Story: The New Zealanders

The 1940 centennial of the Treaty of Waitangi was used by the Labour government to encourage a sense of national identity. Yet as this certificate of attendance at the centennial fair at Rongotai suggests, identity still had more to do with native birds and trees, and general progress, than with any distinctive personal qualities. In this case the nation’s people are personified by the classical figure of Zealandia.