Tongariro is traditionally the belly of the fish that Maui caught and there are many Maori legends concerning the mountain. Sir George Grey records that Ngatoroirangi, the archpriest of Arawa canoe, saw the summit of Tongariro and commenced to climb to it. Before he left his followers, he bade them to fast until his return. When he was nearly at the top, his followers disobeyed him and Ngatoroirangi all but perished. Almost at his last gasp, he prayed to his gods in Hawaiki to send fire and produce a volcano in the mountain. His prayers were heard, and the gods sent fire which came to him by way of Whakaari (White Island), Moutohora, Okakaru, the Rotorua thermal district, Tarawera, Paeroa, Orakeikorako, and Taupo. It travelled underground, spouting up at these places, and finally ascended to the top of Tongariro to revive him. The Tuwharetoa tribe has a variant of this legend, which explains the birth of the volcanoes and the naming of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe. According to this version, Ngatoroirangi had visited the Taupo – National Park district in order to lay claim to the territory. Near Rangipo he met Hapekituarangi who, he discovered, was on a similar errand. In order to forestall his rival, Ngatoroirangi decided to climb Tongariro and thus lay claim to whatever lands he could view from the summit. After rendering the mountain tapu to his rival, he began his climb. When he reached the summit he was chilled almost to death by the strong south wind. Weakened by the cold and the strenuous climb, he called aloud to his ancestral spirits and to his powerful sisters, Kuiwai and Haungaroa, who were in Hawaiki, to send fire to warm him. His call was answered, in the manner described by Grey. The name, Tonga-riro, commemorates the cold south wind, which chilled Ngatoroirangi.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington and Thomas Ludovic Grant-Taylor, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• Geology of the Tongariro Subdivision, Geological Survey Bulletin 40 N.S., Gregg, D. R. (1960).

Tongariro (6,458 ft), after which Tongariro National Park is named, is a truncated multiple volcano 9 miles long and 5 miles wide at its base with a summit 5 miles long and 2 miles wide. It is a multiple volcano in that the broad summit contains a considerable number of small craters including North Crater, South Crater, Central Crater, West Crater, Red Crater, Te Mari Craters, and Oturere Crater. It appears likely that these are later centres of activity within the rim of the remains of an earlier multiple volcano disrupted by explosion and collapse. A reconstruction of the form of the old volcano suggests that there were four craters forming an elongated volcano aligned north-west. On the northern slopes of Tongariro are a number of small explosion craters. Since 1840 there have been eruptions from three centres on Tongariro. Red Crater erupted ash in 1855 and steam in 1859. Variations of considerable extent in steam emissions, still continuing, have been reported. Te Mari consists of two craters. The lower, called Sulphur Lagoon, is filled with water and, according to the Maoris, has been frequently active in the past. The upper, formed during an eruption in 1869, emitted ash up to 1896 but since then its only activity has been fumarolic. A lava flow was erupted from the upper crater, probably in the 1880s.

To the west of Te Mari and somewhat lower (4,500 ft) is an area of fumaroles and hot springs, Ketetahi. Although Sir George Grey claimed to have reached the summit of Tongariro on 31 December 1866, it was probably Ngauruhoe that he climbed, seeing nothing but mist. The first definite ascent was made by Sir James Hector on 23 November 1867. Earlier attempts by travellers to climb the mountain were frustrated by the Maoris who regarded it as tapu.

This is a New Zealand member of the flycatcher family, subfamily Muscicapinae, to which also belong the native robin and fantail. In spite of the common name and some resemblance in appearance and habits to the tits or titmice of Britain and Europe, the two are not related; the name, although well established, is therefore misleading. Maori names were miromiro (North Island) and ngiru-ngiru (South Island); scientifically the species is Petroica macrocephala.

There are five subspecies. One occurs on the North Island and its off-lying islets, one on South Island and Stewart Island and their off-lying islets, one on the Chathams, one on the Snares, and one on the Auckland Islands. Minor differences in colour and size separate the races, with the exception of the Snares Island bird which is wholly black. The others are, in general, dark above with a white wing bar and pale on breast and belly. North Island birds have white underparts; those of the South, Stewart, Chathams, and Aucklands are yellowish below. The upper plumage of males is black; that of females is brown and, in general, duller throughout than that of males. The Auckland Islands females are exceptions in that their plumage closely resembles that of the males.

