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

Chocolate Easter rabbits and eggs in a basket

Last night I noticed that the glow of the almost full moon had been joined by the glow from the large illuminated cross attached to the Mt Victoria radio mast, so there must be a Christian festival approaching soon. Given that the supermarkets are pumping out the smell of spiced buns rather than mince pies and their shelves are bestrewn with glittery glowing eggs, chickens and bunnies, I’m picking it’s Easter.

The commemoration of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection has been observed in New Zealand since the mid-1800s. In the northern hemisphere, it had been grafted onto pre-Christian traditions of celebrating the arrival of spring (or so I was always told), which doesn’t work so well on this side of the globe. If you’re not a winter lover, then you too might feel that actually what we need is a funereal celebration to get us in the right mood for the cold and dark to come.

However, it’s always a holiday! For most people. And there are the traditional things to eat and do. Mostly eat - hot cross buns and chocolate and more chocolate and even more chocolate. The range of Easter eggs available in the shops has hugely increased over my lifetime, but one that is now missing is New Zealand-made Cadbury crème eggs. I remember when they hit the shops in the 1980s - having a dribbly, gooey, unbelievable sweet filling was so different from either the hollow or marshmallow filled ones that had been standard before that (at least in our house). Apparently (and sadly) Cadburys no longer make them in their Dunedin factory - they stopped in 2009, and the crème eggs you now see are imported from the UK. Not everyone was happy about this, with some people complaining that the British eggs weren’t as good and a couple of Facebook campaigns were started up to try and reverse the decision (without any success so far).

Other egg-related traditions - nothing like a good Easter egg treasure hunt. I remember with great fondness a family friend who probably did the best Easter egg treasure hunts ever. They roamed over acres of land, and one year I remember it involved catching the donkey to get the next clue, or possibly an egg? Thinking back, it must have been a clue, as that donkey would have eaten anything remotely egg-like put in front of it, behind it or on top of it, tinfoil or not.

So hot cross buns, eggs, hens and rabbits. The symbolism of hot cross buns seems straightforward enough, and eggs - resurrection/rebirth/birth - there’s a link there, and from there to chickens - ok the endless question of who came first the chicken or the egg, similarly there’s a logic that I can see, but rabbits?

Rabbits?!?!

According to some, rabbits are the symbolic remnants of a festival held to honour Eostre, a northern goddess whose symbol was the hare (or rabbit). Others have suggested that rabbits are seen as a sign of fertility, (hence the phrase “breeding like rabbits”) and that is why they are associated with spring and therefore Easter. However, I got frightened off looking into this further by the number of intense (and frankly scary) debates out there in webland as to whether Eostre is linked to Easter at all, whether the holiday does or doesn’t have pagan links, where rabbits come into this, and whether it matters at all.

Here in New Zealand one of the more pragmatic ways we’ve dealt with Easter and rabbits is to spend the long weekend shooting them. According to Wednesday’s Otago Daily Times this year more than 400 hunters are expected to spend 24 hours from Friday to Saturday hunting the pests. (As you can see from the entry on rabbits in New Zealand they have been a pest pretty much since they arrived in the country). The hunt has been running since 1991, is organised by the local Lions Club as a fundraiser, and tallies of dead bunnies have ranged from a record 23,949 in 1997 to the low of 3,694 in 2001.

Luckily for small children everywhere, none of those shot so far have turned out to be an oversized white rabbit with a basket of Easter eggs. Happy Easter!

The Lovell-Smith family celebrate Christmas, 1915. Kate Sheppard is in the back row, second from left (click for image credit)

Hohoho, Merry Christmas everyone!

It be that time of the year again, when the pōhutukawa starts to flower, the barbecue comes out of the shed, the misty rain pours in and the shops fill up with a mixture of cheap gifts and cheaper tinsel.

