Hi @davidrichmond7446, thanks for the feedback. Technically speaking you are correct in that the Maori name for Flagstaff is "Whaka-ari" (held up to view), which described the whole range of hills behind the modern locality. That name honours a Maori tohunga Te Wharawhara who died here and whose body was displayed on an upright platform so that his people could see him for one last time. But the early settlers wrote it as “Wakari”, officially naming one of the Town Districts and a Road Board in this manner. It appears as such on the early maps. Later an ‘I’ slipped in, so that it also began to appear as “Waikari”, including on some maps, and that is actually the way many Dunedin people still pronounce it. That makes for confusion with Waikari in North Canterbury however so it best avoided. In Adam Johnson’s day it would have been pronounced as written on the maps and newspapers, so Wakari. A search of early Dunedin newspapers on Papers Past confirms the variations and their respective frequency. See for example, Otago Witness, 10 June 1854, p2 for the proclamation of the Wakari Road District.
It's not Waka- ri but Wh- kaari and it's misspelt as well. Old timer residents would never call it waka-ri
Hi @davidrichmond7446, thanks for the feedback. Technically speaking you are correct in that the Maori name for Flagstaff is "Whaka-ari" (held up to view), which described the whole range of hills behind the modern locality. That name honours a Maori tohunga Te Wharawhara who died here and whose body was displayed on an upright platform so that his people could see him for one last time. But the early settlers wrote it as “Wakari”, officially naming one of the Town Districts and a Road Board in this manner. It appears as such on the early maps. Later an ‘I’ slipped in, so that it also began to appear as “Waikari”, including on some maps, and that is actually the way many Dunedin people still pronounce it. That makes for confusion with Waikari in North Canterbury however so it best avoided. In Adam Johnson’s day it would have been pronounced as written on the maps and newspapers, so Wakari. A search of early Dunedin newspapers on Papers Past confirms the variations and their respective frequency. See for example, Otago Witness, 10 June 1854, p2 for the proclamation of the Wakari Road District.