by Geoffrey Churchman
That strange name, Aotearoa, attracted more attention in the Legacy Media this week. Earlier in this post on Waikanae Watch, Roger Childs proposed that its use as the name for New Zealand should be the subject of a referendum. That didn’t attract any comment, but National Party leader Judith Collins saying the same thing sure did.
As Karl du Fresne in a blog post headed A referendum? You mean, like, allowing people to have their say? We can’t have that, says: “It’s fascinating to observe the force with which the government and its protectors in the media have jumped on the National Party’s suggestion that official use of the name ‘Aotearoa’ should be the subject of a referendum.”
It is a quasi-official name already, and now appears on both passports and banknotes along with the official name. That might have been enough to satisfy the Hard Left and the racists represented by the Maori Party, you would think, but no, they want “New Zealand” gone completely and the Legacy Media have been doing their best to oblige.
Aotearoa simply means “Long White Cloud” — it does not mean “Land of the Long White Cloud”.
Ao = cloud + tea = white + roa = long. For Land of the Long White Cloud it needs to be Te Whenua o Aotearoa.
It is a fictitious name most likely invented by S. Percy Smith of English descent, some 50 years after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, in his fictional story of Kupe.
However, being a created quasi Maori word seems to be enough for the Jacinda government and their extremist allies, particularly the racist Maori Party.
But is it a good name? “A cloud is made of water drops or ice crystals floating in the sky,” says NASA – link
Another feature of clouds is that their shape and appearance is transitory — they can be in the sky one hour, gone the next, like a puff of smoke. Hmm.
One might have thought that for the Maori Party, “white” would be a problem too. Don’t they consider brown skin pigmentation to be superior to white? “Caucasians are an archaic species,” they say. So shouldn’t they be arguing instead for ‘Aoparaoneroa’ — long brown cloud? Maybe not: it could be a good name for Los Angeles where atmospheric brown means smog, but not here. So what then? ‘Nu Tirani’ as appeared in Te Tiriti?
Maybe the Jacinda government should be proposing a process similar to that which John Key followed for a possible flag change — first come up with some better words for the Maori name?
While I commend Geoffrey’s suggestion of Nu Tirani, Bruce Mason has already unsuccessfully petitioned the House of Representatives earlier this year urging the government to adopt this name as an alternative to “New Zealand”. (https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/petitions/document/PET_99102/petition-of-bruce-mason-nu-tirani-for-new-zealand).
As he correctly points out Nu Tirani is a transliteration of ‘New Zealand’, the latter named after the Dutch province of Zeeland.
While Maori have the names Te Ika-a-Maui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu for the South Island, and other names for smaller island, they do not have a name for the entire country.
Aotearoa may not include the maori word for “land”, but it does have a poetic quality to it and, as Roger Childs says in the first link under the article, it has become the accepted Te Reo word for the country and features in the Maori version of the national anthem. I think if there were to be a referendum, Aotearoa has to be top of the list for any alternative.