The Greenstone and the Gold

The Luminaries

This thread contrasts Tauwhare’s understanding of pounamu as inherited treasure with the settlers’ treatment of gold as movable capital.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

Land Is Taken for a Price Land Is Taken for a Price from "The Luminaries". Land Is Taken for a Price A transaction divides the coast The Crown purchases Poutini Ngāi Tahu land for a small sum and reserves only limited areas.

Land Is Taken for a Price from "The Luminaries". Land Is Taken for a Price A transaction divides the coast The Crown purchases Poutini Ngāi Tahu land for a small sum and reserves only limited areas.

Land Is Taken for a Price A transaction divides the coast The Crown purchases Poutini Ngāi Tahu land for a small sum and reserves only limited areas. Tauwhare sees the deal as dispossession. Wealth has different meanings The settlers calculate licences and gold revenue; Tauwhare sees land as home, memory, and obligation. The disagreement structures his view of every later sale.

Pounamu Is Recognized by Practice

Pounamu Is Recognized by Practice Tauwhare reads the stone He identifies pounamu by trained experience and carries it home for ceremonial treatment. Its value is not exhausted by price. A different kind of wealth Tauwhare refuses to treat every treasure as capital. His craft stands against the goldfields’ belief that discovery naturally entails possession.

Gold Enters the Arahura Gold Enters the Arahura from "The Luminaries". Gold Enters the Arahura Wells buys land Crosbie Wells purchases an acreage in the valley and plans a timber mill.

Gold Enters the Arahura from "The Luminaries". Gold Enters the Arahura Wells buys land Crosbie Wells purchases an acreage in the valley and plans a timber mill.

Gold Enters the Arahura Wells buys land Crosbie Wells purchases an acreage in the valley and plans a timber mill. His use of the land is laborious and personal. Tauwhare accepts a friendship He visits Wells and shares knowledge, even though the property rests on land the Crown has claimed. Their bond complicates any simple division between friend and outsider.

The Estate Is Sold The Estate Is Sold from "The Luminaries". The Estate Is Sold A quick purchase follows death Clinch buys Wells’s property before the widow’s claim is heard.

The Estate Is Sold from "The Luminaries". The Estate Is Sold A quick purchase follows death Clinch buys Wells’s property before the widow’s claim is heard.

The Estate Is Sold A quick purchase follows death Clinch buys Wells’s property before the widow’s claim is heard. The cottage is cleared for resale, and the land becomes a financial asset. Tauwhare objects to ownership without care He resents that Clinch has bought land he has scarcely visited. In Tauwhare’s view, land should be lived on and loved, not treated as currency.

A Cottage Is Reclaimed by Memory

A Cottage Is Reclaimed by Memory The home decays Tauwhare returns to Wells’s cottage and sees its garden and structure deteriorate. Legal title has changed, but his attachment remains. A living body interrupts the symbolism He finds Staines wounded inside and acts to save him. Care for a person momentarily takes precedence over the dispute over the land.

Six years before the main events

Before Wells’s death

1865

January 1866

After Wells’s death, 1866