The Mountain's Name
For many centuries the mountain was called Taranaki by Māori. Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, the First Lord of the Admiralty who promoted Cook's first voyage. It appeared as Mt Egmont on maps until 29 May 1986, when the Minister of Lands ruled that there would be two alternative and equal official names "Mount Taranaki" or "Mount Egmont". The Egmont name still applies to the national park that surrounds the peak. The Māori word tara means mountain peak, so to bilingual speakers the name Mount Taranaki is linguistically redundant (as are many other placenames such as Lake Rotoiti and Motutapu Island). Naki is thought to come from ngaki, meaning "shining", a reference to the snow-clad winter nature of the upper slopes. Geologists refer to it as the Egmont Volcano. The mountain had also been named Pic Mascarin by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne as he made landfall off Taranaki on 25 March 1772. Du Fresne was unaware of Cook's earlier visit.
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Famous quotes containing the word mountain:
“... my mother ... piled up her hair and went out to teach in a one-room school, mountain children little and big alike. The first day, some fathers came along to see if she could whip their children, some who were older than she. She told the children that she did intend to whip them if they became unruly and refused to learn, and invited the fathers to stay if they liked and she’d be able to whip them too. Having been thus tried out, she was a great success with them after that.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)