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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 8 (December 1, 1929)

[section]

On the map of New Zealand, Stewart Island seems a long way out of the world, remote from city and town. Yet it is quite easily reached by a short sea-run from the Bluff, the southern terminus of the Dominion railways. It is a place of unusual attraction in climate, vegetation, sea-cruising, and types of people; and many visitors from the south mainland make it their holiday resort in the summer. In this article Mr. Cowan, who has written so much about New Zealand landscape and its human interest, sketches the topographical and historical aspects of the island, its Maori lore and nativebird charm.

There was a time when the South Island of New Zealand was officially styled the “Middle Island,” a curious description which was retained on some of our maps until a few years ago. It was hard, apparently, to convince the Authorities that to regard the South Island as situated between the North Island and Stewart Island was just about as absurd as it would have been to describe Australia as lying between Papua and Tasmania.

Even less happy was the official nomenclature of an earlier date, “New Ulster,” “New Munster,” and “New Leinster.” Fortunately, that kind of thing soon excited someone's sense of the ridiculous, and the misfits in place-names soon went into the discard, followed by such names as “Newcastle,” “Carlyle,” and “Petre” (for Ngaruawahia, Patea and Wanganui). The ancient Maori sailors and explorers had a better sense of geographical proportion and fitness in island names. There is a certain bold and poetic imagery in the name of the North Island, Te Ika a Maui. Less well-known is the equally poetic name for the South Island, Te Waka-a-Maui. The final touch of fancy, combined with topographical aptness is given in the honorific name for Stewart Island, Te Punga o te Waka a Maui (“The Anchor of Maui's Canoe”).

These Southern names you will not hear from the North Island Maoris. I first heard them from old people of the Ngai-Tahu and Ngati-Mamoe tribes, at Moeraki and other South Island settlements. The tradition among these old legend-keepers was that the South Island was Maahunui, the canoe of the demi-god Maui, and that it was from it that he fished up the North Island, as he stood with a foot mightily braced against a taumanu or thwart—the Kaikoura peninsula. The bow of the “Canoe” is pointed towards the South; it was near the stern he hauled the Ika up from the rolling deep. Down yonder at its bow hangs the Anchor, the Punga (or Puka, in the South Island dialect), which is our Stewart Island.

It is really a wonderful example of Maori-Polynesian genius in exploration and sense of orientation. Centuries ago the brown sea-rovers circumnavigated these islands of ours, and with remarkable accuracy noted the configuration of the new land and the relative positions and sizes of the land masses.

Rakiura (Rangi-ura), meaning “Glowing Sky,” is the popular Maori name for Stewart Island. It is usually assumed that it is a locally descriptive term, but while it is a name of beauty and poetry I do not think we can claim for Rakiura that its skies are more glorious than those of other parts, or that sunrise and evening glow are finer there than elsewhere. Rangiura is a Polynesian name rather widely distributed. The Maoris brought it with them from their ancient tropic homes, just as they brought Hikurangi and Maketu and Whangara and many other beloved ancestral names that reminded them of the coral atolls and high volcanic Islands of Hawaiki.

page 44

That much by way of native place-name explanation; hereafter a note on the pakeha name of the island.