Maori Names

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 116, 30 May 1893, Page 4

Maori Names

A valuable suggestion has been made by Mr J. S. Kutherford, of The Island, Whangarei, in the following letter to the New Zealand fnatitute:— ! " I believe that preserving a record oi the Maori nice, their language, and old New Zealand, is within the wide field ot labour oi your institution. I shall therefore respectfully suggest that one of the most important aids in ihis direction would be a purely Maori map of the colony showing* native names only. This would be of the greatest historical value, and in fact, is almost the only way we can ever hope to retain the native names and hand them on with any degree of purity. Every year past makes the task more difficult, as, to all events in the southern portion of New Zealand, the names are being fast forgotten, corrupted or entirely lost, there being now only a remnant of the race living to whom an appeal can be made. When it is considered how carefully and minutely each bay and headland is named by the natives, in many cases far more appropriately than by the Europeans, who have fallen Inck on a clumsy repetition of names where there is no similarity ofposition or surroundings, and when it is remembered how otteu the native name is taken from some distinctive fi-atu'-e in the place. I 'hiok the value of snch a document will be readily admitted."