A bird in the hand
Māori kept kākā as pets—and Judas parrots.
Hungry for rights
A Kiwi suffragette’s defiant stand for women in the United Kingdom.
Hooked
It’s the Middle Ages. Genghis Khan presides over the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen. Mansa Musa gives away enough gold on his trip to Mecca to cause an economic crisis in the Near East. Dante writes The Divine Comedy. The English and French kick off the Hundred Years’ War. And Polynesian explorers sail to all corners of the Pacific. At least one waka lands on Enderby Island, at Sandy Bay, and stays there. The explorers live on sea lions, seals, albatrosses, petrels, fish and mussels. They cook in hangi, stoking fires with rātā, and their dogs gnaw the bones. Archaeologist Atholl Anderson investigated these earth ovens in 2003, dating their remnants to either the 13th or 14th century—about the same time that New Zealand was settled. Traces remain of visits to the subantarctic Snares Islands, as well as settlements in the Kermadecs, far to the north of mainland New Zealand, and the Chatham Islands to the east. On Enderby, part of the Auckland Islands group, Polynesians stayed for at least one summer, perhaps more, then departed, leaving behind tools, fish hooks, scrapers and bones—including this fish hook, which was recovered from Sandy Bay and is now held at the Southland Museum. After they left, the Auckland Islands remained uninhabited for at least 400 years. There are no signs of human presence between these remains and the islands’ rediscovery by Abraham Bristow in 1806. While the earlier explorers may have paid only a summer’s visit, Enderby Island marks the southernmost Polynesian colony yet to have been identified.
The plant hunter
William Colenso was a poor specimen of the clergy, but he found redemption in botany.
Odd man out
At the 1960 Olympic Games, the runners lining up for the 800-metre final all wore Adidas shoes—except one.
Hoodwinked
A sunfish with a big secret.
Bait and switch
To catch an octopus, pretend to be a rat.
Garden remedy
Mother Aubert’s homemade medicine.
Guiding light
Cavers of yesteryear used carbide lamps for illumination—occasionally with explosive results.
Disposable cutlery
Scientists believed they had found an ancient civilisation, but it was more like plastic forks.
Glass half full
Waikato’s eponymous brewery was rescued from the edge of financial ruin—twice. Then it burned down, and the chief brewer died.
Guns for everyone
Enemy weapons captured during World War I were distributed to towns, community groups and schools around the country.
The murder house
New Zealand’s free dental health programme for schoolchildren was the first of its kind in the world.
X marks the spot
Charlie Douglas's original treasure maps of the West Coast were lost for decades.
Echoes of the past
The long-lost huia, imitated by a man now long dead, is rediscovered in an early recording.
Kings of the road
A handmade icon of holidays past.
Maketh the man
Captain James Cook appeared to have left a trail of waistcoats around the southern hemisphere.
Masterpiece theatre
After a 40-year saga involving art theft, kidnapping, ransom and negotiation, a unique set of five carved panels have been returned to a Taranaki iwi.
Pearly whites
A toothsome adornment from the natural world.
One family’s trash
The detritus of 19th-century family life accumulated underneath a Wellington cottage and came to light more than a century later.
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