“California” in Maoriland.

The Maori was as fond as any Pakeha of borrowing foreign names that took his fancy. Seventy years or so back there were numerous “Californias” here. In the heart of Waikato, on the famous battlefield of Orakau there is the hill called “Kareponia” after the goldfield where even Maoris tried their luck in the ‘fifties. This California was a wheat-field, and flour was sent all the way to Auckland, and some was bought for shipping to San Francisco.

The people of Orakau and Parawera and the vicinity adopted the name of California into their language. It may be heard to-day among some Maori sub-tribes on the old Waikato frontier line, a curious strictly local usage. When a person calls from a distance and awaits a reply, and when it is necessary to call loudly and throw the voice across, say, a gully or a river, or to someone upon a hilltop, one may hear the expression used: “Kia kare ponia to reo,” meaning, “Let your voice be as California,” i.e., let it be penetrating and carry as far as from here to California.