Old cemeteries feature in the smallest of communities; quiet places where history is revisited - and what is gone, invoked. Stephen Deed is an historian and librarian who in his book Unearthly Landscapes explores the heritage of cemeteries in New Zealand, from some of the grandest in Otago with tombs for early European settlers to tiny rural graveyards and Maori urupara and wahi tapu. The book also details the intersection of Maori and European culture and how each influenced the other in burial practices.
18 November 2015
The famous carved papa tūpāpaku at Maketu pā, c. 1886.
Photograph by Burton Brothers, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, PA7-05-42
Jacky Love’s grave, Te Awaiti. The red and black painted waka whakamaumaharatanga was recorded by the surveyor John Wallis Barnicoat, who visited the site in 1843. A new monument was unveiled in 1987 at the Waikawa Cemetery in Marlborough.
Drawing by John Wallis Barnicoat, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, A-173-034
Later in the nineteenth century, cast-iron grave surrounds succumbed to the ornate thickening of Victorian taste. These examples are located in the Catholic section of the Greytown Cemetery, but similar enclosures can be found anywhere in the country. Stephen Deed, 2006
The grave of the Campbell family and their servants, Southern Cemetery, Dunedin.
HCCTNZ
The images in this gallery are used with permission and are subject to copyright conditions.