As you can see, my attitude towards Christmas is possibly not all it should be – there does seem to be an incongruity here in having the office Grinch write the Merry Christmas blog. However, what I do love about Christmas is the enthusiasm that some people embrace it with – giant reindeer, flashing sparkling lights, window displays where everything that can possibly have a Santa hat is wearing a Santa hat. The oddest one of these I ever saw was a mannequin in a pharmacy shop in Timaru one year. She had one leg, a very short white uniform, suspenders and a Santa hat. Not sure what she was advertising – the mind boggles.

Santa parades are another event where colour, music and a general air of slight insanity comes out to play. These have been a part of children’s Christmases since the 1930s, such as the Hay’s Christmas parade, from a collection of Christmas parade images put together by Christchurch City Libraries. Their web page also includes a number of the traditional ‘children on Santa’s knee’ photographs, something we haven’t yet got on Te Ara.

Farmers (the department store) have been responsible for Christmas parades in Auckland for 78 years now (according to their website). They also used to own what many people referred to as ‘the creepy Santa’ with his winking eye and beckoning finger. This Santa was installed on the Farmers’ building from 1960. Eventually he ended up gracing the Whitcoulls building on Queen Street, and undergoing the giant fibreglass equivalent of plastic surgery to remove the eye and finger. He was even named the world’s creepiest Christmas ornament in 2011!

Even without the winking eye, however, not everyone is convinced about Santa. In this clip Santa is introduced to some newly arrived Tokelauan migrants, who have just moved to a small settlement near Te Puke. (Santa and his horse charge in around 1:41.)

What else – oh yes, the dreaded Christmas muzak. Enthusiasm doesn’t help with this one. Our new offices are opposite Midland Park, in central Wellington, which turns out to be a popular place for buskers and the Salvation Army, among others. Now if they sounded like the Tongan Methodist Choir that might be a different story, but as it is … there is a lot of stomping around the office some afternoons. At least I can escape to the newly re-opened National Library, whose Christmas tree this year is a very appropriate green stepladder covered in fairy lights.

The 'Campbell Choral' on Campbell Island, 1959 (click for image credit)

I’ll finish with one of my favourite images, for many reasons including the lovely printed fabric in the background, the Campbell Choral on Campbell Island in 1959. Not totally sure this was a Christmas choir, but it seems possible (the collection it’s from also features a Merry Christmas sign and a Merry Christmas pudding). We thought of the Campbell Island singers as a possible image for the Ministry Christmas card one year, but it didn’t fly. Not quite sure why, as it illustrates both culture (singing) and heritage (Kiwi men entertaining themselves on isolated windswept islands, with a bit of cross-dressing to liven things up).

From the Christmas Grinch of Te Ara, may you all have a happy holiday with a surfeit of good food, a minimum of family dramas, and (with any luck) some much-needed sunshine. See you again in January.

Melbourne Cup day, the busiest gambling day in New Zealand (click for image credit)

Today, in celebration of the Melbourne Cup, we’ve published our brand new entry on horse and greyhound racing.

Aaahhh, the Melbourne Cup. Who wouldn’t like to be swanning around Flemington in a gorgeous pair of high heels, with a glass of bubbly in one hand and a fascinating fascinator perched precariously on one’s head? Or, if you prefer, lounging in front of the telly in nothing more than a pair of stubbies, thongs (known to us Kiwis as jandals), and clutching a can of Fosters? Actually, the weather forecast appears to be for cloud and patchy rain, but still, a good five degrees warmer than it’s likely to be here.

And then there are the horse races – you know, the point of the exercise. The Melbourne Cup’s been running since 1861, and stops this nation almost to the same extent as it stops Australia. As you can see, from our brand new entry on horse and greyhound racing, the first New Zealand horse to win a Melbourne Cup was Martini Henry in 1883. A long list of impressive New Zealanders followed, including Phar Lap (ok, a little like the pavlova or Crowded House in terms of the arguments over who can claim him), Kiwi’s run from the back of the field in 1983, and the last of the New Zealand-bred winners to date, Efficient, who won in 2007.