Tomtits are sometimes confused with the native robins to which they are closely related, but they are much smaller, have a larger and more obvious area of white or cream on their underparts, carry a white wing bar (less conspicuous in the female), have not so upright a stance as the robins, usually hold their wings drooped, and are more active and spend much less time on the ground. Habitat is primarily beech forest, though they may also be found on the edges of clearings in scrub and in plantations of introduced pines. In winter, orchards and gardens may also be inhabited.

Tomtits are insectivorous. Breeding occurs from August to January, with the peak about November. The males set up and defend territories and the females make nests of moss, fine twigs, and straws bound together with cobwebs. There is a tendency to place these in hollows or cavities fairly close to ground level. During the incubation of the three to five eggs, the females are fed by the males. Two broods may be raised in a season.

The common call is a high-pitched “see see see”; there is also a song which is heard during the breeding season. This is a short repetitive trill, sounding a little like a fragment of the song of the grey warbler, and it has been rendered as “ti, ti, ti, oly, oly, oly, ho”.

by Gordon Roy Williams, B.SC.(HONS.)(SYDNEY), Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

Tokoroa is situated in the upper Waikato basin. The surrounding district is part of the volcanic plateau and the land is undulating to hilly. Within 2–4 miles of the town are extensive exotic forests. The Putaruru-Taupo highway and the contiguous Kinleith branch railway pass through Tokoroa. Putaruru is 14 miles north-west and Kinleith is 4 miles south-east by road or rail.

The main rural activities of the district are sheep raising and dairying. Forestry is, however, the most important primary industry. Timber is milled and processed at Kinleith, but most of the Kinleith workers live in Tokoroa. Tokoroa is a marketing and servicing centre with associated industries. These include the manufacture of cheese, wooden boxes, and joinery; sawmilling, general engineering, and the quarrying of building stone.

Tokoroa was first subdivided by the Matarawa Land Co. in 1918-19, but until the 1930s its growth was slow. In 1944 the local progress league, anticipating town expansion with the utilisation of the exotic forests, urged the Matamata County Council to adopt a definite town plan for orderly development. The council, in consultation with the milling company and other interests, and with the assistance of the Town Planning Division of the Ministry of Works, made plans for the construction of the town on approved modern lines. This included the zoning of residential, commercial, and industrial areas, and adequate provision for all public amenities. Tokoroa was constituted a county town on 1 April 1953.

The origin and the meaning of the name are obscure.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 1,193; 1956 census, 5,366; 1961 census, 7,054.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

(c. A.D. 1150).

Maori voyager.

Toi is one of the best known of the traditional Maori canoe voyagers from Hawaiki, and one of the early periods of New Zealand settlement is named after him. He lived about A.D. 1150. A search for Whatonga, his missing grandson, caused his eventual voyage to New Zealand, where he finally settled at Whakatane. His pa is still to be seen there today. In Hawaiki he was known as Toitehuatahi, the first-born, but later in New Zealand he was called Toikairakau, the wood-eater, because he lived on forest foods. This name gives him an important place in Maori history as it is taken to mean that he brought no cultivated food plants with him from Hawaiki. This suggests that the traditional pre-Fleet Maori did not practise the art of agriculture. It stresses the importance of the “Fleet” settlement of 1350 which, heralding a Maori agrarian revolution, had a profound influence on tribal organisation and areas of settlement.

by John Bruce Palmer, B.A., Curator, Fiji Museum, Suva.

(Amphidesma ventricosum).

The toheroa has long been esteemed as one of our finest sea foods, but unfortunately supplies are limited and strict controls have to be enforced. This clam, which grows to 6 in. in length, burrows deeply in sand on beaches that are backed by extensive sand dunes. Freshwater seepage from lagoons in the dunes promotes the growth of diatoms and affords a rich inshore concentration of plankton, upon which the toheroa feeds. The pattern of distribution is interesting. The largest beds of toheroas are in North Auckland, on the Muriwai Beach, near Dargaville, and on the Ninety Mile Beach, but they also occur on the Wellington west coast beaches near Levin, and on some Southland beaches bordering Foveaux Strait.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(1868–1942).

Business leader.

A new biography of Todd, Charles appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Charles Todd was born in 1868 at Peebles, Scotland, the eldest son of Charles Todd, who was born at Alloa, Perthshire, in 1836, being the fifth son of John Todd, a woollen manufacturer. At an early age Charles Todd senior went mining in Victoria, where he married Mary O'Sullivan at Ararat in 1858. After returning to Scotland in 1867, they arrived in New Zealand in 1870, Todd becoming manager of Murray Roberts and Co.'s fellmongery at Milton, Otago. Soon afterwards he became manager successively of the Canada Reef Mining Co. at Milton; the North of Ireland claim at Blue Spur, Tuapeka; and, in April 1878, the Cromwell Quartz Mining Co., Bendigo, Central Otago.

