Stories in Names.

The map of these islands is a text on which a book, or several books, could be written explanatory of the nomenclature. Just now I shall take a few Wellington examples, names of places known to many New Zealanders besides Wellington residents. The places are known, that is; very few of the names are current to-day, but they are worth reviving. Many years ago I went to the trouble of obtaining the original names of places on and around the harbour and the hills. My principal informants were three venerable women, persons of rangatira rank in the Atiawa tribe, the people who sold to the New Zealand, Company the land on which Wellington City stands. The oldest of the trio, Ngarimu Mawene of Whakahikuwai, Lower Hutt, was one of the young girls who danced and sang in the festive parties on Pito-one beach when the Tory pioneers landed in 1839, and were welcomed in the vociferous manner of the Maoris. The others were Mere Ngamai (who lived at Ngauranga in the early Fifties), and Rangiwhaea Te Puni. All three were women whose minds were stored with stories and songs without end about old-time Poneke.

One of the first place-names in our talks mentioned by Mere Ngamai was Moera, which means “Sleeping in the Sun.” Moera (an abbreviation of Moe-i-te-ra) was the name of a small hamlet of the Atiawa, a clearing and cultivation in the bush on the hill where Marama Crescent now is, overlooking the steep valley (now Aro Street) through which the little stream Te Aro flowed to the harbour. The kainga was so called because of its situation; it faced the north and caught the first rays of the morning sun, which in summer shone brightly on the camp while the people were still asleep. It also described the sun-bathed slope. The name in course of time came to apply to all that hill-slope extending towards Polhill Gully. There were people living there when the first white settlers came to Wellington.

The refrain of an old-time lover's song of Moera was quoted to me:

E pa ra e te ua,
E pa ki Moera;
Nga roimata mo Te Wehi-riri,
Ka mau na wa.
(The rain pours down,
It pours on Moera;
Even so pour my tears
For my loved one Te Wehi-riri.)

In recent times this name was borrowed and transplanted to the Lower Hutt by the civic heads who established the new suburb of the Lower Hutt, which accordingly is now known as Moera. The Bulletin of the Geographic Board lately mentioned this suburb name and stated that it was apparently of pakeha origin. The Bulletin compiler, of course, was unaware of the facts of its origin, which I have narrated. Out in the Hutt suburb the name is consistently wrongly pronounced as “Mo-eera.”

The stream called Te Aro in pakeha times in Wellington was originally the Wai-mapihi. It was dammed up near the stream-head, and the large pool so formed was used as a bathing place by Mapihi, a chieftainess of the ancient Ngai-Tara and Ngati-Mamoe tribes.

Puke-hinau is the name of the slopes where the old Catholic cemetery is situated, and the vicinity of the Victoria University College; it may also be applied to the land extending from there up to Kelburn heights. This name, like many others, preserves a memory of the beautiful native bush which once covered those places—the Hill of the Hinau Tree.