The forgotten dead?

New Zealand is a nation of mass graves. Beside St Johns church in Drury, the first Anzacs to die in battle - four white Australians & four Pakeha, slain in 1863, soon after the invasion of the Waikato - share the same plot. The volcanic earth fills their mouths like black bread. I wrote about the first Anzacs for The Spinoff.

Footnote: I just left flowers for the victims of the 1863 Anzac invasion on the stone at Drury. The obelisk has traditionally been ignored by the RSA, but this Anzac Day poppies have mysteriously appeared on its white slope. History is an accumulation of ironies. Saint Johns was a fortified frontier church, a tribute to and tool of Anglican imperialism, a settlers' refuge during Maori guerrilla raids. Now, after the death of the last white parishioner, the church is being used for Maori-language services. A carving celebrates its reinvention.