The Kapiti Coast: Māori Tribal History and Place Names
Wakahuia Carkeek’s The Kapiti Coast: Māori Tribal History and Place Names is a substantial historical reference for understanding the region through names, whakapapa and places. The library holds a 2004 edition reference and a separate 1966 edition record. They should be linked as editions of a work, not mistaken for unrelated historical events.
The historical record
The Kapiti Coast: Māori Tribal History and Place Names — Wakahuia Carkeek — 2004
Wakahuia Carkeek and the place-name record
Place names are more than labels on modern maps. They may preserve ancestral journeys, settlement, resource use and changing relationships with land and water. A historically responsible entry needs to identify the particular name and page in Carkeek before claiming that a specific tradition is recorded there.
The original book is a source to consult, not a licence to reproduce long passages or to merge distinct iwi traditions. Where the meaning or location of a name is contested, the relevant iwi or hapū account should be foregrounded and the disagreement retained.
Place names as historical evidence
Wakahuia Carkeek’s The Kapiti Coast: Māori Tribal History and Place Names of the Paekakariki–Otaki District is more than a gazetteer. Its accounts connect named landscapes with settlement, movement and relationships among people and places. The original 1966 edition and expanded 2004 edition are separate historical publications with different pagination.
Two editions worth preserving
The National Library catalogues the 1966 edition as 187 pages, with its bibliography at pp.179–181, and the expanded 2004 edition as 247 pages, with bibliography at pp.238–241. Historical names should also be read alongside the relevant iwi and hapū accounts, including Puketapu ki Paraparaumu’s published history of Te Uruhi and its waterways.
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Illustrative material from the research image collection
