What's in a name? Restoring the mana of Taranaki Maunga

Friday, 16 July 2021

Taranaki’s mighty maunga was known as Taranaki Maunga, then Mt Egmont, before becoming Mt Taranaki/Mt Egmont. It’s now on the home straight towards officially becoming Taranaki Maunga once more, as Helen Harvey reports.

“Whakawaiwai ai, Te tu a Taranaki” – Enchanting to the eye, are you, o Taranaki.

These ancient words, recited by a tōhunga (priest) named Maruwhakatare, were spoken as Tahurangi set out to ascend the maunga for the first time.

Tahurangi scaled the peak and lit a ceremonial fire in order to secure the name – Taranaki – and the authority of his father Rua Taranaki and his people over the mountain, says historian Danny Keenan (Ngāti Te Whiti, Te Ātiawa).

**READ MORE:

* Taranaki mountain name change is positive, say iwi members

* Dropping Egmont helps restore the mana of Taranaki Maunga

* Egmont out, Taranaki Maunga in: agreement reached on mountain name change

**

‘’He then recited a verse, beginning with ‘Ko te ahi a Tahurangi te Pukeaao, Ka tuu tonu te pukeaao kia tiketike’ – The fire of Tahurangi signifies smoke of substance, it ascends suspended and falls at the dawn and evening.’’

Taranaki’s spiritual connections have held significance to local iwi for centuries.

When Europeans arrived in the region in the 19th century, Taranaki Māori were surprised to learn that Captain James Cook had given their maunga a new name some 60 years earlier.

Cook had seen a mountain through the clouds while sailing past in 1770, and decided to name it after John Perceval​, the 2nd Earl of Egmont, under whom Cook had served in the British navy.

Perceval never set foot in Aotearoa; what's more, he died before Cook returned to England, so never knew a mountain had been named in his honour.

Cook wasn't the only European to have a go at renaming Taranaki. French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne​ dubbed it Pic Mascarin in 1772 – but he was killed three months later, and the name Pic Mascarin seemingly died with him.

The name Egmont, however, stuck.

‘What is there in a name?’

Local Māori were not particularly impressed with the renaming of their sacred maunga.

In June 1905 a South Taranaki man named Tu Taranaki wrote a letter to the editor of the Hawera and Normanby Star protesting against ‘’the practice you pākehās have of changing our country’s names for newfangled ones of your own”.

‘’It may be some will think me foolish, and say what is there in a name? Is not one as good as another? Perhaps they are right, but with me it is not so,” he wrote, according to records held by Papers Past.

“The names we gave our hills and streams are fragrant with memories of the past and associated with our early tribal history.’’

By 1927, Taranaki iwi had made the first of many requests to honour the original name of the maunga.

The discussion heated up in the 1970s and 80s as plans to ditch Egmont gained momentum, and in 1986, the decision was made to include both names.

While Mt Taranaki/Mt Egmont is still the legal title, the name Taranaki Maunga is increasingly being used not just regionally, but nationally as well.

Restoring mana

Ngā Iwi o Taranaki, representing Taranaki’s eight iwi, is negotiating to have ‘Taranaki Maunga’ officially recognised as part of its Treaty of Waitangi settlement. The maunga is considered an ancestor of Taranaki iwi.

The deal could also see Taranaki Maunga given its own legal personality and protections under the law, a protection that has already been granted to Te Urewera and the Whanganui River.

To many, a maunga by any other name is still a mountain. But in Taranaki, for both Māori and Pākehā, that has never been the case.

Language advocate Dr Ruakere Hond (Taranaki) says names do more than just identify a place; they also link landmarks to the communities themselves, and define “the ways in which people are able to refer to themselves”.

Removing Taranaki’s name removed its mana and identity, Hond says, and also took away the people’s connection with the maunga.

‘’It was named on maps as Egmont, but that was never the way in which our communities referred to the maunga.

‘’We were constantly talking about the same feature in totally different ways, which then limited the ability to be able to see and communicate well around things of identity within the region, because Pākehā were looking at the maunga as Egmont, which is associated with Captain Cook.’’

Hond says restoring the original identity of the maunga recognises the longstanding relationship of local iwi, whereas there’s no sense of identity to the name Egmont.

As Keenan explains, the name Taranaki is a symbolic reference to Tahurangi’s scaling of the maunga.

“It represented the affirmation of Taranakitanga over the peak and surrounding plains, an enduring birthright for all Māori born of Taranaki.”

A waterfall at the head of the Hangatahua River (or Stony River), Te Rere a Tahurangi, is named in honour of Tahurangi.

Prior to Tahurangi’s ascent, the maunga had, among other names, been known as Pukeonaki or Pukehaupapa.

Identity and power

Names are bound up around not only questions of identity but often of power, says Jim McAloon, a professor of history at Victoria University.

“It’s not confined to New Zealand by any means. In Northern Ireland there’s a city some people call Londonderry and some people called Derry. It’s a classic marker of which side of the nationalist or unionist argument you favour.’’

While putting European names on places was a convenience for navigators, it was also an act of appropriation, McAloon says.

