The feeling of life in early N.Z.

Press, 6 February 1982, Page 15

The feeling of life in early N.Z.

Life in a Young Colony: Selections from Early New Zealand Writing. Edited by Cherry A. Hankin. Whitcoulls, 1981. 287 pp. Illustrations. $24.95. (Reviewed by Mervyn Palmer) Put in the simplest terms, Cherry Hankin’s object in preparing her selections from early New Zealand writing has been to let twentieth century readers savour the feelings of nineteenth century participants in colonisation, as they recorded for their contemporaries something rather more than simple events and plain facts. Perhaps it is to be expected that historians would be governed, in making such selections, by preferences for the most authentic documentation, yet historians will not have less to thank Cherry Hankin for than will other readers in appraising her collection of extracts. The facts in- history are of paramount importance, but historians need to remind themselves constantly that the facts alone do not tell us what it felt like to be in a particular place, or to be doing a special job at any given time, in the course of history. We always run a great risk of interpreting historical events according to our own standards and with the aid of accumulations of information and of ideas simply not available, or not propounded, in the times of past generations. It is hard to see that past through the eyes of those who lived in the past. Dr Hankin’s particular expertise and her sensitivity relating to the literary efforts of the colonising Victorians makes this contribution to writing in New Zealand a very rich one. She is an unobtrusive Editor, perhaps almost too much so. yet hers was the problem just mentioned. How do we absorb the past as it really was without adding some elements that were never really there? Cherry Hankin tries to find the answers by letting her Victorian writers speak for themselves, and their times, with the minimufh of potentially distracting observation. Hopefully, in times ahead, this

experienced and perceptive editor will give us a lot more of her own thoughts. There is a lot to be learned from her experience and her methods of interpretation.

“Life in a Young Colony" has been divided into thematic sections each containing four or five substantial extracts. At the beginning, the theme of the decision to colonise is examined, tracing the formation of the New Zealand Company, recording through the eyes of Charlotte Godley the arrival of the First Four Ships to establish the Canterbury Settlement, and providing a lively account of the voyage from Britain to New Zealand as experienced by Edwin Hodder.

A most important section of the book is that concerned with “The Maori as Warrior.” This includes an impression of the Wairau Massacre from the Maori standpoint and a most absorbing account of Maori prisoners of war on Kawau Island. Each of the four extracts contained in

the section “Man Against Nature" illustrates, from widely varying positions, the formidable and continuous challenge of the New Zealand terrain and the fickle climate. Outstanding and very moving in this section is the tragic story of Edwin Bainbridge and the destruction of the Pink and White Terraces in 1886. In the section on "Women’s - Work,” without a word by way of editorial comment. Cherry Hankin opens up for us her own feelings about the role of women in the pioneering of New Zealand settlement. There may have been comparatively few women upon the scene, but the resourcefulness, the patience, the adaptability and the common-sense courage, demonstrated typically in the four widely assorted pieces chosen for publication, vividly underline the true equality of women with men in the face of challenge, adversity and merciless hardship. The extracts demolish the need of arguments to promote the case of women’s equality. That equality is plainly self-evident.

“Life in a Young Colony” is a pleasing book for all tastes, valuable for the social historian and for those with a special interest in exploring the breadth and depth of New Zealand writing. The pleasing format with a limited, but wellselected range of illustrations, plus the competitive price, makes it a book that the general reader would be glad to have on his shelves. It is a publication which deserves recommendation as an introduction to nineteenth century New Zealand life and its useful bibliography provides an excellent guide to further reading. The present writer would have been happier to have seen an identification of the source of each extract, together with its publication date, included in the introductory note to the separate extracts, but this is a matter of individual taste and Dr Hankin explains in her general introduction the desire to free her text of all but the most essential notes.