I came across this sign on a recent tramp on Kapiti Island and it sparked a thought that has been burling around in my head for a while. Some research and kōrero I have had in the last few weeks have added to that wee thought. It’s about language and names, about when it’s appropriate to change names, adapt names, or create names.
“Ko te Waewae Kapiti o Tara Raua ko Rangitane: the full name given by Māori to Kapiti describes the island as the meeting place of the boundaries of Tara and Rangitane. Tara and Rangitane were the son and grandson of Whatonga who, in 1150 AD, divided the country by making a boundary from the southern tip of Kapiti Island straight across to the east coast of the North Island.” Department of Conservation
Names of places tell us of the people and their history in that place. How they lived, what they did, who they were. In Aotearoa New Zealand as in many countries where there have been contests over land or that have been colonised, there are often multiple stories connected with a place. The question is which story do we hear and see when we look at its name?
What does the name New Zealand tell us about this place? Let’s look at the words. ‘New’ as in the opposite of ‘old’, ‘Zealand’ is an alternative spelling of ‘Zeeland’ a place in the Netherlands, Europe. Adventurers, discoverers, colonialists – call them what you will had a habit of naming the places they ‘discovered’ after the places they had come from. So, when Abel Tasman ‘discovered’ this land he chose to call it New Zeeland as that is where he came from. Tasmania which he also discovered was named after him. There was little consideration to finding out if it already had a name.
Hamilton, which is the city I live in was named after Captain Hamilton who was a soldier in the British Forces that were involved in the Land Wars in New Zealand in the 1800s. He was killed at the Battle of Pukehinahina (Gate Pā), in Tauranga Moana which is a place about 100km from Hamilton. He never even set foot in Hamilton! So how did he get to have a place named after him? And what was wrong with the name that the place had when the British forces arrived here after defeating Māori at Rangiriri?
Kirikiriroa Pā was one of the largest Pā sites on the banks of the River Waikato. It was well-fortified, there were well-established papakainga (villages/settlements) and gardens which fed the local inhabitants as well as providing trade with other villages as well as the British troops in Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland). However, when British troops arrived in 1863, it was empty. Word had been sent from Rangiriri that the British were on their way and since all the men and women of fighting age were at Rangiriri, the only people left at Kirikiriroa Pā were women, the elderly and children. They wouldn’t have been able to defend themselves so they fled to their tribal lands at Hukanui and beyond.
What this place and what happened here not only tells the journey and settlement of the area, it also reveals how best to partner with the place and realise the potential of all who live here.
Phoebe Davis
A cultural narrative recognises the historical relationship between the area and its mana whenua. It describes what is unique about the place and the people who live in it. It helps build a common understanding of heritage, traditional and spiritual connections, and values.
The renaming of places was a conscious and deliberate act of colonialism.
Wally Penetito talks about “Starting where our feet are” and asking ourselves “on whose land do we stand?”. It is important that people have the opportunity to tell their own stories and we have a responsibility to listen to them and acknowledge them, There is often a tension between anger and hope – one side remembers the suffering, the other side doesn’t know the real stories, or they are not interested or ambivalent which makes dialogue difficult. This means that there is an unsettled state of the relationships between Māori and Pākehā which is partly due to the stories that are not known or ignored or avoided by both Māori and Pākehā as a result of colonisation. Often there is a separation from our locality because most of us don’t know about where we are from. This is compounded for many whānau who are displaced in temporary housing sometimes in a different location from where they originally come. For those of us who are privileged enough to know where we come from we have a responsibility to understand the part we play in maintaining or challenging the status quo. With knowledge comes power – what will we do with the knowledge we gain or already have to challenge ourselves and others to think differently?
