"TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA"

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 1, 16 January 1952, Page 1

"TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA"

"THE GREAT RESTING PLACE" The establishment of the first newspaper in the Taupo country is an event which links itself naturally with the beginings of local history. The modern name "Taupo" is an abbreviation of the ancient Taupo-nui-a-Tia. Tia, one of the great ancestors of the Arawa people, came in his explorations to a spot near Hamaria, between Hatepe and Waipehi. Pointing to a dark mark on a cliff a little east of the present main road he declared that it was his fish net hung there to dry, a statement equivalent to our hoisting a flag to take possession of newly discovered lands. The cliff mark is caused by a small stream which flows in wet weather and may be seen to this day, and is the tino of Taupo-nui-a-Tia, the precise spot from which the name arises. The name, which during the centuries of Maori occupation has designated the Taupo country, the area comprised in the drainage basin of the Lake, may be translated as "The Great Resting Place of Pia.''

The history of the present town of Taupo foegan with the building of the redoubt overlooking the Waikato River outlet, adjacent to the existing Police Station. This was built by men of the Armed 'Constabularly, under Colonel J. M. Roberts, N.Z.C., in 1869. For a considerable time the settlement was known by the ancient Maori name of the locality, Tapuae-haruru, the precise spot from which this name originated being that now occupied by the boatbuilding yards «yd jetties of Messrs J. T. Taylor and Bons. The use of the name 'Taupo" for the township probably dates from the time when the Government bought the land for the site from, the Maori owners. The first recorded white visitors to the Taupo country reached it in 1839, and the first of these was thei Rev. Thomas Chapman, who walked from Rotorua about the second week in February. The second pakeha visitor from Tauranga, and was the first pakeha to climb Ngauruhoe.