Ōtara

Ōtara is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, situated 18 kilometres to the southeast of the Auckland CBD. Ōtara lies near the head of the Tāmaki River (actually an arm of the Hauraki Gulf), which extends south towards the Manukau Harbour. Contemporary Ōtara is surrounded by the suburbs of Ōtāhuhu, Middlemore, Mangere, Papatoetoe, Wiri, Manurewa, Manukau Heights, Flat Bush, Botany Downs, Pakuranga and Howick. The suburb is noted for its proportion of Pacific Islander residents, who make up 68% of the Ōtara population and its unusually low number of New Zealand European (Pākehā) residents (13%).

History

Māori origins

In the Māori language, Ō-Tara means ‘the place of Tara’ or ‘territory belonging to Tara’, who was a Rangatira (or Māori Chief) of the area. 'Ōtara' is in turn the shortened form of Te Puke o Tara (literally; ‘The Hill of Tara’); known also for a time as Smales Mount. Te Puke o Tara was one of Ōtara's prominent volcanic cones, and prior to European settlement in the area was the site of a scoria cone Pā. Like most of Auckland, the Ōtara landscape is volcanic in origin and forms a part of what is known as the East Tāmaki volcanic field, with Te Puke o Tara and Mātanginui (Greenmount) having been the dominant cones of Ōtara. A third cone called Highbrook by pakeha (white/European) settlers and in Maori Te Puke Ariki nui or Te Maunga/mountain of the Great/paramount chief. Mātangi nui was also a Pā site, and the areas surrounding all three cones were thought to represent the densest area of pre-European settlement in East Tāmaki, favoured rich volcanic gardening soils and fresh water springs.