Young Charles attended school at Bendigo and Cromwell; then, when the family moved to Heriot, West Otago, after the closing of the mine in May 1884, he joined his father in a fellmongery business. Heriot was his home for 31 years where he carried on the business and later engaged in sheep farming there and at Lawrence. In 1895 he married Mary Hegarty and had a family of four sons and three daughters.

At an age when many men would be thinking of retirement, Charles Todd, recognising the possibilities of the motorcar, embarked on a pioneering venture in 1915. Moving to Dunedin he founded Todd Bros. Ltd., stock and station agents, acquired a leading agency, and soon established a thriving business with branches throughout Otago. In 1923 the motor franchise part of the company was formed into the Todd Motor Co., which was later incorporated as Todd Motors Ltd. The stock and station agency part of the company was sold to Dalgety and Co. in 1925, and Todd moved to Wellington in the following year. Todd Motor Industries, the motor-vehicle assembly organisation for the Todd group, was founded in 1935, and Todd Motor Corporation was formed in 1938 to act as a holding company for Todd's interests.

Perhaps Todd's greatest business achievement was the founding of the Associated Motorists Petrol Co. Ltd. in August 1931. This company, which changed its name to Europa Oil (N.Z.) Ltd. in February 1954, commenced marketing operations in March 1933, with the result that the price of petrol in New Zealand was reduced by 6d. a gallon.

Todd was a leader in Dunedin local affairs, being president of the Otago Expansion League from 1917 to 1923, president of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce from 1920 to 1922, Mayor of St. Kilda from 1923 to 1926, and a director of the Dunedin and South Seas Exhibition (1925-26). He unsuccessfully contested Dunedin South as a Reform candidate at the 1928 parliamentary elections, and Central Otago as an Independent Reform candidate in 1931. Todd was a member of the Southern Pastoral Lands Commission 1920, which reported on leasing and on the better utilisation of Canterbury, Otago, and Southland Crown lands.

An ardent temperance worker, Todd was president of the New Zealand Alliance and of the Otago branch of the United Temperance Reform Council, and was author of a pamphlet Catholics and Prohibition. From his youth in Otago, when he was captain of the Heriot cricket and rugby teams, Charles Todd maintained a keen interest in sporting activities. He gave an aerodrome site at Green Island to the Otago Aero Club, of which he was patron from 1925 to 1932, and was president of the Otago Cricket Association for the 1927-28 season.

His public activities were continued in Wellington. He was a member of the Wellington Rotary Club, deputy chairman of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, member of the National Patriotic Fund Board, and chairman of the National Council for the Reclamation of Waste Materials.

Todd died in Wellington on 21 August 1942.

Charles Todd was a man of affairs who not only built up industries that have played an important part in New Zealand's economic development, but who also keenly participated in many varied fields of local and national activity.

Todd's widow, Mary (1866–1962), took a prominent part in many charitable causes. During the First World War she engaged in Red Cross work. She was generous in her support of charities, but her unostentatious giving was known only to the many causes she regularly helped. Very close to her heart were the education and welfare of youth, two particular benefactions being the Charles and Mary Todd Scholarship for the education of secondary schoolboys, and a Mary Todd Parish Trust.

by John Sidney Gully, M.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Assistant Chief Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington.

• Otago Daily Times, 22 Aug 1942 (Obit)
• Dominion, 22 Aug 1942 (Obit)
• New Zealand Financial Times, Sep 1942.

(?–1888).

Maori warrior.

A new biography of Titokowaru, Riwha appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

A chief of Ngati Ruahine tribe of South Taranaki, Titokowaru was prominent as a prophet and priest. He was responsible for organising a campaign against Government forces by gathering picked fighting men around him from neighbouring tribes. A most skilful warrior, he was second only to Te Kooti in guerilla warfare and trained his men in bush fighting, surprise attacks on small military posts, ambushing, and enticing untrained white troops into unfamiliar terrain. He revived cannibalism and boasted in a letter: “I have begun to eat the flesh of the white man, I have eaten him like the flesh of the cow, cooked in a pot”. Titokowaru's boast was metaphorical, for he himself never ate human flesh as it impaired his personal sanctity, but in his “great, gruff voice” he encouraged his warriors to do so. The younger men, however, were “filled with wonder and fear” seeing elders eating human flesh. This custom, together with cutting out the heart of the first enemy slain in battle, was meant to make the white troops afraid, and it undoubtedly gave added ferocity to the campaign.

