Putting history in its place: the move to Māori names

Monday, 11 June 2018

Poverty Bay, Hamilton and Levin have considered adding Māori place names. Is change inevitable, asks PHILIP MATTHEWS.

Poverty Bay has had a bad rap ever since Captain James Cook sailed away in October 1769, noting sulkily in his journal that he gave it that name 'because it afforded us no one thing we wanted'. 

Two and a half centuries later, Poverty Bay is on the verge of getting a second name, a more felicitous one. The New Zealand Geographic Board is consulting on altering the name from Poverty Bay to Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Poverty Bay.

Sometimes these exercises in dual naming take place with little or no fanfare. At other times, the opposite happens. And this seems to be one of those times. 

When local newspaper the Gisborne Herald ran an online poll in February, it found that 72 per cent of the nearly 600 who voted were opposed to adding the Māori name. 'Why try to change the little bit of history we have got?' was one response. Others thought the new name is too confusing and too long. Some were under the mistaken impression that the city of Gisborne itself is being renamed, which it is not. 

Eloise Wallace has been watching all this with interest. As the director of Gisborne's Tairāwhiti Museum, her submission noted that 'there was similar consternation from similar parts of the community' 18 years ago when her institution changed its name from the Gisborne Museum and Art Gallery. They argued that no one will know where it is. But nearly two decades later, 'the majority of people visiting the museum, locals and tourists alike, will use the name Tairāwhiti and are learning its meaning and to pronounce it correctly,' Wallace says. 

'Using Māori place names as a starting point for storytelling has enriched our ability to share the Māori histories of the region. We also use Tūranganui-a-Kiwa throughout the galleries and we know that the history and stories associated with this name creates a source of pride for young people in their home.' 

The Māori name translates as the great standing place of Kiwa, who came from Hawaiki on the Tākitimu canoe, according to tradition. 

Wallace says she wrote in her submission in favour of dual naming that, from her perspective as a Pākehā woman, names matter: 'Place naming in Aotearoa was in my view a tool of colonisation. Pākehā using their power to wipe Māori names from a map has done a lot of harm to all of us and we need to repair the damage. 

'I also acknowledged that for Māori these names and histories have never been forgotten and have always been used, regardless of 'official' status. I also wrote that when we're talking with our children who come through the museum, Poverty Bay is not a positive way to be talking about our community. For me, it is an anachronism as well. There are the problematic origins of the name.' 

Names do change over time. Few people outside Gisborne would know that the city was known by Pākehā and Māori alike as Tūranga until 1870, when it was renamed in honour of Colonial Secretary William Gisborne, who had no local connection. 

A good example of how quickly a new name can be accepted occurred on the other side of the North Island, or Te-Ika-a-Māui​, as it has also been officially known since 2013. Mt Egmont was given a second name, Mt Taranaki, in 1986 and it seems that the original Māori name, meaning 'shining peak', rapidly overtook the English name bestowed by Cook in honour of the First Lord of the Admiralty who backed his expedition.

'Within less than a generation – gosh, who uses Egmont anymore?' Wallace says. 

'For me, the dual name [for Poverty Bay] doesn't go far enough. I'd like to see a replacement, but like Taranaki/Egmont, we might start using the Māori name and over time the primary name in use will shift toward the Māori one.' 

Politeness and vitriol

Local institutions can have a part to play in increasing the acceptance of Māori names, as Lance Girling-Butcher of New Plymouth could tell you. 

He was editor of Taranaki newspaper the Daily News in the early 2000s. When it came to the fraught issue of 'Egmont or Taranaki?' he was between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The newspaper style, when he took over the editor's chair, was to call the mountain Egmont. A poll of readers had found significant support for that tradition, but things were changing. 

'We were constantly being asked by Māori, in the most polite way, if we could change the name but we were also aggressively attacked by redneck Pākehā who said if we changed the mountain's name, they were going to cancel the paper and do all sorts of diabolical things. But I was quite inspired by the politeness with which some of these older Māori rang up and explained how important it was to them that the name became Taranaki.'

One event made his mind up for him. In 2004, a small aircraft crashed into the crater of Mt Taranaki, killing both men onboard. The story went international and Girling-Butcher noticed, as he followed the story's progress, that overseas media was calling the mountain Taranaki, not Egmont. 

