Everything about Aotearoa totally explained
Aotearoa is the most widely known and accepted
Māori name for
New Zealand. It is used by both Māori and non-Māori, and is becoming increasingly widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the
National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.
Translation
Placenames are often difficult to translate, and the original derivation of
Aotearoa isn't known for certain. The word can be broken up as:
ao = cloud,
tea = white, and
roa = long, and it's accordingly most often glossed as "The land of the long white cloud". In some traditional stories, Aotearoa was the name of the canoe of the explorer
Kupe, and he named the land after it. In another version, Kupe's daughter was watching the horizon and called "He ao! He ao!" ("a cloud! a cloud!"). The first land sighted was accordingly named
Aotea (White Cloud), now
Great Barrier Island. When a much larger landmass was found beyond Aotea, it was called
Aotea-roa (Long Aotea).
Usage
The use of
Aotearoa to refer to the whole of New Zealand is a post-colonial usage. In pre-colonial times,
Māori didn't have a commonly-used name for the whole New Zealand archipelago. Until the 20th century, 'Aotearoa' was used to refer to the
North Island only. As an example from the late 19th century, the first issue of
Huia Tangata Kotahi, a Māori language newspaper, dated
8 February 1893, contains the dedication on page 1: 'He perehi tenei mo nga iwi Māori, katoa, o Aotearoa, mete Waipounamu' (
This is a publication for the all Māori tribes of Aotearoa and the South Island), where 'Aotearoa' can only mean the North Island.
Historians (for example
Michael King) have suggested that the use of Aotearoa to mean 'New Zealand' was initiated by
Pākehā (non-Māori). He theorises that it originated from mistakes in the
February 1916 School Journal and was propagated in a similar manner to the myths surrounding the
Moriori. Influenced by this English-language usage, Aotearoa is now the term used by Māori.
Another well-known and presumably widely used name for the North Island is
Te Ika a Māui (The fish of
Māui). The
South Island was called
Te Wai Pounamu (The waters of
greenstone) or
Te Wāhi Pounamu (The place of greenstone). In early European maps of New Zealand, such as those of
Captain James Cook, garbled versions of these names are used to refer to the two islands (often spelt
Aheinomauwe and
Tovypoenammoo). After the adoption of the name
New Zealand by Europeans, the name used by Māori to denote the country as a whole was
Niu Tireni, a
transliteration of
New Zealand. When
Abel Tasman reached New Zealand in
1642, he named it
Staten Landt, believing it to be part of the land
Jacob Le Maire had discovered in
1616 off the coast of
Argentina.
Staten Landt appeared on Tasman's first maps of New Zealand, but this was changed by
Dutch cartographers to
Nova Zelandia, after the Dutch province of
Zeeland, some time after
Hendrik Brouwer proved the South American land to be an island in
1643. The
Latin Nova Zelandia became
Nieuw Zeeland in
Dutch.
Captain James Cook subsequently called the islands
New Zealand. It seems logical that he simply applied
English usage to the Dutch naming, but it has also been suggested he was possibly confusing Zeeland with the
Danish island of
Zealand.
Music
Aotearoa gained some prominence when it was used by New Zealand band
Split Enz in the lyrics to their song
Six Months In A Leaky Boat. Their use of the name for New Zealand could have spread wider had the song not been 'discouraged from airplay' by the BBC in the UK. The ban was due to the ongoing
Falklands War and a belief that the song would have been bad for British morale during the conflict.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Aotearoa'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://aotearoa.totallyexplained.com">Aotearoa Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
