Buddhist blessing for wreck souls

CEREMONY: Rawene woman Wong Liu Shueng of the Chinese Ventnor Group and Te Rarawa kaumatua Peter Martin watch as Buddhist monk Venerable Zhuji performs a blessing for the Chinese gold miners lost on the Ventnor. PHOTO/KING TONG HO

A Buddhist monk has performed a blessing for the 499 Chinese gold miners whose remains were on a ship taking them home for burial that sank off the Hokianga Heads more than 100 years ago.

The ceremony also blessed the ship's crew who lost their lives, including several elderly Chinese attendants, and the Maori who buried the caskets that later washed up along the west coast.

The SS Ventnor sank in 1902 just a few days into its journey from Wellington to Hong Kong. It had been chartered by a Chinese charity to repatriate the miners' remains. According to Chinese tradition, a soul cannot rest unless its grave is tended by family members.

On February 2 Buddhist monk Venerable Zhuji, from Baoguang Temple in China's Chengdu province, led private ceremonies in Waipoua Forest and at a memorial gateway on the hill above the west coast settlement of Mitimiti.

The memorial was erected in 2013, near the spot where many of the miners' caskets washed up and were buried by Maori alongside their own people. It was decorated for the occasion with prayer flags.

Among those at the ceremonies were Rawene woman Wong Liu Shueng, who is writing a book about the Ventnor, other members of the Ventnor Project Group, and Te Rarawa kaumatua Peter Martin from Mitimiti.

Co-ordinator Kirsten Wong said the ceremonies requested blessings for the Chinese men lost on the Ventnor, the Maori ancestors of the area, the traditional guardians of the land, sea, mountains and sky, and all living beings in the area.

Venerable Zhuji, who was in New Zealand visiting friends, was asked to perform the ceremony because many of the lost miners would have been Buddhist. Traditional Chinese rituals to put their souls to rest were performed in 2013 but this was the first specifically Buddhist blessing.