Williams. — Scientific Study of Maori Names. 359 



case of Waitati, near Dunedin, a curious series of mistakes has operated : 

 the real Maori name is Wai-tete (the two " e's " being long) ; the earliest 

 settlers pronounced this somewhat loosely Waitayty, and wrote this in the 

 form Waitati ; later arrivals accepted this spelling, but, having a little 

 Icnowledge of Maori orthography, pronounced it Waitatty. 



But I am concerned in this paper with genuine Maori names. These 

 names will fall into two main divisions — imported names, and names which 

 have originated locally. But it must be laid down at the outset that it is 

 not by any means easy to decide in every case in which category a name 

 should be placed. 



The imported names fall into five classes, which may in some cases have 

 a not very clearly marked line of division. In the first class I would place 

 names which are traditionally reported by the Maoris to have been brought 

 with them. For example, we are told that as the party of new arrivals 

 passed along the shores of the Bay of Plenty they gave names to striking 

 spots, among others to the island of Motiti, which we are expressly told 

 was after the Motiti in Hawaiki. Then, near the East Cape there is a place, 

 Te Kawakaiva, which might quite reasonably have been supposed to be a 

 local name, were it not for the fact that the full name of the place is Te-kaiva- 

 kawa-mai-tawhiti {Te Kawakaiva from abroad).* Farther down the coast, 

 some sixteen miles from Gisborne, is the bay of Whangara, again in full 

 Whangara-mai-tawhiti. The legend is that Paikea, travelling down the 

 coast, was, on arriving here, so struck by the resemblance of the place to 

 the Whangara that he laiew that he named several features of the land- 

 scape after the similar ones in the original Whangara : among them Pakarae, 

 a stream at the north of the bay ; Rangitoto, a steep hill connected by a low 

 saddle with a smaller hill, Pukehapopo ; and Waiomoko, a stream immedi- 

 ately to the south. The only thing wrong, Paikea said, was that Wai-o- 

 moko should have debouched to the north of Pukehapopo, presumably 

 through the low saddle mentioned above. It is interesting to note, in con- 

 nection with this incident, that Whangara^ Pukehapopo, and several other 

 names of the locality are still known as place-names in Rarotonga. 



In the second class I would place names which occur in legends pre- 

 served by the Maoris of events prior to their coming over to New Zealand. 

 As instances : Hikurangi occurs frequently in very early legends, reaching 

 back to the period of myth, as the hill on which various persons have taken 

 refuge from floods of excessive violence. One of the mythical ancestors of 

 the Maoris, Icnown variously as Whena, Wheta, or Tawheta, is said to have 

 resided at Porangahaii, a name which has been preserved on the coast of 

 Hawke's Bay ; and Reporua, a place a few miles south of the East Cape, 

 is mentioned in legends dating from before the Maori immigration. 



Again, we may find names in New Zealand which appear as place-names 

 in other Polynesian islands in the Pacific. An instance of this has alreadj' 

 been mentioned in the Wha}ig:ira names ; but there is still a large number 

 of such names with regard to which the Maoris have preserved no tradition, 

 or, perhaps more correctly, no tradition has been jjlaced on record. For 

 example, Waimea and Maunaloa are Hawaiian names, Matawai is Tahitian, 

 and Fangaloa a Samoan name. All these names reappear in New Zealand, 

 Maunaloa and Fangaloa becoming, of course, Maungaroa and Whangaroa. 



* The postal name of this place^ — which has been adopted to avoid confusion — is 

 7'e Araroa (the long path), a name given by the Maoris to the residence of the mis- 

 sionary, who had a long path with a hedge from his gate to his front door. 