Rather than make a fuss with an explanatory editorial to readers, he simply issued a note to the paper's sub-editors saying that from now on, the mountain would be called Taranaki, unless it was called Egmont in a quote, when it would be left as it was: 'It might give people a clue to the personality of the person they're writing about.' 

The Māori name for New Plymouth is Ngāmotu​, but as far as Girling-Butcher knows, no one is campaigning for a name change. He does, however, use it when making a formal greeting in Māori and it is also the official alternate name of the Sugar Loaf Islands just off the Taranaki coast. 

He thinks of it as a slow transition and he is conscious that Taranaki has one of the most difficult bicultural histories in New Zealand. No discussion of recent Taranaki history can exclude the story of former New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd, who supported a Māori ward and then went further, proposing that half of all councillors in New Zealand should be Māori.

NZ First leader Winston Peters called him a separatist. Former Seven Sharp host Mike Hosking called him 'completely out of touch with middle New Zealand'. 

New Plymouth voters said goodbye to Judd, who now calls himself a recovering racist. 

Meanings and identity

Local politics can be an uncomfortable place for the enlightened Pākehā, Judd learned. Hamilton Mayor Andrew King has discovered the same thing. 

In March King suggested that the Hamilton City Council could turn its secondary name, Kirikiriroa City Council, into the main one. He saw it as an opportunity to promote stronger links with local iwi. 

It would not have been a formal name change. But a few days of media exposure drove King to shelve the idea. Opponents included the New Zealand Taxpayers Union, whose petition against promoting the name Kirikiriroa reportedly gathered 1500 signatures in 36 hours. 

But what is in a name? The city was named for Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton, a British Naval Commander who was killed at the battle of Gate Pa near Tauranga in 1864. He famously never set foot in the village then known as Kirikiriroa. The Māori name is descriptive, referring to 'a long stretch of gravel' that supported fertile gardens near the Waikato River. 

Ngāti Wairere spokesman Wiremu Puke saw a chance to re-examine the history and identity of Hamilton. The city began as a military settlement after the invasion of the Waikato during the New Zealand Wars. Sites sacred to local Māori were destroyed. 

'Place naming in that case was an instrument of colonisation, to assert authority over the land and erase Māori histories,' Wallace explains. 

Confronting that dark history might account for some of the Pākehā sensitivity towards a name change. 

King's fellow councillors described the suggestion as 'random' and 'impulsive', but Councillor Dave Macpherson called for cooler heads. Noting that 18 of the Waikato's 24 towns have Māori names, he said: 'In all of those towns the sun comes up every day, people work, live, sleep, play, go to school. It doesn't seem to make a difference. It hasn't stopped them functioning. It hasn't caused people to leave those towns, that I'm aware.'

Will other New Zealand towns and cities follow King's lead? Whanganui was a pioneer back in 1854 when its name was changed from Petre, which had honoured an officer of the New Zealand Company. A reporter at a public meeting in 1853 recorded that Petre 'was given to the town by the New Zealand Company without the consent of the inhabitants'. The settlers neither used it nor approved it, and 'would prefer the adoption of the better known name of Wanganui'. 

Levin might be next. The name Taitoko was chosen by Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui, leader of the Muaūpoko iwi, before it was named Levin after a director of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company. Other directors were named Plimmer, Shannon and Linton, which also became stops along the route. 

Horowhenua District Councillor Victoria Kaye-Simmons recently proposed to rename the town Taitoko/Levin but directed Stuff to Marokopa Wiremu-Matakatea, Kaumātua of the Muaūpoko iwi, for comment. 

The name Taitoko remained widely known in the area, Wiremu-Matakatea says, and it survived as the name of a local primary school. Despite being unofficial, it stayed in circulation among Māori. 

Yes, the iwi community was rapt when it heard about Kaye-Simmons' proposal. 

'No doubt there are some in the community who don't want Taitoko added but Māori from the Muaūpoko iwi want it added because it gives us our identity across the country.'

Eloise Wallace in Gisborne likens the opposition to those who said 125 years ago that there should not be votes for women. 

'They know change is coming and they are on the losing side but for some reason they feel they have to fight it. They need to stop worrying and realise they have nothing to lose by raising up Māori culture, language and identity.'