Polynesian Immigrant Names.

Many a Maori place-name is of great antiquity; its origin goes back to the isles of Polynesia, so far back that often its original significance is lost. For example, it is not much use attempting to give the literal significance of such names as Piako and Maketu. They were given by the chiefs of the canoes Tainui and Arawa on their arrival on these shores from the Eastern Pacific. Hikurangi is another, but in this case the meaning is obvious; it signifies skyline, a prominent height on which the light lingers. There are many Hikurangis in New Zealand. The origin of the name may be traced back to Rarotonga. The highest peak on that island is so called, or in the local pronunciation, Ikuraki.

It is rather curious to find numerous Maori names exactly duplicated in faraway Easter Island. One is Marotiri, which is the name of the Chicken Islands, on the North Auckland coast. The Maori name of the Shag Rock, that black volcanic plug in the Heathcote estuary, on Christchurch's ocean front, is Rapanui, which is also one of the ancient names of Easter Island. Numerous other names of that isle of magic and mystery could be quoted in proof of the wide distribution of the Maori tongue and nomenclature. And in the remote Tuamotu Islands, the Low Archipelago, there are many names which are exactly identical with those places on our coast.