Mount Hikurangi
New Zealand · Oceania
About
Mount Hikurangi (or Te Ara ki Hikurangi in Māori) is a 1,752 m (5,748 ft) peak in the eastern corner of New Zealand's North Island, about 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Gisborne, and 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest of the East Cape Lighthouse. On a spur of the Raukūmara Range in the Waiapu Valley, it is the North Island's highest non-volcanic peak.
Mount Hikurangi is within the rohe of Ngāti Porou and Ngati Uēpohatu and is the iwi's most significant icon. In Māori mythology, it was the first part of the North Island to emerge when Māui pulled it as a giant fish from the ocean. According to these beliefs, his waka, Nukutaimemeha, became stranded on the mountain, and lies petrified between the mountain's peaks in Lake Hinetakawhiti.
Nearby summits include Whanokao (1,428 m or 4,685 ft), Aorangi (1,272 m or 4,173 ft), Wharekia (1,106 m or 3,629 ft) and Taitai (678 m or 2,224 ft). Together, these mountains provide what Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand calls an "awe-inspiring vista".
The early arrivals to Aotearoa commonly gave Polynesian ancestral names and symbolism to New Zealand places. Hikurangi and Aorangi were a pair of names transferred from Tahiti via Rarotonga to different parts of New Zealand Tahiti has a Mount Hiurai (Hi’ura’i/Hikurangi) at the summit of Mehetia (Me’eti’a) island. Rarotonga has Ikurangi, and maybe the origin of all these names is Si'ulagi(Si'ulangi)in Ta'u, Samoa.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.