Origin of Name
The earliest European pioneers in Wellington knew the area that became Hataitai as "Jenkins Estate". The name Hataitai originated with the syndicate which sub-divided it for building in 1901, and derives from Whātaitai, the ancient Maori name for present-day Miramar. The ridge of the hill was thought to represent the petrified remains of the great taniwha (sea monster) Whataitai, one of the two creatures who helped form the harbour of Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour). When one taniwha broke through the rock that separated the then lake from Cook Strait (the story goes), the waters rushed out, leaving Whātaitai stranded on rocks. An earthquake later lifted the monster's body into the hills below Tangi Te Keo (Mount Victoria).
Read more about this topic: Hataitai
Famous quotes containing the words origin of and/or origin:
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)