Karta över Polynesien eller femte delen af jordklotet, 1780

Ulimaroa is a place mentioned in the journals of

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

and

Joseph Banks Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James ...

. Cook and Banks heard of it from the Maoris, who claimed that it lay many days' sail from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The Swedish geographer identified it with

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, 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 Maori they met in Queen Charlotte Sound. The Maori 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 by ...

, where a party of Maoris had told him of a large country lying to the north-northwest, a month's journey away. Some of the Maoris' ancestors had sailed there, returning with depleted numbers. The inhabitants were said to live on pork, which made Tupia wonder why the Maoris 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 Maoris 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 province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

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 Maori language 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 ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

or one of the

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), 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 ...

an islands. This is especially likely in view of the reference to pigs, which are not indigenous to Australia. Some, however, have surmised that the "pigs" mentioned by the Maoris could in fact be wombats, which would make Djurberg's identification tenable.

References

* {{cite journal, last1=Tent, first1=Jan, last2=Geraghty, first2=Paul, date=2012, title=Where in the World is Ulimaroa? Or, How a Pacific Island Became the Australian Continent, url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41710203, journal=The Journal of Pacific History, volume=47, issue=1, pages=1–20, jstor=41710203 Country name etymology European exploration of Australia Māori words and phrases

History

See also

References