Terra Forma: viewing Christchurch’s changing landscape through painting

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At the encouragement of one of our resident artists/art historians/cyber archaeologists, Annthalina, I took a visit to the newly-reopened Te Puna O Waiwhetu Christchurch Art Gallery over the weekend.[1] Annthalina knows I love landscapes, both the painty-brushy kind, and the bushy-brushy kind, and sent me out to take special note of the Te Rua O Te Moko exhibition, which displays a work of art for each of the 18 Papatipu Rūnanga of Ngāi Tahu. Seeing these works, and other Canterbury landscapes within the museum inspired me to write this post, about how we’ve changed the lay of the land, particularly in terms of its vegetation.

As I said, I love landscapes, and when I’m working I’ll look out across the landscape and my eyes will glaze over as I try and imagine what the land looked like to the ghosts of Ōtautahi/Christchurch past. My eyes also occasionally glaze over when my colleagues begin a tirade about traffic, or the inaccuracy of costumes in period dramas, or ‘architecture crimes’, or frozen yoghurt, or any of the many other foibles of modern life. But I promise, most of the time, I’m thinking about landscapes. Anyway, and luckily, dead dudes put paint to canvas when they were alive, helpfully making my leaps of imagination that much easier.

As we all know, Christchurch was built on a swamp, and many recall how that swamp came bubbling forth vengefully from the earth once again in 2011, like the almost-defeated underdog protagonist in the third act of a sports film, yelling “Adrian! Adrian!”. But it can seem hard to get a grasp on that over 160 year old scene while concrete and steel loom over you. The ‘Black Maps’  series of survey maps produced by chief surveyor Captain Joseph Thomas in the 1840s and 1850s are an invaluable source of information about the nature of the land and vegetation in Ōtautahi/Christchurch at that time.

Detail of Christchurch ‘Black maps’ of A) Cashmere; B) Linwood; and C) St Albans. “You get a swamp! And you get a swamp! And you get a swamp!” Image: Christchurch area: showing swamps & vegetation cover. Compiled from ‘Black Maps’ 1856. 1963. Christchurch City Libraries.

Detail of Christchurch ‘Black maps’ of A) Cashmere; B) Linwood; and C) St Albans. “You get a swamp! And you get a swamp! And you get a swamp!” Image: Christchurch area: showing swamps & vegetation cover. Compiled from ‘Black Maps’ 1856. 1963. Christchurch City Libraries.

The elevated platforms at the right of the image are pātaka, raised storage platforms to keep kiore/Polynesian rats out of your stuff, not UFOs on stilts. Or are they? No, they’re not. Image: Charles Haubroe. 1855. Scene on the Horotueka or Cam/Kaiapoi Pah/Canterbury, 1855. C. Haubroe Watercolour.  Canterbury Museum 1951.15.5.

This beauty of a watercolour was painted by Charles Haubroe in 1855 of a kāinga on the banks of the Horotueka/Cam River in the Kaiapoi area. If you’ll allow me to wax lyrical about it, I might suggest that this work shows the duality and tension between the natural and cultural worlds. The calmness of the river belies the tension between the kāinga on the far bank, with its tidy clearing for some handsome whare (houses) and pātaka (storage platforms), and the dense swampy bush of the near bank, where the raupō and tī kōuka (cabbage trees) give a leafy middle finger to humanity and its green organics recycling bins, content in its soggy supremacy. If you won’t allow me to wax lyrical, there’s literally nothing you can do about it, because from the security of my front room in the past, you cannot possibly wrest my keyboard away from me. So there.

The first Māori settlers started the 700ish year ongoing campaign of terraforming Aotearoa/New Zealand. They brought with them part of what archaeologists often refer to as the ‘Polynesian suite’ of cultigens, including kūmara, taro, uwhi/yam, hue/gourd, tī pore (an imported species of cabbage tree) and aute/paper mulberry (Furey 2006: 10). Once here, further changes to the landscape were made by transplanting some native plants well outside their natural range, due to their value. One such is karaka, native to the far north of the North Island, and brought to the South Island due its value as a food source. The stands of karaka you see around the Port Hills and Banks Peninsula are likely the remnants, or very near the original transplantations of these trees by Māori in centuries past, as they don’t naturalise very well (Stowe 2003).[2]

Figure 3. I think that I shall never see, a thing as lovely as a karaka tree. But do not eat the seed inside, unless it is detoxified. No, for real, though. Don’t eat it. My poems don’t fool around. Image: John Frederick Miller. 1774. The Endeavour botanical illustrations. Natural History Museum.

I think that I shall never see, a thing as lovely as a karaka tree. But do not eat the seed inside, unless it is detoxified. No, for real, though. Don’t eat it. My poems don’t fool around. Image: John Frederick Miller. 1774. The Endeavour botanical illustrations. Natural History Museum.

