MUGBY JUNCTION AND TRONDHEIM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 139, 13 May 1940, Page 6

MUGBY JUNCTION AND TRONDHEIM.

(Contributed.) Because they were given by some first impression or incident, Maori place names are difficult to translate. The districts lying between the Manawatu and Oroua rivers from Palmerston North to Feilding were originally “Papai o ia” (How Beautiful), “Ahua Turanga” (Stand Firmly) and “Ao ltangi” (Dawn of Day). The first we changed to Palmerston North, the second to Bunnythorpe, and Trondheim-Aoraiigi alone of these easily pronounced euphonious names remain. The two personalities intended to be honoured by us are already forgotten. Bunnythorpe was first named “Mrigby” after the great railway junction in England. The roads radiating from that atrocious!v named spot to Ashlmrst, Palmerston North, and Feilding are laid off at double width to provide for direct railway lines to those three “branches.” Taonui became “Trondheim” after that centre .now tragically associated with Hitler’s brutality. Originally it was a great centre of Maori warfare. On the margin of the swamp near Taonui (the great spear) there was a- fort quite close to the present school. It was occupied by 500 Warriors and their families, being protected on one side by the swamp and on three sides by their plantations, made strictly immune by the sacred law of tapu, which no Maori enemy would dare to infringe. Its name, like that of the district, was “Ahua Turanga,” now forgotten. If some old Maori could point out the location of that historic fortress it might reveal many ancient treasures of greenstone (pounamu).