Ye olde N.Z. Christmas Cards and Tree
Christmas is many things to many people. To many New Zealanders at home and abroad it’s epitomised by a tree. Not just any old tree mind you, no, I’m talking about “the pohutukawa tree (Metrosideros excelsa) with its crimson flower. This iconic Kiwi Christmas tree is often featured on greeting cards, in poems and songs and has become an important symbol for New Zealanders both at home and away.
In 1833 the missionary Henry Williams described holding service under a ‘wide spreading pohutukawa’. The first recorded reference to the pohutukawa as a Christmas tree came in 1867 when the Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter noted that settlers referred to it as such. The pohutukawa, he observed, ‘about Christmas … are full of charming … blossoms’; ‘the settler decorates his church and dwellings with its lovely branches’. Other 19th-century references described the Pohutukawa tree as the ‘Settlers Christmas tree’ and ‘Antipodean holly’.
In 1941 army chaplain Ted Forsman composed a pohutukawa carol in which he made reference to ‘your red tufts, our snow’. Forsman was serving in the Libyan Desert at the time, hardly the surroundings normally associated with the image of a fiery red Pohutukawa tree. Many of his fellow New Zealanders, though, would have instantly identified with the image.
Today many school children sing about how ‘the native Christmas tree of Aotearoa’ (New Zealand) fills their hearts ‘with aroha’ (love). The Pohutukawa and its cousin the Rata also hold a prominent place in Maori tradition. Legends tell of Tawhaki, a young Maori warrior, who attempted to find heaven to seek help in avenging the death of his father. He fell to earth and the crimson flowers are said to represent his blood.
A gnarled, twisted pohutukawa on the windswept cliff top at Cape Reinga, the northern tip of New Zealand, has become of great significance to many New Zealanders. For Maori this small, venerated pohutukawa is known as ‘the place of leaping’. It is from here that the spirits of the dead begin their journey to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki. From this point the spirits leap off the headland and climb down the roots of the 800-year-old tree, descending into the underworld on their return journey.
By way of a trip down memory lane I have included a selection of nine historic Christmas cards from the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library that combined colourful Christmas imagery with reflections on contemporary events back then such as the overseas wars. Familiar New Zealand symbolism such as tattooed Maori figures, kiwi, tiki and ferns added a distinctively local flavour to traditional Christmas greetings and generic symbols, such as flags, clasped hands, maps and Christmas trees.
The first card from around 1886 commemorates the famed Pink Terraces on Lake Rotomahana that were destroyed by the Tarawera eruption that year. The second is a montage of images showcasing the landscape and sea life of the West Coast, about 1886. The third is a ‘With the Premier’s compliments’ a Christmas card from Premier Richard Seddon, 1899. The inside of the card features images of New Zealand soldiers preparing to fight in the South African (Boer) War that had begun in October that year.
The fourth, is a General Post Office Christmas card from 1901 that featured a colourful montage of scenes including telegraph wires above Wellington Harbour, a young Maori woman posting a letter in a postbox while freeing a bird from her right hand, two warriors standing in a Maori pa, a steamship, a train and the Chief Post Office building in Wellington. The fifth is a novelty cheque that was ‘issued’ by the ‘Consolidated Bank of Success’ to the value of ‘three hundred and sixty-five days of Prosperity, Good Luck and Happiness’.
The sixth card from the early 20th century displays the slogan ‘Best Yule Tide Wishes’ and a tiki marked ‘NZ’, either side of a fern leaf while the seventh is a 1917 postcard that contrasted an idealised New Zealand rural scene with the bleak horrors of war in Europe. A soldier is depicted writing from ‘somewhere in France’. The terrible New Zealand losses at the battles of Messines and Passchendaele would have been fresh in many people’s minds that Christmas.
The eighth was a colourful card that featured the Union Jack and a kiwi (left), a New Zealand flag and a head and shoulders portrait of a Maori chief (right), and maps of Australia and New Zealand (top) and the British Isles (bottom). The final card in this Christmas card collection was issued by 3 New Zealand General Hospital in Bari, Italy, for the first Christmas following the end of the Second World War, features a tiki and the slogan ‘Kia kaha’ (‘be strong’).
In a different vein but in these more contemporary times I’d like to give a shout out for Andy Clover and his promotion of art card sales to support emerging New Zealand artists. In my books, that makes him a great bloke.
