1886: Mt Tarawera Exploded

Stone Storehouse (image left)

“It is rare because it is made of stone, quarried nearby…one of the first excavation sites. Discovered by Vi Smith while picnicking..in the early 30’s, she noticed the stone in the bank and scraped away the mud to reveal one of the carved panels.”- Buried Villiage plaque (accessed 2019)

“The eruption lasted six hours and caused massive destruction. It destroyed several villages, along with the famous silica hot springs known as the Pink and White Terraces. Approximately 120 people, nearly all Māori, died. In the early hours of 10 June, locals awoke to earthquakes, lightning, fountains of molten rock, and columns of smoke and ash up to 10 km high. People as far away as Blenheim heard the eruption. Some thought it was an attack by a Russian warship.” – nzhistory.govt.nz

[Image Left, John Hall; Premier of NZ when the Thermal Springs Act was legislated]

“Guide Sophia was surrounded by refugees, packed tightly into the small house for shelter. She counted 62 in all, Maori and Pakeha alike, pressed together beneath the sagging raupo roof, which her husband, Taiawhio, and others had braced with wooden props. Amid broken window glass and in darkness, people uttered prayers and tried to comfort children.”

“Refugees from Te Wairoa struggled here through sticky volcanic mud in a wasteland of smashed timber. Big trees, uprooted by the tornado of air sucked in by the eruption, lay broken on the ground, some charred and smoking from lightning strikes…mud-coated women with matted hair looking as if they had just emerged from a lime kiln.”- New Zealand Geographic

“The survivors became refugees in their own country, for generations.”- Wiki

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1 ‘Drunk tourists’ is one explanation for the vision of the ghost war canoe vision on Lake Tarawera. Filled with warriors- did that portend the eruption?Image ref. Tarawera : the volcanic eruption of 10 June 1886; R. F. Keam (c1988); Jason BooksImage ref. Stone Storehouse; AHNZ Archive (2019)Note (2021): How much New Zealand ghost and spook history can be attributed to carbon monoxide psychosis? I’ll certainly be thinking about this explanation from now on.Old houses with poor ventilation make traps for CO which in turn present to people imaginary sounds and visions. This also explains why women tend to be more ‘sensitive’ to spooks since they usually work indoors whereas the more skeptical men are outdoors in the fresh air.

11 Days before Mt Tarawera exploded in 1886 there were reports of a ghost waka on Lake Tarawera. The phantom war canoe was reported by Western tourists as well as local Maoris. Might it not be that those in the area were enveloped by a miasma of carbon monoxide? Perhaps a great burp of the gas erupted as a precursor to the great eruption? Anarchist History of New Zealand says yes.

* Note:  Gilbert Mair organised aid in a personal capacity and petitioned the Stout Ministry to for use of government rail and steamer which they obliged. This came weeks later

Anarchist History of New Zealand: Don't hold out for like-minded people, 'minded' is quite enough.