CENTENNIAL EVENTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1939, Page 6

CENTENNIAL EVENTS

NATIONAL AND LOCAL CELEBRATIONS SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL GATHERINGS. OUTDOOR HISTORICAL PAGEANTRY. Though there are celebrations purely national in character and others purely local, and though many ’ private or sporting bodies are taking advantage of the Centennial to hold functions on their own account, this brief summary does not attempt to differentiate between these, but merely gives a summary of the most interesting Centennial features in their chronological order. In January, 1940. the Boy Scouts are to hold a Centennial Jamboree near Wellington, which is likely to attract Scouts from all over the Empire. On January 2 at Waimate North, Bay of Islands, where the first missionary farm was established some one hundred and twenty years earlier, there is to be enacted a pageant of s New Zealand hjstory from the earliest times to the present day. To give good measure to the visitors, there will be picturesque Maori haka competitions and an axeman’s carnival, so that the wild rhythms of the Maori dances of war and peace may be contrasted with the rhythms typical of European pioneering. January 7 is to be treated as a National Thanksgiving Day. At Auckland from January 6 to 20, the scries of summer New Zealand Centennial games will be held, which are expected to attract overseas athletes. These have a . national official status. At Auckland also, from January 23 to 25, a Pageant of the Century will be given at evening performances. On January 26 and 27, Auckland is to stage an outdoor historical procession with decorated floats. In Wellington there is a National Celebration on January 22, when the Provincial Centennial Memorial will be unveiled on Petone beach where the first New Zealand Company settlers landed one hundred years before. This will be accompanied by suitable historical pageantry. Auckland again attracts the attention of the visitors on January 29, when its magnificent harbotir will be enlivened by a Traditional Regatta and Water Pageant. There will also be an Air Force display. From January ,27 to February 2 there will he a gathering of the Maori race at Auckland, where, on January 28, the Logan Campbell Memorial to the Maori people will be unveiled. At Waitangi on February 6 and 7, the most importa,nt of the national celebrations will be held. It was’ on this historic ground, given to the people of New Zealand by Lord Bledisloe, during his term of office as Governor-General of New Zealand, that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The signing of the Treaty will be reenacted in full costume, a ceremony that will be the most spectacular and impressive of all. It is, in fact, the focal point in the whole Centennial programme. Appropriately enough, this is to be the scene of the North Island Maori celebrations, when the local Ngaptihi tribe will be the hosts in traditional Maori feasting. Between February 17 and 24’ there will be extensive celebrations in Dunedin where the Otago Provincial commemoration ceremonies will be held. Here there will be an historical street pageant with floats and marching units, a children’s day, a pioneers’ day, a race meeting and many athletic and other sporting events. Otago was, of course, founded in 1848 by Scottish settlers. At Whangarei, between February 17 and 24, novel and interesting celebrations will be held, including a children’s pageant ' Whangarei is a town that is being particularly enterprising in its Centennial programme. The next important National Celebration will take place at -.Akaroa from April 1 to 5. Akaroa is one of the most historic localities in New Zealand, since it was the location of a small French colony founded in 1840 and which very nearly secured this portion of the South Island for France. The French colony was, however, on a very restricted scale, being intended as a port of refreshment for South Sea whalers and possibly a convict settlement For some years after the sixty French settlers landed, a French warship remained in New Zealand waters for their protection. The events of 1840, the first exercise of British Sovereignty in the South Island and the landing of the French settlers will be re-enacted. There will be a memorial unveiled to the French settlers whose descendants live in Akaroa to this day. Sports, a military display, appropriate pageantry and the official Centennial gathering of the South Island Maori tribes will make this an occasion of great colour and interest. . The Celebrations have been decentralised to allow centres other than Wellington, which will have the principal attraction of the Centennial Exhibition. to share in the celebrations to the greatest extent possible. During the autumn and winter of 1940 each of the four main towns, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, will enjoy a Music Week, and at Auckland between August 17 and 31 the winter series of New Zealand Centennial Games will be performed. On October 9, at Gisborne, there will be a national celebration of great interest, though it is not linked to the events of. 1840. This is a re-enactment of the landing of Captain Cook approximately on the site of the modern tow nof Gisborne, in 1769, the first recorded landing by any white man on (he coasts of New Zealand. On November 16 the final national celebration will be held at Wellington. An historical pageant will mark the separation of New Zealand from New South Wales and its erection as a separate colony.