Totara: A Natural and Cultural History

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-86940-819-0
Verlag: Auckland University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 224 mm x 260 mm, Gewicht: 789 g

The ‘mighty totara’ is one of our most extraordinary trees. Among the biggest and oldest trees in the New Zealand forest, the heart of Maori carving and culture, trailing no. 8 wire as fence posts on settler farms, clambered up in the Pureora protests of the 1980s: the story of New Zealand can be told through t?tara.

Simpson tells that story like nobody else could. In words and pictures, through waka and leaves, farmers and carvers, he takes us deep inside the trees: their botany and evolution, their role in Maori life and lore, their uses by Pakeha, and their current status in our environment and culture. By doing so, Simpson illuminates the natural world and the story of Maori and Pakeha in this country.

Our largest trees, the kauri Tane Mahuta and the t?tara Pouakani, are both thought to be around 1000 years old. They were here before we humans were and their relatives will probably be here when we are gone. T?tara has been central to life in this country for thousands of years. This book tells a great tree’s story, and that is our story too.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Simpson, Philip

Über Autor(innen)

Philip Simpson is a botanist and author of Dancing Leaves: The Story of New Zealand’s Cabbage Tree, Ti K?uka (Canterbury University Press, 2000) and P?hutukawa and Rata: New Zealand’s Iron-hearted Trees (Te Papa Press, 2005). Both books won Montana Book Awards in the Environment category and P?hutukawa and Rata also won the Montana Medal for best non-fiction book. Simpson is unique in his ability to combine the scientific expertise of the trained botanist with a writer’s ability to understand the history of Maori and Pakeha interactions with the environment. He was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship to work on T?tara: A Natural and Cultural History.