TAUPO DISTRICT WAR MEMORIAL HALL

Taupo Times, Volume 11, Issue 66, 22 April 1953, Page 4

TAUPO DISTRICT WAR MEMORIAL HALL

rji HE commencement of work on the erection of the Taupo District War Memorial Hall wi.ll be welcome news both to returned servicemen and also to the people, Maori and pakeha, who have given so generously in response to the appeals that have been made to them. It Ts to be hoped that the conjunction of Anzac Day with this commencement may be a happy augury that the unfortunate delays and difficulties that arose in carrying out this project are now ended. - As reported elsewhere in our columns the name of the ar Memorial Hall was recently discussed at meetings of the War Memorial Hall Committee and the Taupo 'Returned Services' Asscociation, all members of which were agreed that it should be known as the Taupo District War Memorial Hall. There has never, of course, at any time du?ing the long period over which preparations for the establishment of a memorial have been going on, been any question in the minds of anyone connected with the work but that it was to commemorate the men of both races who lost their lives in their country's service, and who came from the Taupo Country. That old name used by the pakeha pioneers, covers the whole of the territory of the Tuwharetoa people. It's meaning is virtually very much that of an older name, the origin which goes back to the days when the ancestors of the Tuwharetoa people first came to the shores of Taupo-moana from across the rolling leagues of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, the Great Ocean of Kiwa. That name is TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA. In the early days of the movement for erecting a memorial, when the first Queen Carnival was organised, Mr Arthur Graee, as a representative of the Tuwharetoa people, suggested in preliminary discussions on the matter, that the name "Taupo-nui-a-Tia" would be a fitting one for use in connection with the memorial. Now that the project is nearing its conclusion the suggestion that the actual name of the memorial building could be the "Taupo-nui-a-tia Memorial Hall" may, perhaps, be fittingly made. It is certainly more euphonious than a name including the word "District." It means the same and it carries with it a wealth of history ancl traditions going back to days when the Maori people themselves were newcomers to the land which men of both races have died as brothers in arms to defend.