CORRESPONDENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 October 1921, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE

AORA N G I . (To the Editor). sir. In your issue ol last Wednesday’s date there appeared from the peii of a recent visitor to Smith Westland. an interesting note describing the aspect of Mount Cook as viewed f.V.iu Cook’s ' Flat and your correspondent in the course of hi- remarks staled that as presented at the tune, the unique sight of the mountain-top protruding above a gleaming hank „f Hooey clouds caused him to realise uliv the ready native came to “call the peak “Aorangi”, which means the ‘■(’hmd-l'iei'eciV and he nmplilirtl his theory. Fnl'oi Innately for his ingenuous explanation of the name choice. the Maori term “Aorangi" does not mean “cloud-piercer." The mini is capable of variable translations such as “light of heaven’’, “clouds of heaven’' “light from the sky”, or “sky world

Iml not i-vi'ii with the, widest | mono license oiiiiKl it ovor l>o “oluuil piercer. It was Mu Maori pool who gave our hi.diost peak its native name— but a hanl-bakod old Chid', for the ouplioiiioiis appellation is a porsonal olio, and like our Captain Cook that of a navinator. Searching Viaokwards thiougli till! lon}' lanes of history we lind about the year Kill A.D.\ or about the time Hubert ISrui e won the Hattie of liaunockbnrn, the commencement of a wave of emigration from Inr away Hawaiki to those Islands. Setting forth in their comparatively frail vessels and making their lone and perilous sea voyage after enduring untold ol hardships out tirst immigrants ultimately reaelied those shores. \inaiigi was the name of one of the chiefs who arrived in the South Island in the canoe ‘ Ara-i-to-l ru'" about | ;{•_!() and which was wrecked south of Moeraki on the Hast Coast. A shipmate of Aurangi was called Kiri-Kiri-Katata. The Maori explorers gave the name of the latter to Mount Cook, ivld -li was retained m use by the natives of the Ka-st Coast when in eoii,rse af time the Maoris on the West Coast mi'lied to Mount Cook the name '•Aiirniiai.” Aorangi rises its snow-clad peak 11.- )!') feet above the level of the Pacific floean, a welcome land mark to those ild time Polynesian wanderers ol the sea. and to tho mariners of the present lav; and looking forward to that time when Hokitika will become the New /.calami landing-place for the transpacific aircraft, shall T sav a landnark also for tho aviators of the prophetic future, who may conic to nelio the • ulogistic verse in praise of Mount Cook as recorded in one of the poems if the l?cv. David McKee Wright: 'Hut thou alone, unaltered, still shall stand. fresh from the great Creator— Sculptors liaiol. \ mighty ombloin of Ktornity, With every icy precipice and chasm. To mark the passing of a world ol time.” hiving in the shadows of Aorangi, as It were, we are. all more or less interested in the highest mountain peak in fhe Dominion, and this must serve as mv excuse lor undue occupation of vour valuable space. AV. I*. PAYNK.