Forgotten flu victims remembered
One hundred years after their deaths in one of the world’s worst pandemics, people lying forgotten in a seaside cemetery have been remembered.
Taranaki monumental mason Callum Mahy said he heard about the unmarked graves when he was working on another project in the Waitapu Urupa near Ngamotu Beach, New Plymouth.
The story touched him and he decided the people in them should have a memorial.
Some of them were among the
8600 people who died in New Zealand in the Spanish flu epidemic that swept the world in 1918, killing between 20 million and 40 million people.
In Aotearoa, the epidemic was known as Black November because so many people died, more than 2000 of them Ma¯ ori.
‘‘When the men came back from war they brought this flu with them,’’ he said.
The number of people who had perished in the flu and were buried in the New Plymouth cemetery wasn’t known.
‘‘It could be one or it could be
100,’’ Mahy said.
‘‘There are graves scattered around this lower area here. And this is not just for the graves here, it is for the other people who died in the pandemic elsewhere in Taranaki as well.’’
He had worked with the urupa trustees on the project and carried out his own research for the wording on the memorial.
‘‘I like this sort of stuff and I like giving back.
‘‘Taranaki has been kind to me, so I’m paying it forward,’’ he said.
Chairman of Nga¯ti Te Whiti hapu¯ and a trustee of the urupa, Trenton Martin, said he was pleased when Mahy offered to create the memorial.
‘‘I thought it was admirable for these people lying here ... people could just be driving past and not realise one of their ancestors may be lying in the cemetery here.’’
The urupa was used by the hapu¯ , but also had others buried there, including whaler and trader Dickie Barrett and his wife and daughter.
Some of those in unmarked graves had died in shipwrecks or on board ships, as well as the flu epidemic, he said.
‘‘It’s a multicultural cemetery, really.’’
The stone was unveiled on Saturday with a quiet ceremony.
Martin sprinkled water as part of whakanoa (a rite to dispel tapu) and said karakia to bless the memorial.
‘‘I called out to those who have passed to let them know we are here for this occasion, to let their spirits, their souls, be at peace now that we have acknowledged them.’’
‘‘It is for the other people who died in the pandemic elsewhere in Taranaki as well.’’ Monumental mason Callum Mahy