Records of the Canterbury Museum Volume 36 2022 

Julia Bradshaw

ABSTRACT: Both nephrite and tangiwai (tangiwaite or bowenite) are included in the term pounamu, which in the past was often referred to as greenstone by Europeans.  nephrite is tougher and more durable than tangiwai, a stunning and rare variety of antigorite serpentine. The best quality tangiwai is found in a very remote part of the southwest coast of Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island), Aotearoa New Zealand. Its exquisite beauty and the challenges involved in retrieving tangiwai meant that it was highly prized and eagerly sought after by Māori.

This article provides details of the physical properties of tangiwai, summarises details of its recovery and examines its availability, particularly during the post-contact period. The exploits of the Milford Sound Greenstone Company are detailed.

The challenges associated with retrieving tangiwai from its isolated source means that it was always scarce and typically there are few tangiwai taonga (treasures) in museum collections where it is heavily outnumbered by taonga made from nephrite. Illustrations of Canterbury Museum’s modest collection of tangiwai  taonga are provided in a brief catalogue.

Rosanna McCully McEvedy and Marion Seymour

ABSTRACT: Two large, pre-European pits existed in Temuka Domain until they were destroyed in 1931. A relict landscape feature suggests one pit was about 50 by 25 metres. The second pit was smaller. Their presence in the domain was documented by John Hardcastle (1927: 7), an anonymous newspaper correspondent  (1928), David Teviotdale (1931; 1932: 92) and Hugh McCully (1943a: 6). Hardcastle (1847–1927) and Teviotdale (1870–1958), accompanied by McCully (1878–1967), visited the pits in 1927 and 1931 respectively. The destruction of the pits was described in numerous articles in the Temuka Leader in 1931 and in this article the authors summarise that process. In 1926, Hugh McCully concluded the pits were associated with kūmara cultivation in the domain. His two granddaughters present a personal account of his observations about the pits and describe how he formed that view. What cultural activity actually produced the pits remains unconfirmed. Given the recent discovery of storage pits at Pūrākaunui, Hugh McCully’s interpretation of the Temuka pits may yet be feasible.

Dr Joanna Cobley

ABSTRACT: This article considers the connections between food and memory. It examines the food folklore behind the idea of the Ladysmith Cake recipe to demonstrate how specific national confections function as vehicles for collective commemoration and war memory. The recipe’s eponymous title refers to the Siege at Ladysmith (November 1899–February 1900), a significant event in the British Empire’s Second Boer War (October 1899–May 1902) experience – now referred to as the South African War. Therefore, this recipe commemorates New Zealand’s first major offshore military engagement, making Ladysmith Cake an edible war memorial. The recipe, which developed sometime in the early 1900s somewhere within the New Zealand community (the exact date is still unknown) results in a delightful jam-filled batter cake, with walnuts sprinkled on top. It evolved when the mythos that New Zealand households had access to affordable everyday ingredients – butter, eggs, flour, nuts, raising agents, sugar and spices – combined with the desire to express a national identity. Examination of select New Zealand-published cookbooks held in Canterbury Museum shows that by the 1930s Ladysmith Cake recipes – and a couple of other South African War confections – appeared as often as recipes for the better known World War One food memorial, the Anzac Biscuit. When Ladysmith Cake recipe ideas went online, food websites posted images of the cake and commented on the recipe’s connection to the South African War. Who knows why the Ladysmith Cake recipe endured in cultural memory when other South African War confections did not? However, given the Ladysmith Cake recipe’s endurance in cultural memory, food historians, cake bakers and recipe sharers everywhere need to remix in the more difficult or hidden aspects associated with this unique confection’s heritage. Therefore, this article utilises the dark heritage framework, which is often focused on sites where trauma took place at a certain time, to examine the evolution of the recipe and discuss how its transmission, and the social practices wrapped around it, can play a pivotal role in fostering deeper conversations about inclusion.

Phillip R Moore

ABSTRACT: Former Māori inhabitants of the Canterbury region, in the South Island of New Zealand, had access to a variety of stone (lithic) materials for utilitarian tools such as adzes, chisels, drill points and cutting implements, as well as for ornaments and items employed in fishing. More than 20 different rock types have been  identified among artefact collections from the region, though only about half of these were widely utilised. Some were imported, either as finished artefacts or raw materials, from the north (Nelson-Marlborough and North Island), south (Otago-Southland) and west (West Coast/Westland), but others were obtained within Canterbury. These include greywacke, basalt, silcrete, chert, chalcedony, silicified tuff, sandstone and red argillite. 

This study involved the examination of more than 6,700 Māori artefacts from 11 key archaeological sites in Canterbury. New information was obtained on the  composition, distribution and sources of some of the lithic materials utilised at both Early (fourteenth to sixteenth century) and Late (sixteenth to eighteenth  century) period sites in the region. The data also reveals some important intra-regional variations and temporal changes in the use of certain materials, including a significant decline in silcrete during the Late period (post-sixteenth century) and a corresponding increase in the use of chert and chalcedony. The presence of a few distinctive minor lithologies at multiple sites indicates there was probably a considerable degree of interaction between many of the early communities  situated along the Canterbury coast.

Vickie Hearnshaw with Frances Husband

ABSTRACT: The focus of this article is the Canterbury born painter Margaret Stoddart (1865–1934), who became one of New Zealand’s leading botanical artists in the years leading up to the turn of the twentieth century. It follows the developments in her painting style as a botanical artist, from her student days at the School of Art in Christchurch up until her departure for Europe in 1898. During this period, Stoddart undertook two very significant sojourns to Rēkohu/Wharekauri (Chatham Islands), to record the endemic and native vegetation of these islands. Many of these botanical studies now form part of a larger collection of works by Stoddart in Canterbury Museum. This article reviews her early career when she was producing these works and showcases the true breadth of her work in an  illustrated catalogue of her botanical studies which have until now remained unpublished.

Terry Hitchings, Tim Hitchings and Johnathon Ridden

ABSTRACT: A new species of endemic mayfly from the genus Nesameletus is described from the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. The adult, subimago and larval stages of Nesameletus staniczeki sp. nov. are described and a distribution map of known localities is provided. General habitat information of the species  and an updated key for Nesameletus is provided. Diagnostic characters of the genus are provided with reference to the classification of the Nesameletidae.

The full volume of Records of the Canterbury Museum 36.