The character of the Canterbury plains before Pākehā settlement is somewhat poetically captured in an account from 1844 of Dr David Munro’s first view of them, having ascended the hills from Rapaki:

looking westward, we had a magnificent view – and immense plain, apparently a dead level, stretched away below our feet…backed by a far remote chain of grand snowy summits. The colour of the plain was a brownish yellow indicating it being covered with dried up grass, and several rivers, with tortuous folds, marked themselves upon its surface by the glitter of their waters. On this immense sea of plain, there appeared to be hardly any timber – one or two isolated groves of gloomy pines were all that we could see…

(Wigram 1916: 7).

The “isolated groves” are of course Riccarton Bush, which still stands today (though reduced in size), and a similar stand in Papanui. What Munro took as unseasonable “dried up grass” in April 1844, was likely just the natural colour of the endemic swamp grasses that covered the plains at the time. Within a few decades of Pākehā settlement, the Christchurch landscape was beginning to change significantly, as more and more species of plants were introduced, and the English countryside was writ small on the New Zealand landscape. Attempts were made (more or less successfully) to tame Christchurch’s waterways. The swamps were turned over for pasture, requiring digging up large amounts of dead swamp wood, and ploughing up the tenacious roots of the huruwhenua/ferns and tutu.

Figure 4. Digging up swamp wood in Christchurch, 1918. Sometimes there are going to be jokes in here, sometime there’s not. I’m not going to spoonfeed you. Image: Wilson, 1989: 12.

Digging up swamp wood in Christchurch, 1918. Sometimes there are going to be jokes in here, sometime there’s not. I’m not going to spoonfeed you. Image: Wilson, 1989: 12.

The process of terraforming involved both the clearance of native plants, and their replacement with introduced ones. John Barr Clark Hoyte’s view of Akaroa from the hills shows the first part of this process. Looking out over Akaroa harbour and Onawe peninsula, the view is almost that of tree feller paused in their work, the foreground of stumps the sign of their labour. The rolling slopes of dense yet-to-be-felled forest in the midground and distance though, would likely make most of today’s flannel-clad, hipster-bearded lumbersexuals quake in their boots.

Figure 6. Deforestation of Banks Peninsula. Image: Boffa Miskell 2007: 27.

Deforestation of Banks Peninsula. Image: Boffa Miskell 2007: 27.

John Gibb’s view of Bottle Lake shows how introduced species gradually changed the look of Canterbury. What looks like poplar trees stand on the far bank, and cattle do whatever cattle do on the near bank (low? I hear they are known to low sometimes).  For some reason that escapes me, someone has introduced white swans to the area, despite the fact that they are aggressive jerks (sorry, I’ve been biased against swans since high school, when one beat me out for second place in a high jump competition). But the largely idyllic English-ish-ish character of the scene is interrupted by an almost imperceptible tuna/eel bursting forth from the water. To me, this little endemic eel gives a bit of kiwi character to an image which is otherwise dominated by introduced species. Delicious, manuka-smoked, kiwi character.

Figure 8. Some of the plants for sale at Exeter Nurseries, Papanui Road, in 1875. A.K.A. all of the plants. Even in the 19th century, kiwis referred to things as ‘Choice!’. Image: Star 24/6/1875: 1.

Some of the plants for sale at Exeter Nurseries, Papanui Road, in 1875. A.K.A. all of the plants. Even in the 19th century, kiwis referred to things as ‘Choice!’. Image: Star 24/6/1875: 1.

Another of Gibb’s paintings shows Christchurch in all its 19th century pastoral glory. The land is divided up into nice rectangular paddocks, with cattle and sheep, stands of introduced trees, and a bunch of nice green grass. Today we tend to forget that the rolling monochrome green pastures of New Zealand are imported, and that ‘European grass’ was a major selling point in 19th century land transactions.

Figure 10. There was originally a third paddock laid down in Irish grass, but there were some ‘troubles’ and that lot belongs to itself and is no longer for sale. Image: Star 19/8/1869: 3.

There was originally a third paddock laid down in Irish grass, but there were some ‘troubles’ and that lot belongs to itself and is no longer for sale. Image: Star 19/8/1869: 3.

These paintings not only look nice, but they provide an invaluable insight into the changing patterns and nature of vegetation in the past in Christchurch. If anybody wants to go back in time, and paint more like them, it would make my job heaps easier. Chur.

Go check out the Christchurch Art Gallery for most of the above landscapes. The Te Rua O Te Moko exhibit only runs until 3 April 2016, but a lot of the other paintings are permanent exhibits.

Tristan Wadsworth

References

Boffa Miskell. 2007. Banks Peninsula Landscape Study: Final Report. Prepared for Christchurch City Council by Boffa Miskell Ltd.

