Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/8

To all who know how attentively the Maoris noted the physical features of the country, and the prolific character of their geographical nomenclature, it is somewhat perplexing to find that an isolated region, with a conformation so marked as Banks Peninsula, does not possess a distinctive Maori name: unless, indeed, the present inhabitants have lost the knowledge of it, and confined to a part a name which originally embraced the whole. I am inclined to think that this is the case. In ancient times the whole island was spoken of as “The fish,” and even now the northern part of it is called “Mua upoko” (the front-head), while the southern part is called “Muri-hiku” (rear-tail). I think it is highly probable that when the first explorers, looking southwards from the neighborhood of Kaikoura, saw the Peninsula looming up against the sky, they took it to be the limit of the land’s extent, and called it accordingly the Hiku, or tail-end of the fish. But the combination of Rangi (sky) with Hiku may point to another derivation, since Hikurangi is the name of a mountain at the head of the Waiapu Valley, near East Cape. The name may possibly