Otakou
Encyclopedia
The settlement of Otakou lies within the boundaries of the city of Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. It is located 25 kilometres from the city centre at the eastern end of Otago Peninsula
Otago Peninsula
The Otago Peninsula is a long, hilly indented finger of land that forms the easternmost part of Dunedin, New Zealand. Volcanic in origin, it forms one wall of the eroded valley that now forms Otago Harbour. The peninsula lies south-east of Otago Harbour and runs parallel to the mainland for...

, close to the entrance of Otago Harbour
Otago Harbour
Otago Harbour is the natural harbour of Dunedin, New Zealand, consisting of a long, much-indented stretch of generally navigable water separating the Otago Peninsula from the mainland. They join at its southwest end, from the harbour mouth...

.

Overview

Though a small fishing village, Otakou is important in the history of Otago for several reasons. The name 'Otakou' is thought to come from Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

 words meaning either "single village" or "place of red earth". Its original name was 'Otago' but European officials who had learned Māori in the North Island, visiting in the 1840s changed it to 'Otakou', believing that to be the correct form. In fact it isn't and 'Otago' is the correct southern Māori dialect word, as the earliest European records and the oldest Māori traditions both attest. But the myth is very much alive. Many people still believe that 'Otago' is a European corruption of 'Otakou'.

In its original form 'Otago' it was the name of the channel off Wellers Rock but was transferred to the lower harbour as a whole, the port, the nearby Māori settlements and the Weller brothers
Weller brothers
The Weller brothers, Englishmen of Sydney and Otago, New Zealand, were the founders of a whaling station on Otago Harbour and New Zealand’s most substantial merchant traders in the 1830s.-Immigration:...

' whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 establishment - one of the region's oldest European settlements, having been founded in 1831. It was as the name of these it was converted to 'Otakou', which form is still used to refer to them today. The old Māori names for the Māori settlements were Te Ruatitiko, Tahakopa, Omate and Ohinetu.

Otakou was probably also the "city of Otago" burnt by Captain Kelly
James Kelly (Australian explorer)
James Kelly , Australian mariner, explorer and port official, was born on 24 December 1791 at Parramatta, New South Wales. He was probably the son of James Kelly, a cook in the convict transport Queen, and Catherine Devereaux, a convict transported for life from Dublin in the same ship.Kelly was...

 in December 1817 during the Sophia incident.
Prior to the arrival of European settlers, the place was a prominent Māori settlement, and it is still the site of Otago's most important marae
Marae
A marae malae , malae , is a communal or sacred place which serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies...

. By the early 19th century, the three Māori iwi
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...

 of Ngāi Tahu
Ngāi Tahu
Ngāi Tahu, or Kāi Tahu, is the principal Māori iwi of the southern region of New Zealand, with the tribal authority, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, being based in Christchurch and Invercargill. The iwi combines three groups, Kāi Tahu itself, and Waitaha and Kāti Mamoe who lived in the South Island prior...

, Ngāti Māmoe and Waitaha
Waitaha
Waitaha is an early historical Māori iwi . Inhabitants of the South Island of New Zealand, they were largely absorbed via marriage and conquest first by the Kāti Mamoe and then Ngāi Tahu from the 16th century onward....

 had blended into a single tribal entity. The Treaty of Waitangi
Treaty of Waitangi
The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....

 was signed nearby in 1840 on the H.M.S Herald by two important chiefs, who were descended from all three tribes. Ōtākou remains an important centre of Ngāi Tahu life.

Otakou is located close to Taiaroa Head
Taiaroa Head
Taiaroa Head is a headland at the end of the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand, overlooking the mouth of the Otago Harbour. It lies within the city limits of Dunedin...

, the site of an albatross
Albatross
Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds allied to the procellariids, storm-petrels and diving-petrels in the order Procellariiformes . They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific...

 colony and other wildlife such as seals
Pinniped
Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...

 and penguin
Penguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...

s. Local Maori still call Taiaroa Head by its original name, Pukekura, which was also the name of the pa
Pa (Maori)
The word pā can refer to any Māori village or settlement, but in traditional use it referred to hillforts fortified with palisades and defensive terraces and also to fortified villages. They first came into being about 1450. They are located mainly in the North Island north of lake Taupo...

established there around 1750 and still occupied by Māori in the 1840s, before the land was taken by the government under the Public Works Act for building the lighthouse and the fortifications used during the Russian Scare of the 1880s.

Further reading

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