Ulimaroa is a place mentioned in the journals of

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

and

Joseph Banks Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English Natural history, naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the European and American voyages of scientific exploration, 1766 natural-history ...

. Cook and Banks heard of it from the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

, who claimed that it lay many days' sail from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. The Swedish geographer identified it with

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, and ''Ulimaroa'' briefly became an alternative name for the continent as a result of this.

History

Cook and Banks picked up the name from a Māori they met in Queen Charlotte Sound. The Māori was asked if a ship like the ''Endeavour'' had ever been seen in New Zealand before. He replied in the negative, but said that his country had once been visited by a boat from Ulimaroa. When asked where Ulimaroa was, he pointed north and said that it would take many days to sail there. This accorded with an earlier report Cook had heard in

Doubtless Bay Doubtless Bay is a bay on the east coast of the Northland Region, north-east of Kaitaia, in New Zealand. It extends from Knuckle Point on Karikari Peninsula in the north to Berghan Point at Hihi in the south. There are rocky headlands, backed ...

, where a party of Māori had told him of a large country lying to the north-northwest, a month's journey away. Some of their ancestors had sailed there, returning with depleted numbers. The inhabitants were said to live on pork, which made Tupia wonder why they hadn't brought any pigs back for themselves. In his ''Geografi'' (1776), Daniel Djurberg applied the name to Australia on the assumption that this was the "large country" the Māori were talking about. ''Ulimaroa'', he argued, was a far more fitting name than the then-current '' New Holland'', since the new continent bore little resemblance to

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...

in Europe. Other geographers followed Djurberg's lead, and ''Ulimaroa'' continued to appear on maps as a name for Australia until about 1819. Modern scholarship has cast doubt upon Djurberg's assumptions. His claim that the name means "big red land" in the

Māori language Māori (; endonym: 'the Māori language', commonly shortened to ) is an Eastern Polynesian languages, Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost membe ...

has no foundation in fact. It could instead come from ''o Rimaroa'', meaning "the long arm". Rather than referring to Australia, it could refer to

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

or one of the

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

an islands. This is especially likely in view of the reference to pigs, which were not found in Australia at the time. Some, however, have surmised that the "pigs" mentioned by the Māori could in fact be

wombats Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials of the family Vombatidae that are native to Australia. Living species are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are ...

, which would make Djurberg's identification tenable.

Notes

References

Sources

* {{Refend Country name etymology European exploration of Australia Māori words and phrases

History

See also

Notes

References

Sources