Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

As well as being the last day of October, this Friday is also Halloween and we’ve conjured up a creepy quiz to prepare you.

To view the quiz you need to have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player

Branding Wellington

We live in branded world, and unless we choose to remove ourselves to a cave on Wellington’s rocky coastline, as one chap has done, it’s hard to avoid absorbing its messages.

These days even local councils have got in on the act, and the brand-free town or city is a rare one. I’ve been thoroughly diverted by the range of regional slogans I’ve come across when writing an entry on city boosters and promoters for Te Ara’s Economy, Business and City Life theme (due to go live in late 2009).

Cooked up by advertising types, these slogans can reveal a lot about a place’s sense of itself, though not always in the way the creators intended.

There are many choice examples to choose from. My favourite from the mixed-messages category is Dunedin’s old slogan ‘It’s all right here’ – fairly presentable when read correctly, but too vulnerable to the alternative interpretation, ‘It’s alright here’.

A close second is Hamilton’s discarded tag ‘More than you’d expect’, which went out of its way to highlight the low expectations the rest of the nation seems have about this city. Hamilton provides a case study on how not to brand a city, but you’ll have to read the entry for more on that.

Some slogans are just plain weird, and you have to wonder what kind of refreshments their creators were enjoying during the brainstorming session. Timaru was inflicted with ‘Touch, taste, feel’ for a couple of years, and this has now been replaced by ‘Feel the heartbeat’. Timaru must be a tactile kind of place.

And how about ‘Stop and taste Te Puke’? This slogan made it into Lonely Planet’s Signspotting 2, and in their ignorance (or perhaps on purpose) the authors of this book mistook the Bay of Plenty town’s name for the colloquial version of vomit. With a slogan like that who can blame them?

It’s a perilous business coming up with a slogan, and I’m surprised more councils haven’t chosen to steer clear of them, as Hamilton recently has. Still, they have provided this researcher with a great deal of entertainment. I’ll leave you with a few more crackers, past and present.

Dannevirke: ‘Take a liking to a Viking’

Mayfield (near Ashburton): ‘Blink and you will miss out’

Matamata: ‘You matter in Matamata’

Hermit's cave in the Silver Peaks

Ross Collins has enlarged a natural crevasse in the rocks at Seatoun and attracted considerable media attention as a caveman. He is in good company. In the 1880s and 1890s William Pearsee lived in a cave around Wellington’s south coast and was known as ‘the Hermit of Island Bay’. He was even more famous and Wellingtonians of that time dragged visitors to the city to see him. He liked to keep up with Parliament’s dealings and welcomed newspapers.  Artist Petrus van der Velden even painted him.

What causes a man to live alone? Solitude? A beautiful environement? The reasons vary and often it is just for a part of their lives. Richard Henry lived alone on Resolution Island as a caretaker of the kākāpō – he originally chose to live on the shores of Lake Te Anau when he was jilted by a woman.  In the 1950s Ross Adamson spent three years in caves in the Silver Peaks – the hills behind Dunedin. He hid from police manhunts.  He had an unpaid debt, had stolen a rifle and was picking off sheep from the backblocks. He even had a cave-mate – a pet wild pig.  Eventually he came out, the court fined him, and he later married. Beansprout in south Westland used to live alone at the mouth of the Gorge River but has had a wife and family for over a decade. In the great depression journalist Fred Miller lived in a cave on the Clutha River mining gold from the river beaches. He got lonely and soon shipped in his wife and three-year-old daughter.
Other famous New Zealand hermits include Donald Sutherland, the ‘Hermit of Milford Sound’; and Carl Björk, the ‘Hermit of Preservation Inlet’.  They were surprisingly sociable. Sutherland married and Björk welcomed visitors lubricating them with his home made ‘parsnippy wine’.

The media loves a good recluse even if it is an animal. Shrek was beloved – he even had his own cave. Books were written about him. He was shorn on an iceberg. Hermit or feral sheep are quite common - termed ‘woollies‘, hunters target them.

Dubbing men like Ross hermits does not seem accurate - they are just living differently. But society likes labels. After the gold rushes of the 1870s diggers who lived alone in shacks were called  ’hatters’ – if they had nothing else they would pan gold in their hats.

The hermit crab makes a home for itself out of a natural shelter – just like Ross Collins. The crab, like most of these men, knows a good place to live when they see it.

