OUR INDUSTRIAL SUBURB

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 124, 2 July 1941, Page 4

OUR INDUSTRIAL SUBURB

Sir,— Ari industrial suburb is springing up across the) river from Whakatane Borough. Already there is the mighty mill grinding up pine logs and turning out paper ducts. Now, I see there is to be a largenscale cheesie factory to feed lhe fighting men overseas. The Maori name for this distriat where industries are being established i? Pupuaruhe,. which is a pretty name, as are all Maori place names when correctly pronounced and not mutilated and abbreviated by. the unthink ing pakcha. For a year or two this suburb has been popularly described as "The Paper Mills." . What a pity the Maori nafile is not ttloffe generally used. Perhaps the CON and our very live Chamber of Commerce can do something about it. Our district is fortunate in that practically all tlie names! of towns, townships, rivers and other features of the map are beautiful Maori names, each with a wealth of meaning and tradition behind it. I trust that the establishment of a branch factory of our big dairy company at Pupuaruhe will not inspire some thoughtless Pakeha to name the locality "McCracken town" or "Gheese-r ville." No, let it be all the more reason for painting up the Maori name of "Pupuaruhe" on the Paper Mills and the cheese factory. One Maori resident hasi done a goad thing, by putting a sign "Pupuaruhe Store" on his small business premises across the road from the "millionpound mills." So shines a good deed in a naughty pakeha world., Yours etc.. ONE PAKEHA. " (We understand that the Maori name Pupuaruhe means a jyafflfle of torn or fern roe^wtf sslbly on some historic cQjief or other high personage being handed such at this spot. The significance of the naming of the store as Pupuaruhe Store is that the root of fern formed such a stable part of the diet of the Maori in days gone by. Ed).