“Place-names are an important aspect of culture and identity as they provide a location where history, events, landscapes, relationships and people are remembered, celebrated and reinforced.”
https://www.qualityplanning.org.nz/sites/default/files/Decolonising%20the%20Land.pdf
The virtue of street names as a means of preserving history in modern society is underestimated in the planning process. Whether the name encapsulates a generally known or unfamiliar past, all who use them are governed by the power of its name. This power lies in its inherent ability to create a version of its own history, an authenticated element of reality as it is constantly experienced, perceived and interpreted on a daily basis.
The document from which the quote above is taken discusses the ways that places in Aotearoa were named. The explorers didn’t think to ask if there was already a name; they assumed there wasn’t or were so arrogant they dismissed the importance of those names. Of course, those new names also tell a story, but they only tell the story from the point when that name was given. Previous history is ignored. Efforts are being made across Aotearoa to reclaim original Māori names, in many cases they are being given ‘dual toponyms’, that is, the Māori name is used alongside the English name. There is debate still happening about Kirikiriroa, Hamilton and indeed Aotearoa, New Zealand. There are some who believe using both names is too much of a mouthful and those who don’t like the Māori name will continue to use the British name and vice versa. There is a school of thought that says we should bite the bullet and use only the Māori names. However, if we are to acknowledge that history is, in fact, many stories then, should names reflect all those stories? Kirikiriroa, as a name for what is now Hamilton, is also contested. Kirikiriroa Pā was only one, albeit the biggest, of many papakainga along the river Waikato. Present-day Hamilton encompasses all of those, so using Kirikiriroa for Hamilton ignores or doesn’t take into account the existence and the stories of all the other hapū and iwi.
So, let’s go back to the original ‘place name’ that prompted my thinking. “Te Ara o Trig” is a literal translation of “Trig Track” because there is no Māori word for trig – which in fact is a shortened word for a ‘trigonometrical point‘. The linguist in me was affronted – if there is no word for trigonometrical point in Māori, do we just use the English or do we attempt to describe what a trig is. “Te Ara o Trig” is effectively meaningless – it has no sense in te reo Māori, so it doesn’t convey meaning, which is what language is all about. So what do we know about ‘trigs’? They mark significant geographical points and create a triangulated network so that positions of key places can be located. They are often placed at high points so that they can be easily seen.
So, how did iwi and hapū locate themselves in relation to others, move around, know where they were, and communicate with others? They had boundaries, they moved across the whenua, and some iwi spent summer months in one place and winter months in another. What were the triangulation points that they used? They would have used mountain tops, rivers, springs, and geographical features that stood out. So given that the trig on Kapiti Island is on top of a hill, it’s likely that the hill had a name. Surely a better name for the “Trig Track” would be the name of the hill, Tuteremoana. So, Te Ara o Tuteremoana would tell us that this is the path to the summit of Tuteremoana. You will see from the photo that Tuteremoana is indeed mentioned on the sign with the word ‘summit’ underneath it. Given that the translation of Te Ara o Trig (Trig Track) was underneath it, if I followed the logic of the sign, I might think that Tuteremoana was simply the Māori word for ‘summit’ and didn’t carry a whole whakapapa and history attached to it. So, what is the story of Tuteremoana?
Tuteremoana
Tara, Whātonga’s son, was the great-great-grandson of Kupe, the Polynesian explorer. On his voyages, Kupe had himself visited the Wellington Harbour region, leaving his name at various sites.
Tara had a son called Whakanui or Wakanui, who had a son called Tūria. Tūria married Hinematua, and they had a son called Te Ao Haeretahi, who married Rakaimāori. They in turn, had a son called Tūteremoana who became the paramount chief of Ngāi Tara. His name has been given to rocks on a beach just north of the Whanganui River, to the highest point of Kāpiti Island, and to a fishing rock just south of Barrett’s Reef in Wellington Harbour.
It’s not just a case of translating English names into Māori or vice versa, it’s about paying respect to the stories of the people who have shaped this land. Acknowledging, recognising, and understanding that they carry meaning, they tell of the lives of people and their relationship to the land.
