History
The name means "Glistening Waters", and is said to have been applied by an early Māori explorer, Huanui, who saw the rivers and lake from the mountains to the west.
Rangitane and Ngāti Kahungunu were the Māori tribes (iwi) in the area when European explorers arrived in the 1770s.
European settlement began in the early 1840s, initially on large grazing runs leased from Māori, and with closer settlement from the 1850s.
On 23 January 1855 the region was hit by the strongest earthquake recorded in New Zealand, which reached Magnitude 8.2 on the Richter Scale. There were five deaths.
Read more about this topic: Wairarapa
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)