All posts tagged: New Zealand

Waitangi Day

Today is Waitangi Day – New Zealand’s version of Nation Day or the 4th of July. As an outsider, I find Waitangi Day a most peculiar holiday, because it isn’t a celebration. It is, at best, a sort of uneasy acknowledgement of the beginnings of New Zealand as a nation. This is my understanding of Waitangi Day: Waitangi Day specifically commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands on 6 Feb 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi is to New Zealand what the Magna Carta is to the UK, or the Declaration of Independence is the US: it’s our founding document. In some ways, it’s a good founding document. It’s short, and simple. It did three basic things: it establishes a British governorship over NZ (the NZ government essentially inherited this governorship), recognised that the Maori owned NZ, and had a right to their land and properties, and, finally, gave Maori the rights of British citizens. Well, sort of. At the same time, it’s a terrible founding document. You …

Up Te Mata Hill

Published by The Dreamstress

On our last night in the Hawke’s Bay, before she left New Zealand, the Naiad and I took a ramble on Te Mata hill. The light was sublime, Bailey the Backpacker’s dog was frisky, the air had just enough of a chill to make tramping fun, and the scenery was spectacular. Best of all, when we got back to the car, just as it began to get really dark. the Naiad had packed a thermos of tea and a bottle of farm-fresh milk. We sat on a log in the deepening gloom with cups of tea in our hand and watched the lights come on over the Hawke’s Bay, like the best sort of Christmas display.

A pair of picture hats

Published by The Dreamstress

Yesterday’s post on the history of picture hats reminded Lynne of two of her family photographs, and she has kindly let me show them to you. Here are Lynne’s Great Aunt Alice and Alice’s sister, her Grandmother Florence. Florence immigrated to NZ before WWI as a children’s nursemaid. Based on advertisements I have seen, and numerous examples of women who came to NZ via this route, there was considerable demand for domestic help, and nursemaids and governesses in particular, in pre-WWI NZ. It was an easy way for women without a lot of means to have their passage paid, but most quickly married or moved on to other positions once they arrived. Early 20th century NZ society was much more democratic than its British counterpart, and the strict class system that characterised Britain did not hold here. But that’s an aside. Today we are focusing on Alice and Florence. I already love this pictures, first because they symbolise the sharing and knowledge that the blog world has fostered, and second, because of the similarities …