Furey, L. 2006: Maori gardening: an archaeological perspective. Department of Conservation, Wellington.

Press [online]. Available at <http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/>

Stowe, C. J., 2003. The Ecology and Ethnobotany of Karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus). Unpublished M.Sc. thesis, University of Otago.

Wigram, H. F., 1916. The story of Christchurch New Zealand. Lyttelton Times Co. Ltd, Christchurch.

Wilson, J., 1989. Swamp to City – a short history of the Christchurch Drainage Board 1875-1989. Te Waihora Press, Christchurch.

 

[1] Note: this is not a sponsored post, but if the Christchurch Art Gallery would like to send me some priceless landscape paintings out of the goodness of their hearts, I wouldn’t say no.

[2] If you know of any stands of karaka, let me know, as it’s possible there are some that haven’t yet been recorded by archaeologists.

The bitter waters of archaeology

This week on the blog, we delve – or dive, even (sorry, I can already tell you that this post will be filled with water puns) – into the bitter waters of the 19th century, by which I mean mineral and healing waters, not some kind of allegorical reference to a difficult period of the past. This watery submersion (sorry, can’t help myself) came about following the discovery of an unusual bottle in a recent assemblage that turned out to have originally contained German mineral water, exported from a small town called Friedrichshall to New Zealand from the 1870s onwards. It’s not the first example of German mineral water we’ve come across here in Christchurch and well, it got me thinking. And researching. Basically, I fell down the well (see what I did there?) into the world of healing waters and haven’t quite surfaced since.

Bottle base embossed with C. OPPEL / FRIEDRICHSHALL. The source of this descent into watery madness. Image: J. Garland.

Bottle base embossed with C. OPPEL / FRIEDRICHSHALL. The source of this descent into watery madness. Image: J. Garland.

The concept of water, specifically mineral water, as an elixir of health has been around for centuries – millennia, even. We’ve all heard stories of springs and pools that could miraculously cure the sick and restore the health of the ailing, in both the historical and fictional worlds. The notion of water – or rather, the ‘waters’ of certain places – as more than just a necessity of survival, as a life-giving (or life preserving) force is so prevalent in our collective psyche that it trickles through our pop culture, past (Jane Austen springs to mind) and present (Pirates of the Caribbean’s fountain of youth, for example).

During our period of study – the 19th and early 20th centuries – there are numerous references to springs, wells, pools, aquifers and other bodies of water with healing properties, sometimes bordering on the magical. The healing waters of Bath were, thanks to the Romans and Miss Austen, among many others, well-known for their alleged ability to cure anything from leprosy to rheumatism. There were several locations on the continent, including Royat in France, Pistyan in ‘Czecho-Slovakia’, Marienbad in Bohemia, Vichy in France, and Salsomaggiore in Lombardy. In California, the town of Carlsbad (not quite Carlsberg, as I thought for a while) was named after a famous Bohemian spa following the discovery of mineral water there in the 1880s. In Scotland, the well of St Maelrubha in Loch Maree, Ross-shire, “was credited with the wonderful powers of curing the insane” and, in possibly my favourite example, there was a pub in London that offered eye lotion made from the healing water in the cellar along with the normal beers and spirits. Apparently, the water contained high levels of zinc, which may have been “soothing to the eye.”

In which a publican has a strange clause in his lease regarding some mineral water in the cellar. Image:

In which a publican has a strange clause in his lease regarding some mineral water in the cellar. Image: Auckland Star 9/12/1932: 13.

New Zealand has its own tradition of healing waters, of course, the most famous of which is the thermal springs and waters at Rotorua. Other places in the country home to the miraculous springs of good health included Te Aroha, Puriri, and Waiwera. Dunedin soda water manufacturers the Thomson brothers also took advantage of the country’s natural resources and sold Wai-Rongoa (healing water), “the celebrated mineral water from the famed North Taeri Springs” during the early 20th century. Christchurch apparently tried to have healing waters, but the so-called mineral waters of Heathcote turned out just to be water. Nice try, Heathcote.

Advertisement for Wai-Rongoa, the healing water of the North Taeri Springs and Waiwera.

Advertisement for Wai-Rongoa, the healing water of the North Taeri Springs and the Waiwera Hot Springs. Image: Grey River Argus 21/09/1909: 4 and New Zealand Herald 15/05/1875: 4.