‘’If you name something you’re claiming a certain right to do so. In a way you’re imposing your perspective on it. That’s especially the case with a mountain of the stature and importance of Taranaki.’’

The early English settlers would have changed names to make them feel more at home, he says.

‘’So bringing names from home and putting them on the landscape, there’s a making familiar, like New Plymouth to the original Plymouth in Devon where many of the settlers came from.’’

‘Hands off our mountain’

For a while, early European surveyors put both names on their maps. Between 1830 and 1883 it was Egmont/Pukehaupapa, then Egmont/Taranaki from about 1883 to 1930.

From then on it was almost exclusively Egmont – on maps. Māori still referred to the maunga as Taranaki. One of the earliest requests they made asking for the name to be returned to Taranaki was in 1927/28 during the Royal Commission investigation into confiscated lands.

By 1975, the debate over a name change threatened to become an election issue.

In September of that year the Taranaki Māori Trust Board called on then-prime minister Bill Rowling to present a claim for the return of the maunga and for $10m in compensation for confiscated lands. They also wanted the name changed.

But Taranaki residents were having none of it. A Taranaki Herald poll showed more than 90 per cent opposed the change.

The Daily News said in an editorial that Rowling, ‘’when he visits Taranaki this week, should be told as frequently as decency permits, that this province rejects the change out of hand.

‘’So, we repeat the warning issues last week! Hands off our mountain. The political consequences of such a change would not be worth the candle.’’

Changing the name during an election was deemed too controversial, so it was left for after the election, when there was a new National Government.

In March 1976, Minister of Lands Venn Young, MP for what was then the Egmont electorate, issued a press statement saying Mt Egmont would not be renamed Mt Taranaki.

Young listed the reasons before saying he considered ‘’the controversy over renaming Mt Egmont is a dead issue”.

He was wrong.

In 1983, the Taranaki Māori Trust Board approached the New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) about restoring the name of Taranaki. The Board began proceedings to make the change.

On its website the NZGB says it received ‘’10,746 objections through six petitions, 127 letters from individuals and 29 objections from community organisations and local governments. Of the objections, 68 per cent came from people in Taranaki; the remainder came from throughout New Zealand and even a few from overseas.’’

Because it was so controversial the NZGB passed the decision on to the Lands Minister of the time, Koro Wētere.

In 1986, Ngāti Ruanui kaumātua, Turangapito Parata, QSM, was part of a group who ‘’lobbied Wētere”.

‘’We took a trip down there and went to his office,’’ says Parata, who is known as Sandy.

Wētere ended up leaving it open, so either name could be used.

‘’That was a start,’’ Parata says. ‘’Egmont – that person was virtually unknown, and that was a problem to us. He didn’t have as much mana as Taranaki itself.’’

During the three years it took to make the decision, unhappy Taranaki residents made their views known.

There was even a Save Mt Egmont Name Committee.

In March 1985 a poll byThe Daily News, ‘’the heaviest newspaper poll ever run in the region’’, received 7009 valid votes. Of those, 6048, or 86.29 per cent, were against the name change.

But Parata says he didn’t get angry at the reaction. Māori were always going to be outvoted. And through it all he remained ‘’hopeful’’.

‘’Just be nice and courteous. Talk nicely and then say ‘Egmont, who was he?’ Just a little korero.’’

And Māori continued to be polite and courteous when trying to convince the editor of the Taranaki Daily News to use Taranaki instead of Egmont in its pages, which it finally did in 2004.

Lance Girling-Butcher was the editor at the time, and says his predecessor had held a poll that came out strongly in favour of Egmont.

‘’When I took over I was getting constant calls from Māori, who were very polite, pointing out how important it was for them to have it called Taranaki. My personal view was to call it Taranaki, especially when I had rednecks calling me up saying they’d cancel the paper. I even had a death threat.’’

The catalyst for change came when a plane crashed on Taranaki Maunga and pictures of it went around the world.

Girling-Butcher noticed all the overseas papers were calling the mountain Taranaki.

‘’I thought this is getting ridiculous, so I decided we’d make the change. I didn’t want to start a huge debate with readers of the Taranaki Daily News, so I just changed it. I didn’t make a public statement about it, I just emailed staff.’’

He didn’t get much backlash. Likewise, there was little reaction when Taranaki Daily News and Stuff started calling the mountain Taranaki Maunga earlier this year.

A more inclusive Aotearoa

Whether the opposition has gone away or gone underground is hard to tell.

But there has been a shift in the past year. The name Aotearoa is being increasingly used, as is Tāmaki Makaurau for Auckland. Discussions have been had over street names.

Former New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd thinks the country is transitioning to become more inclusive.

A few years ago Judd was abused in the street and spat at in the supermarket because he wanted a Māori ward in New Plymouth. People crossed the road to avoid him.

Judd has heard a few comments about the change to Taranaki Maunga.

‘’Some people say ‘it’s always been Egmont to me, it always will be’. There are some diehard people who will stick to that line.’’

But he says the reality is that Taranaki is the mountain's name, and adding ‘maunga’ is part of the transition to be more inclusive.

‘’I have teenage children, and they naturally call it Taranaki, so I think the shift has already taken place.’’