January 21, 2023
We decided to check out Mangere’s Saturday morning market. Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world with close to 400,000 of its residents coming from islands such as Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga. Many live in the suburb of Mangere and the market had a decidedly Polynesian feel.
There were a large number of huge pots and long wooden spoons on sale, reflecting the fact that Polynesian culture if very family oriented. With households usually consisting of three or more generations, there are lots of mouths to feed.
Christian missionaries first came to Polynesia in the late 1700s and were very successful in converting many Polynesians to their religion. As a result, over 80 percent of Polynesians now identify as Christian. But a good evangelist’s work is never done and there were a number of groups proselytizing at the market.
Speaking of evangelists, on our way back from the market we decided to knock off another of Auckland’s volcanic peaks, Mt. Roskill. One theory is that the peak is named after John Roskill, an evangelist and local preacher who lived in Auckland, before committing suicide in 1870. An alternative theory is that it gets its name from Roskhill, a hamlet on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. It also has two Maori names, Puketapapa (flat topped hill) and Pukewiwi (hill covered in rushes). Both names are rather apt as there are indeed many rushes and its summit is rather flat. However, that may have more to do with the fact that its main crater was excavated in 1961 and filled with a water-supply reservoir.
Mal and Lauren 