Far-travelled Names.

A great many Maori names of places on our New Zealand coast are of peculiar interest because, like many introduced English names, they have come a long way from their original homes. They link up this country with ancient Hawaiki, the tropic homes from which the Polynesian ancestors, of the Maori came to New Zealand; such islands as Tahiti, Raiatea, Raro-tonga, Mangaia, and other coral and volcanic lands in the Great South Sea.

Some of the names of this kind I have previously noted in these pages. Down at Kaikoura I obtained two names, not previously recorded, and not given on any map, which date back at least six hundred years. One is Te Rae-o-Tawhiti (The Headland of Tahiti), the high cliff which bounds Kaikoura South bay on the east, with a remarkable pinnacle at its base shaped like a gigantic shark's tooth. The other is Atiu, the name of one of the Cook Islands; this is a headland to the north-east of the one first mentioned and not far from the Kaikoura wharf.

As for Kaikoura itself, its full and ancient name is Te Ahi Kai-koura-a-Tama-ki-te-rangi, which commemorates the arrival here of a Polynesian navigator and explorer, Tama-of-the-Sky, whose crew kindled a fire (ahi) on the South Bay beach to cook a meal of the crayfish (koura) which they found abounding here. And from Tama's day to the present Kaikoura has been a wonderful place for crayfish.