Titokowaru's pa was Te Ngutu o te Manu, deep in the rata forest near Hawera. In his large assembly hall and temple he selected his war party by curious methods of divination, using his sacred staff. During the attack on his pa in 1868, when Von Tempsky was killed, Titokowaru walked up and down the clearing inside the stockade, disregarding bullets, and, spear in hand, recited prayers to ancient Maori gods. After the battle–a victory–he stood with his hands resting on his spear and in a croaking voice ordered the 20 white bodies to be burned. Then he farewelled Von Tempsky's corpse before lighting the funeral pyre.

His most famous victories were at Te Ngutu o te Manu and Moturoa where Government forces were heavily defeated. Maoris attribute his decline of power to an illicit liaison with another chief's wife at Tauranga-ika pa. This circumstance was fatal to his own prestige and sanctity so that he was no longer “the invincible war priest and war captain of his people”. After stands at Otautu and Whakamara, Titokowaru was harried by Wanganui Maoris until he finally abandoned the district, with his power broken, never to fight again. He settled at Kawau pa in the upper Waitara Valley until 1875, and died in 1888.

Remembered for his outstanding military leadership, he was a master tactician in guerilla warfare; as an engineer he modified the fortified pa and made it virtually indestructible, even to artillery and mortar fire. In later years he came under the influence of Te Whiti and led the ploughing parties at Parihaka.

by John Bruce Palmer, B.A., Curator, Fiji Museum, Suva.

There are few places whose time is ahead of New Zealand, two of these being Chatham Islands, 45 minutes, and Tonga, 20 minutes ahead. Fiji has the same time as New Zealand. The following places are behind New Zealand time by the number of hours and minutes shown. Thus, when it is noon New Zealand time it is 9.30 a.m. Adelaide time; New York, which is 17 hours behind New Zealand time, would therefore be 7 p.m. the previous day.

Those marked * have daylight saving by either advancing their time one hour from standard time during the summer semester or retarding the winter semester.

by John Sidney Gully, M.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Assistant Chief Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington.

On 31 October 1868 a notice in the New Zealand Gazette announced that New Zealand mean time was to be set at 11 ½ hours ahead of Greenwich time.

At the turn of the century the Hon. Sir Thomas Sidey advocated the extension of summer time daylight hours by putting the clocks forward an hour from September to the following March. He said that this would give greater use of daylight during the summer months, an extra hour in the evening for recreational purposes, and a saving of artificial light. To put his idea into effect he introduced a Bill into the House of Representatives in 1909 and reintroduced it every year until 1929. The Bill nearly became law in 1915 when it passed the House of Representatives after an all-night sitting, but was rejected by the Legislative Council. Again, in 1926, a Bill was passed by the House of Representatives only to be rejected by the Legislative Council. In 1927, however, the passing of the Summer Time Act authorised the advancement of clocks one hour between 6 November 1927 and 4 March 1928. But this Act was operative for one year only, and when the 1928 Act was passed extending the period of summer time from 14 October 1928 to 17 March 1929, the period of advancement was half an hour. This made New Zealand time 12 hours in advance of Greenwich time, and from then onwards the period of clock advancement has been 30 minutes.

The Summer Time Act of 1929 permanently enacted the provision of 30 minutes advance in time from the second Sunday in October to the third Sunday in March of the following year. This was amended by the Summer Time Amendment Act of 1933 which extended the period of summer time from the first Sunday in September to the last Sunday in the following April. The national emergency caused by war confirmed the advantages of Sidey's Summer Time Act when the Daylight Saving Emergency Regulations were brought into force in 1941 and each succeeding year until the Standard Time Act was passed in 1945. The regulations provided for summer time throughout the year, and the confirming Act made New Zealand's standard time 12 hours in advance of Greenwich mean time from 1 January 1946.

The time throughout New Zealand is controlled by the New Zealand Time Service, whose signal clock is being corrected continually by astronomical observations and overseas radio time signals. Time signals, which are of six dots at second intervals, the last being the exact minute, are broadcast regularly throughout the day over the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation's network. The correct time is sent daily at 9 a.m. to the General Post Office and Railways Department for transmission to all telegraph offices in New Zealand and railway stations in the North Island. Further, the clock on the Government Buildings in Wellington is checked daily at 9 a.m. and is usually correct to within 15 seconds.

by John Sidney Gully, M.A., DIP.N.Z.L.S., Assistant Chief Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington.