WAN-GAREE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 396, 24 January 1947, Page 24

WAN-GAREE

Sir,-In his interesting and informative series of articles "Sundowner" ~emarks that a Maori, about fifty years of age, at Kaikohe, asked if he had come from Wan-garee. When my father settled at Whangarei about 60 years ago I think I am correct in. saying that everyone called the town Wangaree; at any rate I don’t recall any other. pronunciation. Having been a southerner for 50 years I can’t say when the change was made to the present accepted pronunciation, but for some time I have on occasion seen raised eyebrows when from early ‘habit I have pronounced it in the old way. Marsden in 1820 writes of "a settlement called Wangaree, not far from Bream Head." To mention other in-_ stances, of which more might be quoted, John Butler in 1821 calls it haphazardly Wangaree, Wangahree, Wanga Ree, Dieffenbach in 1840 refers to Wangari Bay. The question arises, how could these early arrivals have adopted such spellings if the Maoris of those days pronounced it Whanga-ray as is the modern custom? This is a matter that has always puzzled me; I’m no Maori scholar, and this seems a good opportunity to ask, like Rosa Dartle, for in- formation. Perhaps others, too, would be (continued on next. page)

(continued from previous page) glad if some qualified authority could tell us whether the Kaikohe Maori may not after all have used the correct and uncorrupted pronunciation of my boyhood town, or whether Dieffenbach’s spelling should not have been adopted in the first place.

A.H.

REED

‘Dunedin).