Christchurch – Past & Present #3 High & Colombo Streets

The intersection of High, Colombo, and Hereford Streets, just south of Cathedral Square, has been a busy place since the earliest days of Christchurch’s settlement. (click on pics for larger view).

Looking South-east on High Street (top), circa 1910, with hansom cabs in front of The City Hotel on right side of street; The City Hotel (bottom), built in 1862.

A constant landmark since 1880 to the present is the Fisher Building, on the left hand corner of High & Hereford Streets, shown in both these pictures (above) on the left. High Street is now a pedestrian mall down to Cashel Street. A fountain has replaced the cabs outside the previous location of the City Hotel. Left hand picture from 1910s, right hand picture, 2007.

I doubt he remembers it, but many years ago my eldest brother dropped the Christmas ham off the back of his bike at this intersection. I know because, from one of the city's big red buses, I saw traffic weaving around him as he retrieved the ham, and our Christmas. The things one remembers from one's childhood...

One of those Big Reds clears the intersection, going north into the Square.

New Zealand Universities Place on World 500 List

Five of New Zealand’s eight universities - Auckland, Otago, Canterbury, Massey and Victoria - have placed on Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s annual list of the top 500 universities in the world.

New Zealand ranked first in terms of value for money, being able to produce top universities at a rate of 25 top institutions per 1% of global GDP compared to Britain’s 8.57 and the United States’ 5.5.

New Zealand is second only to Sweden on a per head of population basis in producing top universities on the list.

New Zealand Union of Students' Associations co-president Paul Falloon is reported as observing that: "It's pretty good to know that, just like Olympic medals, we are able to punch above our weight." But he also questioned how sustainable these achievements might be in the resource-constrained university system.

Meat on the Table - Maori Cannibalism Revisited

Anne Salmond's three books - Two Worlds, Between Worlds, and The Trial of the Cannibal Dog - are sophisticated, nuanced accounts of first contacts between Maoris and Pakeha (Europeans).

Kahura, Maori Chief at Grass Cove, 1773,

Self-confessed cannibal

In The Trial of the Cannibal Dog (2003), Salmond explores how Captain Cook's sailors, outraged at his lack of reprisal for the cannibalism of fellow sailors at Grass Cove on a previous voyage, put a kuri or Maori dog owned by a shipmate on trial (the dog kept nipping shipmates) - then ate it - and had the shipmate owner of the dog unwittingly eat a meal of it.

Salmond looks at this mock trial from the cultural perspective of both the English/European and Maori worlds. In 18th century European eyes, dogs and cats were familiars of witches and even if the owner was not a witch, the animals were seen as representatives of their owners. Thus, to eat a dog was akin to cannibalism.

Each side trying to come to terms with a foreign culture may subconsciously begin to absorb and adopt elements of the other's culture. The English seamen, who spend more time in Polynesia than England in the years of their voyages, end up adopting the Maori cultural practice of utu (revenge) in order to restore their mana (prestige) but combine this act with a mock English trial for the crime of cannibalism.

Cook's "enlightened", tolerant approach to conflict with Maori and other Polynesians was to forbid the use of deadly force by his men unless they were in imminent danger. This led to much conflict and resentment from a number of Cook’s officers and crew. From a Maori perspective, Cook's failure to take revenge meant to Maori that he and his men were taurekareka - people without mana or spiritual power, no better than slaves, and this exposed them to further aggressive acts. Salmond argues that this incident sowed the seeds of discord between Cook and his crew as well as with Polynesians on this, Cook's final and fatal voyage in the Pacific.

So, I reiterate from an earlier recent post that recent historical work has indeed dealt with the issue of Maori cannibalism. Sure, there are those hacks in Maoridom and the Pakeha world that may ignore or exclude cannibalism in their work & romanticize pre-European Maori, but there continues to be serious scholarly work that explores the violence and cannibalism of Maori. And Maori did not have a monopoly on violence, Europeans proved rather more adept at it on a larger scale. Sadly, it's the dark side of the human condition not confined to any particular ethnic group.

In other words, there’s more than enough blame to go around on all sides.

What’s In A Name? The Godwit or Kuaka

The bar-tailed Godwit or Kuaka

The bar-tailed godwit or kuaka, its Maori name, is a migratory bird that spends the southern summers in New Zealand then migrates northwards to Alaska, via China, Japan, and South Korea, for the breeding season, returning in the southern spring. Its trans-Pacific migration includes one of the longest known non-stop migratory paths.

In preparation for its migration the godwit puts on 60%–70% of its weight. By departure 55% of its weight is fat since fat is both light and yields eight times more energy than muscle protein. While seasonal changes in day-length trigger hormonal changes to initiate migratory preparations, the godwit’s navigation over such long trans-Pacific flights is thought to be guided by a combination of cues, including the earth’s magnetic map, sun angles, star movements, flock behaviour and memory, and landmarks to correct its course as it travels.

In 2007, the inimitable “E7”, her tag reference for satellite tracking, posted a trans-Pacific journey of 18,000-mile-long (29,000 km) series of flights tracked by satellite, including the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird.

