Māori place names on New Zealand's maps and charts

Wendy Shaw
Land Information New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand
wshaw@linz.govt.nz

Keywords: Heritage, Navigation, Landscape

What is a map or chart without place names? Place names are integral to the symbols
representing what’s on the ground, giving context to space, helping us navigate from one
place to another, enabling informative communication, linking the stories behind them,
providing identity and asserting rights. They are our foundation, our place in the world, our
home. The physical representation of the ‘real world’ through cartographic symbology is
important, but place names are equally important as a fundamental cultural theme of
cartography. They are important markers of the landscape to help us navigate to our
destinations. Deeper still, they can revive or add to our knowledge of the heritage and
events that occurred at a location. They give meaning, whether metaphorical, descriptive,
themed, personal, or commemorative. Capturing all of these qualities in a single place
name can be a challenge. And an added challenge is when we have more than one language
on our countries.

In New Zealand, Māori is an official language as well as English. Māori place names were
established from the first migrations between 800–950 AD. The desire to acknowledge,
promote and encourage the use of Māori place names is something that was important to
Captain Cook in 1769, Admiral Dumont D’Urville in 1827, and Captain John Lorte Stokes
between 1848 to 1855. In 1875 the Colonial Secretary of New Zealand noted on the State of
the Surveys in New Zealand, that ‘Special attention should be given to the subject of
nomenclature, and care be taken to adhere in all possible cases to accurate Native names:
this is a matter of great philological and antiquarian importance’. In 1885 the Survey
Regulations required surveyors to ascertain ‘the Native names of all boundaries or natural
features’ within the block surveyed. In 1894 the Designations of Districts Act provided for
the start of formal place naming in New Zealand, giving the Governor power to assign or
alter place names. Formal naming processes and practice continued in 1924 when the
Minister of Lands formed the Honorary Geographic Board of New Zealand. Then in 1946 the
New Zealand Geographic Board Act came into force, setting out functions, powers, duties
and processes for official place naming, followed by the New Zealand Geographic Board Act
2008, which modernised some provisions and extended the Board’s naming jurisdiction.

Rules for place naming in New Zealand have evolved and developed over many years, with a
strong emphasis on preserving and restoring original Māori names. Oral traditions and
history remain strong in Māori culture, with connections to the land and its names being
hugely important to unlock past stories, events and mythologies, helping preserve the
creation traditions and provide a sense of belonging and identity. The written record
introduced by early Europeans sometimes omitted Māori place names, but those names
have remained known and continue to be used by Māori. Since the 1970s there has been a
steady move towards greater recognition of the significance of Māori place names in New
Zealand’s history and culture. Milestones include the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and the
Māori Language Act 1987. These lead to a resurgence of interest in Māori place names,
particularly through Treaty of Waitangi Settlement legislation, which has included the
restoration of original Māori place names as part of cultural redress.

One way that New Zealand has addressed the restoration of original Māori place names is
with dual naming; the convention being that the original Māori name is the preceding name
in recognition of rights of first discovery, followed by a forward slash, meaning ‘or’ and, then
the non-Māori name, for example Matiu / Somes Island. This typically causes a place name
to become long, difficult to pronounce, a challenge for emergency management, and can
cause depiction challenges on paper maps and charts.