Rakiura

Many years ago ( in my traveling /researching NZ Maori tribes I had the pleasure of being taken to " RAKIURA " ( often called " Stewart Island " Named after an early sailor who settled their ) by an elder of a tribe living
in a tribal community on the Southland coast . We spent some time together and he was explaining + showing me how some of the Maori names around that area were so named . WE travelled across FOVEAUX Strait to Rakiura and he explained he the this great straight of water we were travelling across came to be . He explained so much, some i forgot to jot down and write about at a later date . Lately I have been travelling again ( on the Net ) tthro' NZ remembering what a beautiful country we live . In my Net NZ travels I came across this story , about i Maori Hand me down Knowledge of How this great straight of water came about which I had forgotten about.

Source -teara.govt.nz/en/stewartislandrakiura

Kiwa's pathway and Kewa's lost tooth

Māori knew Foveaux Strait as Te Ara a Kiwa (the pathway of Kiwa). Kiwa was an ancestor who tired of crossing the isthmus which, according to the story, then connected Rakiura to Southland. He asked the whale, Kewa, to eat through the land to create a channel so Kiwa could cross by waka. Crumbs that fell from the whale's mouth became islands in Foveaux Strait. Solander Island (Hautere), which guards the western approaches of the strait, was also known as Te Niho a Kewa, a tooth lost from the whale's mouth.