E7’s Remarkable Trans-Pacific Journey

Source: US Geological Survey Alaska Science Center

On 17 March 2007, E7 departed Miranda in the North Island of New Zealand, flying non-stop to Yalu Jiang, China, completing the 6,300-mile-long flight in about eight days. After a 5 week stopover, she departed on 1 May for the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta in western Alaska. On this five day 4,500 mile non-stop leg of her journey, she crossed the Sea of Japan, Northern Pacific, and the end of the Alaska peninsula.

The breeding grounds in Alaska are tundra, moss and swamps, rich in insects that the godwits feed on. Godwits almost always lay 4 eggs and the chicks can fly after about 29 days, with the parents leaving the chicks soon thereafter. After breeding, the godwits move to the shorelines and estuaries along the Alaskan coast to fatten up on shellfish and sea worms for the return flight to New Zealand.

The most remarkable flight of E7 was her return journey to New Zealand – some 7,200 miles non-stop in eight days from Alaska to New Zealand. It is longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird.

Since kuaka are land birds, they are unable to stop to eat or drink while flying over open-ocean. The constant flight speeds at which E7 was tracked by satellite indicate she did not stop on land.

On her arrival back in New Zealand, E7 touched down at a spot just 8 miles east of where she had been tagged before she started her pan-Pacific journey.

It’s estimated that over the course of a 20 year lifetime, a godwit’s migratory mileage could top 288,000 miles.

In addition to locations in the North Island such as Manukau and Kaipara Harbours, and the Firth of Thames, the kuaka roost in large colonies at Farewell Spit and the Avon-Heathcote Estuary in Christchurch in the South Island.

Every southern spring, a watch is kept for the harbingers of spring on the Avon-Heathcote Estuary. Upon the first arrival, the bells of the Christchurch Cathedral are rung for 30 minutes to herald their arrival.

Upon arrival, the kuaka appear bedraggled having exhausted their fat reserves during the long journey. Their roosting colony at the Estuary is on the South Shore Spit in South Brighton. The kuaka fan out to feed at lowtide, foraging over the mudflats and shoreline for molluscs, crabs, marine worms and aquatic insects, probing the mud with their long bills as the tide recedes.

The Avon-Heathcote Estuary – the godwit colony is at the southern tip of South Shore Spit

In February-March, the godwits are farewelled by residents of Christchurch as they leave on their northern journey.

Kiwis of the human kind in the far flung Kiwi diaspora around the globe might adopt the godwit or kuaka as their emblem. However far they may be from their multiple homes, they can look to this humble bird for inspiration on how to close the distance between them.

Just Eat The Vegetables… Cannibalism in early New Zealand

Emile Rouargue’s fanciful illustration of Maori cannibalism, an illustration in a volume on French explorer Dumont D’Urville’s expedition to New Zealand. The artist is not known to have visited New Zealand. This illustration is on the cover of Moon’s This Horrid Practice – the title itself being Captain James Cook’s reference to cannibalism.

In This Horrid Practice, (Auckland: Penguin NZ, 2008), author Paul Moon argues that Maori cannibalism or kai tangata [human food] was more widespread and occurred later than many histories record. Moreover, in various radio & newspaper interviews launching his book, he charges revisionist historians have sanitized New Zealand histories in recent decades by ignoring or excluding discussion of cannibalism. This post will limit itself to the second claim and its factual accuracy.

Conceding for argument’s sake that political correctness in New Zealand has been widespread in recent decades, the charge that recent New Zealand general histories have denied or ignored the practice of cannibalism is a weak one not borne out by the facts.

Moon charges that Keith Sinclair’s A History of New Zealand (multiple editions) mentions cannibalism but once and that Michael King’s Penguin History of New Zealand (2003) omits any discussion of it at all.

A quick review of Sinclair’s history shows at least three separate references: quoting Maori anthropologist Terangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) as dryly commenting of the pre-European Maori that ” ’Human flesh was eaten when procurable’.” (p.18); that the inter-Maori musket wars of the 1820s “led to heavy casualties and cannibal feasts unprecedented in pre-European battles fought with stone weapons” (p. 42); and, that under the influence of the missionaries “Christian chiefs… gave up killing and cannibalism” (p. 45). It is clear from the tenor of Sinclair’s remarks that cannibalism was embedded within Maori culture and was practised on a large scale in the 1820s. A closer reading of Sinclair’s body of work would likely uncover further references to the role of cannibalism within Maori culture.

Turning to Michael King’s Penguin History of New Zealand, he certainly does examine the short, brutal lives of Maori, cut short often by premeditated acts of violence: “As Maori oral tradition recorded, and ancient burials have confirmed, elderly people, women and children, along with defeated male warriors, were periodic subjects for torture, killing and cannibalism.” (p. 87) King continues with an un-cited quote detailing the evidence of violence at a burial site in Palliser Bay that notes the site was hidden possibly to avoid desecration by enemies (pp. 87-89).