Archaeologically, here in Christchurch, the use of and belief in healing waters is represented through the bottled ‘bitter waters’ and ‘seltzer waters’ imported from Europe – like the Friedrichshall bottle – that survive in the archaeological record. To date, interestingly, all of the examples we’ve found have been German or Hungarian. We’ve mentioned the Nassau selter water bottles before on the blog, stoneware bottles that contained the waters of the Ober and Nieder Selters of Nassau, a Duchy (prior to 1866) and town in Imperial Prussia (after annexation in 1866). As well as these, and the aforementioned Friedrichshall bottle, we’ve also found examples of Hunyadi Janos, a Hungarian export which contained the waters of a spring in Ofen and was advertised as a medicinal remedy. Interestingly, both the Friedrichshall and Hunyadi products are referred to as ‘bitter waters’, marketed primarily as relief for constipation, obstruction of the bowels and congestions. Even more interestingly, Friedrichshall bitter waters also claimed that by “banishing lassitude and melancholy, [it] renders occupation a pleasure instead of labour”, while Hunyadi Janos was apparently “especially efficacious” in the treatment of obesity. So, you know, good to know.

Nassau selter waters (top left) and Hunyadi Janos bitter waters (top right), along with an advertisement for Hunyadi Janos extolling its healing properties. Images:

Nassau selter waters (top left) and Hunyadi Janos bitter waters (top right), along with an advertisement for Hunyadi Janos extolling its healing properties. Neither of these were supposed to taste very good, although I did find one advertisement that described the taste of bitter waters as “peculiarly pleasant”, which sounds like advertising speak if I ever heard it. Images: J. Garland (top left) Underground Overground (top right) and New Zealand Herald 2/11/1906: 2.

As a side note, searching for ‘bitter waters’ in old newspapers certainly brought home the melodrama of the 19th century. In addition to the actual products I was searching for, the phrase seems to have been something of a favourite among Victorian writers. Just a few of the examples I found included the bitter waters of sectarian intolerance, adversity, defeat, controversy, science (the bitter waters of science! Oh, science), national humiliation, penury, existence (existentialism was alive and well in the 1800s, apparently), class prejudices, tyranny and “the bitter waters of the cup of sorrow”, which seems excessively depressing.

Anyway, moving on. Back to the bitter waters of health. There’s two main things I find interesting about these Victorian healing waters. One is that, unlike so many of the other ‘medicinal’ remedies we’ve talked about here on the blog, the alleged health benefits of these mineral waters were not – and are not – wholly unfounded. They’re unlikely to have immediately cured rheumatism or leprosy through bathing (although there may have been other benefits, like the invigoration of muscles in warm water, relaxation etc.), but the ingestion of mineral waters may in fact have had some merit. I can’t speak for the specifics – presumably, mineral water didn’t really cure obesity or ‘render occupation a pleasure’ all by itself – but it’s fairly well established that certain minerals are an important part of human health and nutrition. Certainly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it wasn’t just quacks advocating for their use (I’m not a health professional and am leery of saying anything wrong here, can you tell?).

The second thing is the apparent scepticism with which these claims of healing waters were treated which, again, runs contrary to so many of the weird and wonderful products we’ve talked about here before. There’s numerous instances of waters being tested to determine the levels of minerals present and compared to various sources around the world. If they didn’t contain the acceptable levels of minerals, they were publicly outed as ‘just water’ (Heathcote, definitely looking at you). It’s telling that the truly reputable mineral waters of the 19th century are all derived from springs and wells in areas where the geological characteristics of the surrounding land have made possible the absorption of minerals and salts into the very waters of the earth, so to speak. Like little old geothermal New Zealand or Hungary and Germany, apparently, if we’re looking just at Christchurch’s archaeological record.

It's not completely related, but it made me laugh and it certainly illustrates that scepticism (and sarcasm) was alive and well in the 19th century. Image:

It’s not completely related, but it made me laugh and it certainly illustrates that scepticism (and sarcasm) was alive and well in the 19th century. Image: Patea Mail 21/04/1881: 4.

There’s so many things about this whole notion of healing waters that is fascinating to me and I can’t quite articulate all of them (I guess I still haven’t really surfaced from that well I mentioned at the beginning). Not just the physical properties of the waters themselves, but the things they tell us about our view of ‘health’ – I’m thinking here about emphasis placed on characteristics like ‘purity’ and descriptors like ‘natural’, ‘fresh’ ‘cool’ and ‘clean’ – and the ways that view of health has changed and endured over the centuries. Even here and now, we might scoff at the notion of ‘healing waters’, and I imagine very few of you would go and buy a bottle of mineral water to stave off constipation, but water is still intrinsically associated with health and some waters are still considered better – healthier – than others. New Zealand spring water, for example, is marketed in part through its connection to the idea of this country as clean, green, pure and natural: in other words, healthy. In that regard, at least, we’re just following in the footsteps of our ancestors.

Jessie Garland

How to read a landscape

Some of you might have been to the St James Conservation Area, a remote and beautiful area managed by the Department of Conservation. You might have been cycling or walking there, or you might have been drawn by the romance of the famous St James horses. While there, you’re sure to have marvelled at the landscape, and I’m hoping that you might have paused to consider the human history of the area. Today, I’m going to tell you about the story I – as an archaeologist – see when I look at this landscape.

