OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1940, Page 6

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

EARLY CASTLEPOINT (To the Editor.) Sir —-I have read “Early Castlepoint written by Mr H. G. Groves, which was Very interesting to me, as I knew all the places and their names, also the pioneers. This last week, by the kind courtesy of one of my friends, I was taken a trip to Blairlogie, also to the Kahqiningi wool sheds. On these trips I renewed my acquaintance with the old tracks and roads used in the early days and pointed them out to my friend. Only fancy going to Kahumingi in half an hour! In the early days it was a full day’s trip, and that day was from daylight to dark. Next week I hope to see some more of the old tracks.

In H.H.D.’s writing re Maungapakeha I beg to differ with him in the name and meaning of that place. He quotes that it is popularly supposed to mean black stranger. How anybody could get black into it I don’t know. He said his informant told 'him that manga meapt branch, creek, streamlet, ditch. This is correct. The word mangu is Maori for black. Mangu mangu is Maori for nigger. As neither of these names are in Maungapakeha, and the ditch in question was dug hundreds of years after that place was named by the Maoris, I don't see that the ditch or white man had anything to do with it. The correct spelling of that district is Maungapakeha; maunga, a mountain or rocky hill; pakeha, a foreigner or stranger. Pakeha was taken from the word pakepakeha which means fairies. I got my information from one of my old Maori friends, Keri Tihi, who was well versed in Maori lore. We were on our way to the coast for crayfish and when we came in sight of the Peaks I asked him about them. He told me that there were caves in those hills, in which pakepakehas lived. I asked him what they were like. He said little fair chaps came when the sun had set, and disappeared before morning. I asked him what was the name of those two sharp peaks at the south end of the range. He said Nga whahine potae. I asked him what was wrong with their hats. He said it was not the hats; those women were very sorry for their dead husbands who were killed in battle. It is very hard to get the real meaning of Maori names if one does not know the origin. For instance potae means hat as nearly everyone knows, but it also means grieving or mourning or a noose to put over one’s head. As for the statement that silt from the Maungapakeha was filling up the mouth of the Whareama River and causing the shallow water there, it is my belief that this was due to the raising of the East Coast by earthquakes, which spoilt Te Kope and why not the Whareama? H.H.D. refers to the track over Sulphur Well hills to the Taueru. Yes, it ran parallel to the road. This track was known as Manuka Ridge with that devil of a slide at the north end coming down to Bridge Creek. On a wet day a horse would slide from the top to the bottom on his haunches. This would put the “wind up” the rider it he was not used to it. This track was to the Upper Taueru. In the fifties Brammerton, owned by Messrs Mace, Luxford and Varnham, extended from the present Brammerton property to the Upper Taueru. The Millers, Wingate and Carmen used that track. As for placing Mr Groves’s writings in the College library I consider that a good idea. <• CHAS. BANNISTER.