Hill and Shore.

Just a few other examples taken at random from my notebooks. Mere Ngamai said that Ngakumikumi was the name of a place in Nairn Street, the home of the late Tamati Wera, about where the road leads up to Brooklyn from Upper Willis Street. Ngakumikumi refers to the “pahau” or “beard” of the korau fern tree (mamaku), the withered leaves hanging down like a grey beard beneath the fresh green fronds. There was an olden mahinga-kai or cultivation there.

Turangarere is the name of the hills where Brooklyn suburb stands. It may be translated as “The Waving Plumes of the War-party.” When the warriors rose to dance before marching against an enemy (turanga—the standing-up), all their feather head-ornaments would wave to and fro (rere, to wave or dance).

One day Rangi te Puni took me to the sandy beach-side at Pito-one to point out some of the old-time homes and fishing places of the Atiawa and their kin. “The place you call Lowry Bay,” she said, “was called by us Whio-rau, because of the abundance of the whio or blue mountain duck, in the little streams that came down from the hills about there. Ngau-matau (“Bite the Fish-hook”) is the northern point of Whio-rau. “Beyond again”—and the old dame pointed to Day's Bay—she called it “Daisy Bay” —“we had a small settlement named Te Aewa. The north end of the Bay was Te Wharangi. The cliff there was one of our olden fishing marks. When the men went out in their canoes to draw the long seine net for moki or rock cod in the early morning, they used to paddle out in a line from the mouth of the Korokoro Creek, on the west there, across the harbour towards Te Wharangi.”

Another coastwise name, a good descriptive one, and terse withal, applied to Pencarrow Head. It was known as Rae-akiaki, “The Headland where the Sea Dashes Up.”