recording tablet on which 

 to register the indignity inflicted upon the head of the chief, and so received 