King also cites the Grass Cove incident of 1773 in which ten of Captain Cook’s crew were victims of Maori cannibalism to underscore the misunderstandings of first contacts between Maori and Europeans, despite Cook’s generally enlightened and moderate approach to indigenous peoples in the Pacific (p. 106).

One might be led to conclude, among other possibilities, that Moon’s consideration of these two general histories was limited to an act the first year student is cautioned against: the reading of a book’s index to a topic rather than a thoroughgoing reading of the work in question. A scholar has a higher duty yet - of familiarizing himself with the body of another’s work before making a full assessment.

Stepping back from King’s general history which of its nature means even for such a young country as New Zealand that many matters must be dealt with sketchily, in the context of his body of scholarship it is clear that King knew well and did not shy away from tackling the vexed issue of cannibalism.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in King’s Moriori (1989) in which he presents an authoritative account of the genocide, including cannibalism, of intertribal colonisation by mainland Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama Maori of the Chatham Island/Rekohu Moriori. King’s work was path-breaking in confronting a European or Pakeha myth that Moriori were an inferior, non-Maori group driven from the mainland; in challenging Maori accounts of the Moriori genocide; and, affirming Moriori as first peoples in Rekohu.

In Moriori, (for example, pp. 62-66), King quotes at length missionary Johannes Engst who collected the few surviving Moriori accounts of genocidal cannibalism: after death, “the heads were removed and thrown to the dogs, which gnawed off the best and buried the remainder for the next meal. Then the virile membrane [penis], having been cut off, was thrown to the women sitting around who ate this dainty morsel eagerly…. The heart, the most sought-after part of the whole body, was set aside for the chief guest…. When it [the flesh] had all been washed clean it was brought to the oven…. [Once cooked] they then laid the flesh compactly in small baskets, giving each person an individual portion.” (p. 65).

Did Sinclair and King ignore or deny the prevalence of cannibalism? Even their general histories suggest not.

If you don’t like the meat, just eat the vegetables…

The Last Voyage of the Loch Lomond – 1908 – Part 2

The Loch Lomond on the left, Geelong harbour, Victoria, Australia.

The waters around New Zealand have claimed over 2000 ships in the past two centuries. As recorded in a previous post in July, the barque Loch Lomond was one of them.

By 24^th August 1908, the Loch Lomond carrying a cargo of coal was some 40 days out of Newcastle, Australia but had not reached its New Zealand port Lyttelton. The schooner Falcon had reported sighting a sailing barque in Cook Strait, separating the North and South Islands on 9th August. The unidentified barque was seen running before a southerly gale but newspaper reports declared that given a rash of bad weather it was not surprising the Loch Lomond had not yet arrived.

The commonly-held view at the time was that a search was unwarranted or too huge a task. The most likely fate of a sailing ship was that it was wrecked or having been dismasted by bad weather she foundered. If a sailing vessel was disabled something could normally be rigged to get it underway again. A sailing vessel could drift off course quickly compared to a disabled steamer so any search area could widen rapidly. Wireless telegraphy was not yet in use on New Zealand ships, another two years passing before the first marine radio being installed on a passenger steamer.

It was not until 5^th September that the Union Company ordered its other vessels to keep a lookout for the Loch Lomond. No sightings were reported. In mid October reports began to come in from the north of the North Island of wreckage linked to the Loch Lomond. A fisherman found a lifebuoy bearing the Loch Lomond’s name off Great Barrier Island. In the next six weeks further wreckage including the name board of the Lock Lomond were located along the coastline of the northern tip of the North Island. Wreckage was recovered as far south as the Chatham Islands over 800 km due east of Christchurch on the South Island.

Reflecting how far flotsam can travel, nearly a year after it sailed from Australia, a further lifebuoy was recovered in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu today).

No sign of the 19 crew aboard the Loch Lomond was ever found despite searches to the north & south of New Zealand and along tran-Tasman steamer routes. Two theories were advanced to explain the ship’s fate – it was either wrecked or foundered somewhere off the north of the North Island or it suffered a similar fate after passing through Cook Strait with strong sea currents accounting for the distribution of wreckage recovered.

On 12^th February 1909 the interisland steamer, SS Penguin sank near the entrance to Wellington Harbour in Cook Strait with the loss of 75 lives. This disaster overshadowed the loss of the Loch Lomond in New Zealand maritime history. This short account seeks to remember the Loch Lomond nineteen who might otherwise be lost to history.

Final New Zealand Olympic Count: $10 million a medal

Final Medal Count: Gold: 3 Silver: 1 Bronze: 5

Each medal cost the Kiwi taxpayer NZ$10 million (US$7.1 m or so) to place New Zealand 26th on the Beijing Olympic rankings & give it its most successful results in 20 years. Perhaps a small price by international standards.

But as Oscar Wilde chided: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing." Guts, glory, fame, patriotic fervour, success, achievement -- priceless, as a major credit card company would describe it, and then encourage you to spend up large for 2012...