Fantail on New Zealand Memorial, London

There are perhaps 100,000 New Zealanders in the United Kingdom at any one time. Where do they go to get a taste of Kiwi? Traditionally those on their OE turned up in their shorts at New Zealand House in London to read the papers and check the ads for flats with compatriots. Today the numbers are not so great. People can do such things online.

An Earls Court pub when the All Blacks are playing the Aussies is another traditional site, and still works pretty well – or it did two weeks ago. The black jerseys and beer-lubricated cheers quickly gave away people’s country of origin.

Two new sites have recently emerged for a slightly more refined contemplation of the land and culture across the seas. In November 2006 the New Zealand Memorial was opened at Hyde Park Corner. A haka party of bronze pedestals stands on a sloping hill, as if preparing for battle – or a game of rugby. Each is painted white on top to create the impression of the points of the Southern Cross when viewed from a distance. The pedestals are encrusted with evocative words and images – quotes from Katherine Mansfield and John Mulgan, the shapes of a carved waka, fantails and rugby balls. The day I visited, Kiwis singly and in small groups were wandering in silent contemplation. As a place to think about the complex relationship of New Zealand and the motherland, the memorial worked a treat.

The second site is a little less solemn – at least when you finally get there. But to approach the Centre for New Zealand Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, in the heart of Bloomsbury, you do need to enter a remarkably imposing marble building. The director of the centre, Ian Conrich, tells you that the building had been ear-marked by Hitler for the centre of the new government following a successful invasion. It reeks of Albert Speer grandiosity.

But once you reach the doors of the centre the mood changes. Outside is a huge red polystyrene Māori warrior. On entering, you discover a feast: an almost-complete collection of New Zealand feature films (only three missing); an amazing collection of souvenir china of New Zealand towns and beauty spots; boxes of postcards also in a kitsch souvenir style. There is an impressive library of New Zealand books, and on the walls some appropriate paintings, including an original Nigel Brown of Katherine Mansfield (sorry to mention her yet again, but it is hard to avoid in this expatriate territory).

And once a week the room is turned into a lecture theatre for poetry readings or serious papers. Usually a dozen to twenty mainly ex-Kiwis turn up to listen. All this is the brainchild of Ian Conrich, who discovered New Zealand through its films. In this room you sense his infectious enthusiasm for his adopted country.

So whether your goal is serious study of NZ or just a light engagement with Kiwi Kulture, make sure you pay this place a visit – truly a home at ‘Home’ away from home.

Kiore (Pacific rat)

The price of rat

In Cambodia the price of rat is rising significantly. Per kilo, rat meat has risen 300% since last year. No surprises, food costs are rising everywhere. You’re probably more interested in the fact that people are eating – and paying for – rat meat.

Before Europeans arrived in New Zealand the Pacific rat, or kiore, was a food source and regarded as a delicacy in Māori society. The Settled Landscape theme, to be launched by Te Ara in November, has an entry on kiore, which includes a video clip showing the author, Bradford Haami, munching on the tasty kiore. Probably not for the squeamish.

‘The sweetest meat’

While Europeans didn’t, in general, see the kiore as such a delicacy, in Te Ara’s European exploration entry a nearly starving explorer-cum-goldminer, Alphonse Barrington, tells of throwing a rat on the proverbial barbie: ‘I never picked up a nugget of gold during the last ten years with more satisfaction than I picked him up, put him in the fire, and roasted him just he was, then cut him in three parts, which we pronounced the sweetest bit of meat we ever ate.’

While the kiore is unlikely to make it back to the menu in a hurry, no doubt it would take place of honour at the Hokitika Wild Food Festival.

High in protein

The kurī or Polynesian dog was also eaten, as noted previously in our ‘Dog Tucker’ post, and was a valued food source. (An entry on kurī is upcoming in the Settled Landscape theme too.)
Along with the kiore, it had been introduced by Māori ancestors into a place which boasted no native land mammals of any consequence, hence the value of both for protein.

Time to eat the dog

Seeking to re-introduce dog to the menu, Professor Brenda Vale has co-authored a book called Time to eat the dog. One of her ideas is that pets have a significant carbon footprint – a large dog having the equivalent carbon footprint of a small car. So, for the sake of managing climate change, you should either keep a pet that you can eat, like a pig or sheep, or be prepared to eat the pet you have, like a dog or cat.
Don’t panic, Spot and Tigger are probably safe for the moment. In all probability, Vale’s book is more a lesson from Catchy Book Titles 101. However, if you’re interested in the science surrounding carbon footprints have a look at Te Ara’s entry on Climate change or read about greenhouse gases in the Atmosphere entry.