This year there are only four New Zealand-bred runners – all sired by Zabeel from Cambridge Stud: Maluckyday, Lights of Heaven, Precedence and Zabeelionaire. New Zealand jockey James McDonald is also taking part, riding Fiorente for Australian trainer Gai Waterhouse.

Over recent years the Melbourne Cup has become more popular with trainers from the northern hemisphere, keen to take part in one of the world’s richest races. The last two winners were both from France, Americain (2010) and Dunaden (2011). Both are racing again this year.

Today, like many many others around New Zealand, I’ve put a gold coin into the office sweepstake, and come 5 p.m. we’ll be gathered round the TV for the most exciting three minutes and 20 seconds (approximately) of the year. Wherever you are, in the office, at the Auckland Racing Club’s Ellerslie Racecourse, at the local TAB or at home, I hope you enjoy it too.

A mysterious, transparent slug-like thing I found on the beach

Does anyone know what these are?

I found these little ‘creatures’ down at Lyall Bay, Wellington, yesterday. I spotted maybe six or seven amongst the kelp that was washed up on the beach, and they only seemed to be at the west end of the bay, between Maranui Café and the children’s playground.

They’re about 10 centimetres long, a couple of finger-widths wide (very scientific, I know) and translucent. Although they look like jelly, they were firm to poke (which of course I did) and they all appeared dead – or inanimate.

Another of the blighters

I did think they were some sort of sea creature, but when I came into work this morning and looked up sea cucumbers and sea slugs, I didn’t see or read about anything that looked like these, and now I’m worried I’ve been ‘animalifying’ plastic packing material!

If anyone out there knows what they actually are (perhaps our good friends at NIWA or Te Papa?), I’d love to hear.

Before coming to Te Ara I worked as a researcher for the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in Christchurch. I’ve been personally saddened by the heritage losses from the earthquake, many of them buildings and structures that I had researched. However, yesterday I heard of an exciting discovery from a friend who had spent a cold day out at Lyttelton with the media and archaeologists looking at the remnants of John Robert Godley’s house from 1850. These were unearthed as a result of the demolition of the earthquake-damaged Lyttelton Plunket building. As a site associated with human activity prior to 1900, the demolition had to take place under an archaeological authority issued by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. What the archaeologists discovered were the pile holes of the original house, post holes with timber, and a drip line (where water has dripped), which shows the outline of the building.

Godley was the founder of the Canterbury settlement and a passionate advocate for colonial self-government. He arrived in Lyttelton with his wife Charlotte and only son John Arthur in April 1850. After only a couple of days the family moved to Wellington until the first four ships of the Canterbury Association arrived at Lyttelton in December 1850.

Lyttelton in 1850 (click for image credit information)

The artwork above, by William Fox, shows the settlers arriving, with the four ships still in the harbour. The two-storeyed house on the middle left, with the verandah, is said to be Godley’s, and was described by Charlotte as ‘the best looking house we have seen yet in New Zealand; six rooms and a kind of pantry’. More of Charlotte’s letters to her mother, which give an entertaining view of family life and the other Canterbury settlers are now available online at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre. She also, for example, described Lyttelton as ‘a complete hole and very difficult to get out of’ – although she might have meant physically, as it was before the Lyttelton tunnels were built (rail in 1867 and road in 1964).

Closer view of what is probably the Godley house (click for image credit information)

The Godleys left Lyttelton at the end of 1852 and returned to England. A statue in John Robert Godley’s memory was unveiled in Christchurch in 1867. Although the statue moved around the square over the years, it survived until the February 2011 earthquake, when it fell off its plinth. Interestingly, as another result of the earthquake damage, two time capsules containing newspapers from 1918 and 1933 were discovered in the aftermath. The statue is now in the Canterbury Museum as part of the Canterbury Quakes exhibition.

These finds cheer me up in an odd way – maybe other buried heritage will be discovered during the Christchurch rebuild and provide a link between past and present.