Tia (Māori explorer)

In Māori traditions, Tia was an early Māori explorer and chief. He is responsible for the names of various features and settlements around the central North Island. Horohoro is named after an incident when he touched the dead body of an important chief and was cleansed by a priest in a ceremony known as Te Horohoroinga-nui-a-Tia (the great cleansing of Tia). Ātiamuri means Tia who follows behind due to the murkiness of the Waikato River leading him to believe someone was ahead of him. A set of river rapids along the river, near present-day Wairakei became known as Aratiatia (the stairway of Tia). Along the shores of Lake Taupo he noticed some peculiar coloured cliffs that resembled his rain coat and named them "the great cloak of Tia" or Taupō-nui-a-Tia in Maori. This name was later given to the lake, shortened and used for the township of Taupō.^[1]

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