Search This Blog

Maori Carving of the Head of Christ

Posted
Photo of Altar Frontispiece Featuring Maori Carving of Christ at Jerusalem on the Wanganui RiverAltar Frontispiece Featuring Maori Carving of Christ Crownded with Thorns


This carving of the head of Christ is the center piece of the altar frontispiece in St. Joseph's Catholic church at Jerusalem on the Whanganui River in New Zealand. (See my photo of the Whanganui River) Christ is represented in traditional Maori fashion with face tattoos (ta moko) and a crown of thorns. Paua (abalone) shell is used to decorate the carving.

The small village of Jerusalem has figured large in the post-European history of New Zealand. It was here in 1907 a diminutive French woman, Suzanne Aubert, founded the order of the Sisters of Compassion. And it the 60s it was home to a florishing hippy commune lead by the poet James K. Baxter.

Here is a photo of the entire carving that makes up the frontispiece of the altar at the church in Jerusalem.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Cool Granny Has Taken Up Flying — The Little Old Lady Collection Grows Again

Posted
Cool Granny in Her Biplane — © John Corney 2026 Our cool granny is back, and she has done something the family has been quietly worried about for a few months now. She has taken up flying. A Brief Recap for New Readers If you're new to the series: she first appeared in a beautifully kept yellow Austin A35 on the corner of Queen Street and K Road in Auckland , waving cheerfully out the driver's window as she went past. That piece was, in its quiet way, a tribute to my own mother, who in her fifties bought her own motor scooter in Whanganui and never looked back — and to every older woman who has ever decided it was finally her turn. Then she showed up in a pink-and-yellow flame-painted monster truck, waving out the driver's window in exactly the same spirit, but with rather larger tyres. Same silver hair, same coral scarf, same oversized sunglasses. Same little red heart pa...
Image

Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival

Posted
The 15th anniversary Pasifika Festival poster — a collage of the Pacific cultures the festival celebrates. On Saturday 10 March 2007, I spent the day at the Pasifika Festival at Western Springs Park in Auckland. It was the festival's 15th year — an annual celebration of Pacific Island cultures that has been part of Auckland's calendar since 1993, and which typically draws crowds of well over 100,000 across the day. Nine Pacific villages are traditionally represented — Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue, Fiji, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Kiribati and Tahiti — with music, dance, food, arts, and craft from each community sharing the same park for the day. I usually visit New Zealand earlier in February, but in 2007 I was there in March and it was the first — and, to date, only — time I've been able to attend Pasifika. I hope to make it back one of these years. But I came away from that single visit with the str...
Image

Samoan Youth

Posted
This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm More photographs from the same Pasifika Festival day can be found in my new post, Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival .
Image