Kerry Butler
There has been a movement in recent times to push a name change for our country to ‘Aotearoa’ by way of creeping normalcy. This subversive agenda is brazenly orchestrated by ideologically biased media...especially news presenters.
Before this woke crusade is allowed to go too far, people need to be enlightened as to all aspects of a name change, especially considering what is at stake, i.e., the financial cost regarding our hard-earned, internationally recognised, New Zealand marketing brand.
There should also be consideration for our soldiers who died fighting in two world wars: 30,000 of whom are interred in overseas countries, where their gravestones are proudly inscribed with the name of their homeland: New Zealand.
Of course, to counter these aspects, it will be argued that the New Zealand name will always remain combined with Aotearoa. Rubbish. We daily see and hear numerous examples of where it is not.
Of real significance concerning this whole matter is that, despite what has been our country’s name under various spellings since 1643 (which is quite a stretch of history), the desire to now change it to Aotearoa is based solely on the belief that it’s the original Māori name. But the truth is, Māori had no name for the country as a whole. The North Island was Te Ika ā Māui and the South Island Te Waka ā Māui.
It is said that the word Aotearoa described a long white cloud. And Aotea was used by some to name the North Island, although, the area now known as the King Country was referred to as Aotearoa during the 1870s.
In 1890, the author William Reeves popularised the usage of ‘Aotearoa’ to describe the entirety of New Zealand through romanticised literary narratives rather than traditional precedent.
The first Māori dictionary, published in 1844, had no entry for Aotearoa. And the te reo Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840 makes no mention of it.
In 1835, when chiefs were establishing the Declaration of Independence (which failed due to intertribal fighting), they didn’t know what name to give their country, so called it Nu Tireni, which expressed their pronunciation of the English wording for New Zealand.
This not only proves that Aotearoa was never the traditionally accepted name but also that Māori were happy with the name New Zealand. So much so, they made up te reo words to match it.
