Holiday Seasons New Year, Easter and Christmas in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand

by Clarke, Alison

• ISBN13: 9781869403829
• ISBN10: 1869403827
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-01
• Publisher: Auckland University Press

Summary

Taking readers back in time and across the seas, this peek inside the lives of New Zealand settlers offers delightful descriptions of traditional British festivals and documents their development after being transplanted into the young colony. Though the seasons were reversed, the vegetation unfamiliar, and the land isolated, the early colonial New Zealanders were devoted to their traditions and kept them up in the face of not only their physical environment but also the wide variety of religious cultures represented by both the colonists and the native islanders. The celebrations became unique to the islands that nurtured them, mixing traditions of Presbyterians and Catholics with Baptists, Anglicans, and the Maori.

Author Biography

Alison Clarke is an archivist of the Hocken Collections of Otago University. She has contributed chapters to Building God’s Own Country and A Godly Rhythm.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Seasonal Celebrations and the Making of New Zealand Culture	p. 1
Christmas	p. 23
New Year	p. 73
Easter	p. 119
Conclusion: The Evolution of the New Zealand Holiday	p. 163
Notes	p. 171
Further Reading	p. 184
Index	p. 186
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