Looking up the Stanley River from Stanley Vale (William Fowler's run) to Lake Guyon (W.T.L. Travers' run). Image: K. Watson.

Looking up the Stanley River from Stanley Vale (William Fowler’s run) to Lake Guyon (W.T.L. Travers’ run). Image: K. Watson.

But first, why the St James on a blog about Christchurch? The St James station (which the St James Conservation Area grew out of, as it were) is representative of the sheep stations that played such an important role in Christchurch’s development, from early struggles over land tenure in the fledgling settlement, to providing important economic stimulus, and not to mention the political and social power of the runholders. Please, however, forget all notions of the landed gentry: it’s a myth.

St James horses. Image: K. Watson.

St James horses. Image: K. Watson.

Let’s start before Europeans arrived in Aotearoa/New Zealand, when Māori roamed the land, passing through the St James on trails that connected the interior with the coast (Brailsford 1984). They left little tangible evidence of their passage, although an archaeological site at Lake Tennyson tells the story of moa hunting in the interior, working stone tools (although not where they were found), and of networks of trade and exchange linking people across the country.

On the shores of Lake Tennyson. Image: T. Wadsworth.

On the shores of Lake Tennyson. Image: T. Wadsworth.

Like their Maori predecessors, the first Pākehā in the St James left little sign of their passage. There are the remains of a sod hut in the Edwards valley, though, that could be from some of the earliest runholders in the area, possibly dating to the early 1860s. It’s the location that suggests this, along with the fact that this hut doesn’t appear on any maps or plans, even maps that show old, ruined huts. This hut lies on the south side of the valley, tucked into the hillside, looking up at the northern part of the St James Range. It was small, probably with just one or two rooms, and its builders (probably also its occupants) would have worked hard to build this. The sod used tells the story of a treeless landscape, which would have made keeping fires going hard work in an era when fires were used for all cooking, as well as heating.

In the Edwards valley, with the remains of a sod hut and ditch and bank fence in the foreground. Image: K. Watson.

In the Edwards valley, with the remains of a sod hut and ditch and bank fence in the foreground. Image: K. Watson.

There was a hut pretty similar to this a bit further up the valley, at a place known as Scotty’s camp (next to a 20th century hut), where the Edwards flows into the Waiau. The only difference is that the hut in the Edwards valley had a ditch and bank fence around it, meaning it had a garden, probably consisting of fruits and vegetables, because it was a long way to the nearest supply town – probably pretty much back to Christchurch in those days. At 700 m above sea level, it would have been hard to keep that garden going over winter. The hut at Scotty’s, though, had no fence, suggesting no garden – in those early runholding days, it was much cheaper and easier to fence stock out than in.

The 20th century hut at Scotty's camp. Image: K. Watson.

The 20th century hut at Scotty’s camp. Image: K. Watson.

The next phase in the story is two men whose stories I love, perhaps because I’ve spent a long time researching and thinking about them, and they’ve developed personalities for me (I make no claims to the accuracy of these).

They arrived in the area in the early to mid-1860s, a bit after the first Europeans, with W.T.L. Travers taking up Lake Guyon station and William Fowler taking up Stanley Vale, making the two men remarkably close neighbours, given their distance from anywhere else. As it happens, Fowler built his house on Travers’ land. From this distance, there’s no way of knowing whether this was deliberate, or simply an accident. There were no fences, after all, and boundaries were defined by vague descriptions about heading east from point X until point Y was reached, or for however many chains/miles. While there was a dispute about the location of Fowler’s house, however, there was never one about him grazing stock on land that wasn’t his. Which suggests to me that he knew full well where his boundaries were, and where he was building his house.

Lake Guyon. Travers, William Thomas Locke, 1819-1903 :Photographs. Ref: PAColl-1574-30. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Lake Guyon. Travers, William Thomas Locke, 1819-1903 :Photographs. Ref: PAColl-1574-30. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Travers was just your average Renaissance man – photographer, scientist, explorer, lawyer, politician, and one of the founders of the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society; Shepherd 2014). His biography doesn’t even mention that he was a runholder, and it seems unlikely that he spent much time at Lake Guyon, preferring to leave the station in the control of his manager, William Newcombe, who I like to think of as phlegmatic. From my point of view, Travers did make the most of the time he spent at Lake Guyon, taking photographs, such a rare but valuable resource for us to draw on (he also did quite a lot of exploring). These photographs are wonderful, not just for enabling interpretation of the archaeological remains, but for the life they show us.

Mr William Newcombe, his wife Mary (nee Embury) and children on the shores of Lake Guyon, circa 1870s. Photograph taken by William Thomas Locke Travers. Image: PA7-22-04, Alexander Turnbull Library.

