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Manukau myths and memories
Bruce Ringer
Abstract: A discussion of the development of myths in South Auckland and Manukau history. Briefly examines early influenza epidemics, Samuel Marsden’s sermon at Maraetai, Bishop Selwyn’s first sermon in the Maori language, the arrival of the Fencible settlers at Otahuhu, the visit of HRH Prince Albert to Auckland in 1869, George Bernard Shaw at Howick, the flight of the Manurewa, and the fate of the old Woodside Methodist cemetery at Wiri.
The stories we inherit from the past are sometimes so embroidered by faulty memory and the passage of time that they might more accurately be called myths. This article provides several examples of such myths embedded in the history of the Manukau area. Similar examples could be found in the history of any other New Zealand region.
A substantial body of academic writing addresses the way societies use stories from their past to construct their identity. Historians play a significant part in this process through their selection and interpretation of evidence. In the process myths and errors are sometimes created.
There is nothing sinister about this. Some writers argue that the process is a conscious or deliberate one. I suggest instead that our myths originate mostly by accident, sometimes by human error, sometimes by the love of a good story.[1] Some stories are simply too good not to be true; and it can be quite disappointing to find that they aren’t.
Influenza
A number of sources suggest that influenza epidemics devastated the Auckland region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For instance, according to local historian A.E. Tonson, a first epidemic raged through the region during the 1790s and a second in 1810 further reduced the population.[2]
This is contradicted by the eyewitness accounts of Samuel Marsden, Captain Richard Cruise and the Reverend John Butler, who visited the Tamaki River in 1820 and noted the thriving villages along its banks.[3] There were as many as an estimated 7,000 people in the vicinity. If disease had depopulated the area in the recent past, then the recovery had been extraordinarily rapid.
Tonson’s and other accounts seem to have extrapolated from experiences reported elsewhere in the country; or perhaps their dates are questionable (there is credible evidence of outbreaks of influenza at Maraetai during the 1830s).[4] In either case, this story warrants further examination.
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