“OTOKIA”

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 24

“OTOKIA”

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —As your true historian always values a correction, Air Beattie will not take it amiss if he is put right on one or two p< ts. In one of his “Stray Papers on th Southern Alaori ” he states that Otokia was first spelt “ Otakaia ” then “ Otakia,” and now “ Otokia.” In a search through a file of old bills dating from 1861 no trace of the spelling Otakaia ” can be found until about the early nineties. The old school certificates were signed with the name “ Otakia,” until the year 1894, when the name changed to “ Otakaia.” The railway station retained the name spelt “ Otakia ” until the middle “a ” was changed to an “ o,” making the name as at present. The Education Commissioners throughout, from the earliest days, seem to have kept to the spelling “ Otokia,” and the name is so spelt on the old-time maps. An old photograph in the Early Settlers’ Aluseum, taken about 1863, was entitled “ Accommodation House, Otokia,” and through all the old bills this name is used interchangeably, with the spelling ■' Otakia,” but never once “ Otakaia.” What was the source of Air Beattie’s information? It is rather puzzling. The name " O-tokia ” is said by some to mean “perfuming to fair weather.” The Alaori, most observant of men, had noted a fact which many a person has remarked since, that often in easterly weather, it is raining in Dunedin and _ along the coast, while on the Taieri side of the hills it is fair. Air Beattie writes of Chittock’s Creek as that alogside the school. He makes a mistake in this, for that is known as the “ School Gully Creek,” while Chittock’s Creek is that which flows through the upper part of Air W. T. Adam’s farm, coming to an ignominious end in the railway ditch which flows past the railway station into the Taieri River—when there is anything to flow. Up the creek where the Chittocks (now of Eastern Southland) had their home, a large gum tree is still growing.—I am, etc., Oka.