Mr William Newcombe, his wife Mary (nee Embury) and children on the shores of Lake Guyon, circa 1870s. Photograph taken by William Thomas Locke Travers. Image: PA7-22-04, Alexander Turnbull Library.

In particular, they show us William Newcombe and his family. Yes, he lived up that remote valley with his wife and children, in a house that grew a bit like topsy. Today you can still see the chimney remains, mounds of stones peeking up through the grass, right on the water’s edge. Strangely close to the water’s edge to my way of thinking – the lake would have been lapping at the building – and so exposed to the nor’west winds that howl down the valley. What the photographs don’t show is another hut, tucked away amongst the (exotic) trees at the base of the hillside, nicely sheltered from the wind. Perhaps a shepherd’s hut? They also don’t show the garden Newcombe and his family grew and tended: cherry, mint, elderberry, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries.

A hut tucked into the trees at Lake Guyon, next to Newcombe's garden. Image: K. Watson.

The remains of a hut, tucked into the trees at Lake Guyon, next to Newcombe’s garden. Image: K. Watson.

Fowler’s garden was actually a bit better: he had raspberries, hazelnuts, gooseberries, currants, rowans, hawthorns, ash trees, sycamores, primroses, willows, poplars and snapdragons. And all this at a considerable height above sea level. A lush garden he might have had, but Fowler faced many problems and cantankerous is the word that springs to mind when I think of him, as he was involved in innumerable court cases, including one against his own son. Some of the reports on these in the papers suggested a pretty grumpy man. I think he was probably stoic, too – he lasted here for some 30 years, long after Travers had sold out.

Looking down on the Stanley Vale homestead site, showing some of the exotic plantings. Image: K. Watson.

Looking down on the Stanley Vale homestead site, showing some of the exotic plantings. The poplars in the distance are on drains that Fowler dug. Image: K. Watson.

Part of the problem was that, in choosing the best location for his homestead (tucked neatly into the lee of the hill, with bush nearby for a good supply of firewood), Fowler had built on someone else’s land. Not only was this detrimental to good neighbourly relations, it also meant that he was isolated from the rest of his run. Also, there was no good road access to his station – of course, there wasn’t really any road access at all, just some flatter stretches of land than others. All of this meant that Fowler’s woolshed was some six miles from his house. Across someone else’s land. Which is never going to work out well in an industry plagued by scab. Travers had a woolshed on his land too, which was much closer, but neighbourly relations appear to have been such that it was not possible for Fowler to use Travers’ woolshed.

The sheep dip at Lake Guyon, which was adjacent to the woolshed. Image: K. Watson.

The sheep dip at Lake Guyon, which was adjacent to the woolshed. Image: K. Watson.

Instead, Fowler had to drive his sheep out over Fowler’s pass – a route some of you might have walked or mountain biked. If you haven’t, and you’re keen on that sort of thing, I’d highly recommend it. No doubt because of the distances involved, Fowler built a hut at the woolshed – not, I hasten to add, the hut known as Fowler’s hut, which was really built for a rabbiter named Henry Barker, and his wife. Nothing at all to do with Fowler, he just happened to own the land on which the hut was built. It’s a great hut, but not the sort of hut that runholders typically build: it’s a bit luxurious for that.

Fowler's Pass track, in somewhat inclement weather. Image. K. Watson.

Fowler’s Pass track, in somewhat inclement weather. Image. K. Watson.

Not only was Fowler running sheep, he was planting exotic grasses and draining paddocks, which has left drains and plough marks visible today. While there was lots of ploughing in 19th century New Zealand, little evidence of it survives, because the land continued to be worked, destroying the evidence of that earlier ploughing. But not on Fowler’s land. The plough lines are easy to see when you’re there today and, if you know what you’re looking for, you can see them on Google Earth. So cool! Something usually so ephemeral, preserved. And think, too, of those men and their horses, the effort to get the equipment to where it was needed, the seed, training the horses, draining the land. This was hard work.

Fowler's hut (before recent DOC work to preserve the structure). Image: K. Watson.

Fowler’s hut (before recent DOC work to preserve the structure). This hut was built in the early 1890s, for a caretaker on the rabbit-proof fence. Image: K. Watson.

In the end, though, both Fowler and Travers sold up and left, moving on to other things. I don’t have a clear picture in my head of the McArthurs, the brothers who added Lake Guyon and Stanley Vale to their holdings, creating a station of some 200,000 acres, most of it more than 800 m above sea level. Hard, economising Scotsmen, perhaps. And they made it work, in spite of the rabbits and the climate and the terrain. Ambitious and driven, then. Tough.

The St James woolshed. Image: K. Watson.

The St James woolshed. Image: K. Watson.

