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

Lunar eclipse, taken by Geoff Trotter in Christchurch

It was cloudy in Wellington two nights ago, so the lunar eclipse was not visible here. But a Christchurch member of our Flickr group added the photo above to our pool, so at least I’ve been able to see what it was like.

Lunar eclipses occur when the sun, earth and moon all line up, and the moon passes through the earth’s shadow. In Geoff Trotter’s image the moon is shaded, but it can also appear reddish due to refracted light from the earth’s atmosphere falling onto it.

Contrary to scenarios popular in stories such as Prisoners of the sun, where Tin Tin foretells an eclipse to escape from the Inca, indigenous people did know about eclipses (but couldn’t predict them). The story’s roots are from when Christopher Columbus foretold a lunar eclipse in 1504 in Jamaica so getting the natives to reinstate his ships’ food supplies, which they had withheld due to sailors cheating them.

Rona is snatched up by the moon

Ethnographer Elsdon Best documented Māori knowledge of the sun and moon. Māori termed an eclipse of the sun ‘rā kūtia’ and thought that it was caused by demons devouring it – but they knew it eventually recovered.

In Māori mythology, Rona was snatched up by the moon after she had cursed it, because it had gone behind a cloud causing her to stumble. The feature that Europeans call ‘the man in the moon’ Māori saw as Rona, a tree and her water gourds. During an eclipse of the moon Rona is said to be fighting the moon. Don’t worry if you missed it this time, as Rona gives the moon the bash again in 2011.

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Wouldn't you rather be here?

Those of us who labour behind the scenes at Te Ara would like to wish our readers in New Zealand and other parts of the world a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. And we have a Christmas gift for you – the 18th of our Places entries: Hauraki–Coromandel, a very special region covering the Hauraki Plains and the Coromandel Peninsula. Written by distinguished historian Paul Monin, the entry explains the many attractions of Hauraki–Coromandel through the centuries – first for Māori people of different tribes, and later for Pākehā seeking kauri timber and gum, gold, or hoping to establish farms.

Nowadays, this beautiful area is attractive to another group of people – holidaymakers – and looking at some of the fabulous images, such as the photo of snorkelers in sparking turquoise water at Cathedral Cove, it is easy to see why. When Christmas holidays roll around, thousands of people from Auckland, Waikato, and further afield converge on the region: this interactive map shows how the populations of various beach resorts boom over summer.

For motorists coming from Auckland, the excitement begins to mount as they queue at the famous one-way Kōpū bridge. If heading up the western side of the peninsula, they will be greeted by the sight of massed pōhutukawa (the New Zealand Christmas tree) in spectacular bloom. Some may be lucky enough to enjoy the retro delights of a real kiwi bach, such as these ones made of old Auckland trams.

Rocket into Christmas!

Visitors from Waikato heading for the eastern side of the peninsula will probably pass through Paeroa, with its well-known Lemon and Paeroa bottle statue. This icon had its origins in a 1967 promotion by the local businessmen’s association. Inspired by the moon landings that year, the association built a 7-metre-tall rocket and coined the slogan ‘Paeroa rockets into Christmas’. In 1968 the L&P bottle replaced the rocket.

Once through the rugged Karangahake Gorge, it will be onwards to Waihī and then beaches at coastal towns such as Whangamatā, Tairua, Pāuanui and Whitianga. Whether heading east or west, there’s lots to see and do on the way – for instance you can stretch your legs on the Karangahake Historic Walkway, take a ride on the Driving Creek railway or call in at The Waterworks.

Don’t you wish you were there? Perhaps you will be – in which case, have fun and take care. Remember to swim between the flags, so you don’t create headaches for volunteer surf lifesavers. And never drink and drive, as some did during the prohibition years of 1909–1926 – this type of risk-taking should definitely be consigned to history.

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Today we welcome to Te Ara the magnificent resource of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography; and we celebrate the event with the publication of 11 new biographies of some of the movers and shakers of this country in the last half century.

The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography owed its birth to the support of Robert Muldoon, whose enthusiasm was reportedly a little dimmed when he discovered you had to be dead to be included. The eminent historian W. H. Oliver was appointed the first general editor; and the first volume of more than 600 biographies of people who flourished up to 1870 was published in 1990 as a sesquicentennial event. The outstanding scholarship and readability of the volume won it the Goodman Fielder Wattie book of the year award the next year.

By 2000 another four volumes had appeared under the editorship of Claudia Orange. There were a total of 3,049 people included in 2,977 essays, with almost 500 available in te reo Māori. That year, as a millennium project, the New Zealand Historical Association sponsored the creation of the dnzb.govt.nz website.

Now, 10 years later, we have incorporated the biographies into Te Ara, and you can search them through our search engine under the Biographies tab. We have retained the ‘trademark’ orange of the original DNZB site, but also taken the chance to improve the look and readability of the old biographies.

The 11 exciting new biographies are enriched with new elements drawn from the Te Ara style, such as division into smaller sections (we call them subentries), use of headings, many images and plenty of audio and video content, which really bring the people to life.

The new biographies include four politicians:

• Robert Muldoon: now that he is dead he has finally got his way and he has made it into the DNZB, thanks to Barry Gustafson’s excellent text. Take a look at a couple of family weddings, another slice of the famous Simon Walker interview and his notorious announcement of the 1984 snap election.
• David Lange was Muldoon’s nemesis and Barry Gustafson has also told his story.
• Bill Rowling was another who was defeated by Lange. John Henderson has written his biography.
• Sonja Davies is the fourth politician. Her lifelong battles for justice are eloquently recounted by Anne Else.

There are also four creative artists:

• Allen Curnow, written by the late Terry Sturm. A lovely clip of Curnow reading a poem about his father in a Canterbury church is well worth a look.
• Janet Frame‘s life is told by Patrick Evans. I love the photo of Frame with the three actresses who played her in An angel at my table.
• Douglas Lilburn is introduced by Philip Norman. This great clip shows him in his electronic music studio. You can also listen to excerpts from three of his pieces of music: the Drysdale overture of 1937, Landfall in unknown seas of 1942 – drawn from Curnow’s poem of the same name, and A birthday offering of 1956.
• Hone Tuwhare‘s biography is written by Janet Hunt, who, like Norman, has previously published a full-length life of her subject.

Finally, there are three sportsmen who each were responsible for some of the epic moments of the last half-century.

• Edmund Hillary ‘knocked the bastard off’ in May 1953; and the route up Everest is shown in an excellent map. See also Brian Wilkins’s remarkable photos of big Ed on the Barun expedition in 1954. Shaun Barnett has done an outstanding job summarising the man’s rich life.
• Arthur Lydiard’s great moment came at the Rome Olympics in 1960 when his protégés Peter Snell and Murray Halberg won gold. David Green has written his life.
• Peter Blake had many famous moments, but the triumph of Black magic at San Diego in 1995 was undoubtedly the greatest, which was celebrated throughout New Zealand. See also the amusing interchange with his mother on ‘This is your life’.  Stephanie Gibson provides a comprehensive account of Blake’s life.

So we hope you enjoy the new biographies, and do look forward to more big names in coming months.