Auckland’s Anniversary

Sunday 25 January: we took a morning train to downtown Auckland

Thought we’d better go and see what Auckland  City was doing to celebrate it’s “175^th birthday”.  Tamaki Makaurau has been loved and lived on by Maori for more than seven centuries; but our Anglocentric  culture only starts counting from 1840, when 3000 acres of land were purchased by Governor Hobson, and a cluster of Englismen’s shacks built on the foreshore of the Waitemata harbour.

Shed 10 on the wharf  featured a history of Auckland.

Visitors were welcomed by  live performances of oratory and music, and film images, led by four men from tribes on the isthmus.  Each told stories from his tribe’s history in Tamaki Makaurau:  geological origins, legend, early history and recent accounts. The stories were accompanied by haunting music on traditional instruments.  Pity there were no women, though.

The next part of the journey was a walk through a series of enormous screen portraits of individuals considered especially significant in the development of Auckland City.   Each began with a photograph or painting, which was brought to life by morphing  into a performance by an actor telling a story in the first person.

We expected a line-up of elderly English businessmen – and, yes, there were several – but to our delight there were also four Maori (two men and two women) and four Pakeha women, and Jewish and Chinese families too.

Hera Puna, Ngati Paoa rangatira and composer

Elizabeth Yates, Mayor of Onehunga 1893-4 (first woman elected mayor in the British Commonwealth)

 

Congratulations,  Auckland Council arts and heritage staff!