They moved the station homestead from the Styx River to the Peters valley, where many of the station buildings remain today. Not the homestead, though. It burnt down in the 1940s (by which time the McArthurs were long gone) and was never replaced. Today, though, you can wander amongst the trees that sheltered it from the southerly and the nor’west, inspect the long drop they would have used, and count the dog kennels that remain.

The St James homestead, as it is today. Image: T. Wadsworth.

The St James homestead, as it is today. Image: T. Wadsworth.

And think, too, of the men, women and children who lived here, in such splendid isolation. In a world where it was cheaper to build a concrete chimney than cart in bricks from Rangiora or Christchurch, where electricity must have come late in the piece, and where rabbits were such a problem that a fence was built to keep them out. We laugh now at this folly, but perhaps think instead of the men whose livelihoods were threatened by such a small, furry creature.

The rabbit-proof fence, alongside Tophouse Road. This was built by the Hurunui Rabbit Board in the 1880s. Image: T. Wadsworth.

The rabbit-proof fence, alongside Tophouse Road. This was built by the Hurunui Rabbit Board in the 1880s. Image: T. Wadsworth.

All of the sites I’ve mentioned – and more – exist in the St James Conservation Area. I say go, explore, and see what stories you can find in the landscape, on the trails that have existed for hundreds of years, in the ruined buildings, the remains of sheep dips, those glorious mountains.

Katharine Watson

References

Brailsford, B., 1984, Greenstone Trails: The Maori Search for Pounamu. A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington.

Shepherd, R. Winsome, 2012. Travers, William Thomas Locke. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. [online] Available at: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1t105/travers-william-thomas-locke

The fascist punishment: a foul taste used for foul purposes

It’s made from plant seeds named for their resemblance to a tick and has been known through history as the ‘golden nectar of nausea’ and the ‘fascist punishment’, among other things. When combined with chlorine, it forms a “a substance of horny character” (immature as I am, I may have laughed at that) and its taste has been commonly described as repulsive. We find the distinctive cobalt blue bottles it used to come in on 19th and early 20th century sites throughout Christchurch, where it was used to traumatise young children in the name of good health for decades.

Got it yet?

I am, of course, talking about castor oil, the scourge of the bowels (apparently), lubricator of flying machines and converter of communists (I’ll explain later, it’s kind of awful). Castor oil, which comes from the seeds of the Ricinus communis plant, has been cultivated in Europe since at least the 16th century, and was used during the 19th and early 20th centuries for a plethora of things, some of them more dubious than others.

Castor oil bottles, commonly found on 19th century archaeological sites in Christchurch and throughout New Zealand. Image: J. Garland.

Castor oil bottles, commonly found on 19th century archaeological sites in Christchurch and throughout New Zealand. As well as a laxative and purgative, castor oil was used to prevent flies from landing around children’s eyes, as a way of preventing gun powder from getting wet, as a perfume base and a beauty product (with the slogan ‘Feed your face with castor oil!) and as a lubricant for early flying machines. it was surprisingly versatile. Image: J. Garland.

Primarily, it was used for personal health care, mostly advertised as a laxative and/or purgative for cases of constipation and diarrhoea, over eating or general digestive problems. One specific account describes it as “a medicament for putting the internal economy in order after bouts of overeating,” which is just the most delightful turn of phrase. It was often given to young babies, especially earlier in the 19th century, although this was later discouraged as an unnecessary and occasionally dangerous thing to do (there are several accounts of babies or young children dying as a result of the wrongful administration of castor oil, usually due to reactions with other substances). It wasn’t particularly dangerous for adults, unless there were other health complications, although there were some cases of people dying after mistaking acid or caustic disinfectants like Lysol for castor oil (yikes).

In which both babies and castor oil are old fashioned. Image: Auckland Star 31/05/1924: 18.

In which both babies and castor oil are old fashioned. Image: Auckland Star 31/05/1924: 18.

A very very high number of the articles and advertisements for castor oil were concerned with the taste. Some described it as repulsive, some as sickening. One writer even used the phrase “the smooth, mucilaginous, euphorbiaceous, nauseous castor oil” which manages to both be technically accurate (translated as ‘sticky nausea inducing oil from the Euphorbiaciae taxa of plants’) and convey an almost onomatopoeic sense of revulsion. Needless to say, there are numerous recommendations on how to disguise the taste, both for yourself and any unsuspecting victims (usually children) you might have.

Among the recommended ways of hiding the taste of castor oil are: mixing it with scrambled eggs; ‘floating’ it on milk; putting it in lemonade; orange juice or other citrus flavours; hiding it in candy (this seems particularly cruel); and mixing it with cocoa to form ‘castor oil chocolate’ (which sounds awful, to be honest). The chocolate is particularly interesting, thanks to one account of a court case in Christchurch in which a local chemist was prosecuted for selling a product labelled castor oil chocolate that actually contained mostly phenolpthalen, a weak acid also used as a laxative. So, yeah, laxative chocolates. Who knew. Also still a thing, apparently.

Castor oil taste

Top: Even Tom hated the taste of castor oil. Image: Tom and Jerry Cartoon “Baby Puss” 1943. Bottom: 1928 joke about disguising the taste of castor oil. Image: Evening Post 23/03/1924: 21.

Apparently, a lot of these methods didn’t actually do a whole lot to disguise the taste of the oil. Neither did the ‘tasteless’ castor oils advertised actually manage to do what they claimed. Castor oil continued to taste bad enough that the taking of it was considered a punishment, especially by children. In fact, it was administered as a punishment, and this is where it gets interesting. And political. And a bit sinister. Because castor oil wasn’t just given as a punishment to school children (which is bad enough, when you think about the laxative properties…) but, particularly during the 20th century, was also forcibly given or used as a threat against adults – specifically and most commonly by fascists.

In which the Scottish lag behind the Americans in

In which the Scottish lag behind the Americans in methods by which to punish school children. Image: Auckland Star 7/06/1884: 4.

The first mention I found of this was a notice in the newspaper stating that several men had been imprisoned for “administering castor oil to communists,” which seemed a bit weird but kind of funny. Then I read some more and, yeah, not so funny. Castor oil was used by the Fascisti in 1920s and 1930s Italy to punish dissenters, subversives and enemies of fascism, basically by holding them down and forcing them to suffer from uncontrollable diarrhoea that could last for days. It served the purpose of exerting control over individuals, humiliating them and immobilising them, or at least restricting their movement (Strange History 2014). “Castor oil cudgels” became so synonymous with Mussolini and the Italian fascists that George Bernard Shaw had to write a defense of fascism in 1937 to explicitly state that the success of the ideology wasn’t just due to the use of castor oil.

In which a fascist Pinnochio forces

In which a fascist Pinocchio forces castor oil down the throat of a communist. Image via Overland Journal.

The use of castor oil in this way was adopted by other extremist political groups during the first half of the 20th century. The Nazis used it as a threat against newspaper editors who might consider attacking them in print; royalists in France used it in combination with tar to attack anti-royalist deputies; fascists in England used in an assault on a journalist; secret police in Cuba allegedly forced newspaper staff to drink it at gunpoint in 1934 to “forestall revolutionary outbreak” and it was used by the rebels in Spain in the late 1930s. It was, as it turns out, an exceedingly common tool of political punishment.

nazis and castor oil

In which the Nazis use castor oil to threaten the freedom of the press. Image: Auckland Star 5/11/1930: 7.

You can actually sort of see the beginnings of the use of castor oil in this way during the earlier 19th century: although not explicitly used as it was in the 20th century, it’s mentioned occasionally as a kind of social purgative, playing on the perceived purgative and laxative qualities of the product and applying them to society or sub-sets of society in general. One account talks about administering castor oil to the entire Department of Public Works, another of using it to “sweep away the all highly paid noodles and useless sinecurists” in the Railway Department. Another example attempted to solve the drunk ‘problem’ in America by offering drunkards a choice of castor oil or gaol (which kind of seems like a non-choice to me, but I guess not). The same principle was applied in Italy again during the 1920s, where it was less of a choice and more of a ‘if we catch you drunk, we will forcibly feed you castor oil to sober you up, totally for the good of society.’

In which drunkards are given a choice. Image:

In which drunkards are given a choice. Image: Press 1/12/1936: 11.

Now, there’s no evidence to suggest that the castor oil bottles we find in Christchurch were used for anything outside their health or mechanical-related functions, but it does make you think about a whole field of things our archaeological experience doesn’t usually touch on. I spent a while wondering if the use of castor oil as a political punishment was equivalent to the New Zealand trend of throwing random things at politicians, but I don’t think it is. It’s far more insidious than that, far too related to those characteristics of ‘purging’ – and not just because of the association with fascism and the abuses of Mussolini and Hitler. It’s the subversion of a household product – of the function of a household product – into a tool for social oppression and control. Proof that anything can become an instrument of torture (not to put too fine a word on it) if you add enough violence and a dash of radical ideology. It’s been over half a century since this particular form of that was popular, but don’t tell me that the thought’s not still a bit terrifying.

(I tried to think of a way to end this on a lighter note and get us back to the chocolate flavoured drugs and ‘substance of horny character’, but I couldn’t figure it out. Sorry. Blame fascism.)

Jessie Garland.

References:

Strange History, 2014. Mussolini’s Secret Weapon: Castor Oil. In Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog. [online] Available at: www.strangehistory.net. 

Tiso, G., 2014. Making real a fascist puppet. In Overland. [online] Available at: www.overland.org.au.