BOOK REVIEW
Haerenga Tapu Aotearoa | Pilgrimage Aotearoa by Jenny Boyack and John Hornblow
Philip Garside Publishing 2024. 230 pages.

Pilgrimage Aotearoa by Jenny Boyack and John Hornblow is a beautiful and useful guidebook to 100 pilgrimage sites in Aotearoa.

The authors note that while New Zealanders are keen participants in the flourishing international pilgrimage industry, they sometimes fail to value our own heritage.

This guidebook offers some redress for that. Arising from the authors’ extensive experience with holy places both here and overseas, they have listed 100 places throughout the country which speak of our cultural and spiritual heritage and thus help us understand our present.

The places listed include the sites of historic events, important buildings, the graves and memorials of significant people and others, chosen for their ability to address the deep questions of our national, personal and cultural identity.

The book is arranged geographically, with holy sites in each region of Aotearoa grouped together. For each of the significant places there is a brief history of the site and an explanation of its significance. There are instructions for finding it and suggestions for finding further information. 

A  short and place – appropriate reflection, aimed at prompting prayer or contemplation, ends each site description.

There are photographs and a map for each of the sites. The book’s layout is clear and attractive. It is a book which invites browsing. Apart from its use as a handbook of our country’s sacred spaces, this book is an informative and succinct account of some of our history and geography.

There is a brief introduction, in which the importance of pilgrimage is discussed, and a final chapter outlining ways in which a personal or group pilgrimage can be planned.

The book ends with a useful glossary of Te Reo terms and an appendix suggesting ways in which the book might be used. This final appendix raises some of the most interesting, to me, questions of the book. What exactly is a pilgrimage? When does a trip stop being a mere piece of travel from point A to point B become something bigger and deeper?

In his foreword Archbishop David Moxon quotes Thomas Merton: “the geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey.” Pilgrimage is a spiritual practice in which the journey is actually of more significance than the destination.

Someone may spend 40 days walking the Camino de Santiago and spend only an hour in the Cathedral of St James, which is the purported reason for the walk.  If I have a criticism of this book, it is that the concept of pilgrimage is sketchily stated at best.

In the introduction the phenomenon of Hikoi is mentioned as a synonym for pilgrimage, but I think they are slightly different things. A pilgrimage is purposed; it acts as a spiritual practice because it is costly enough in terms of time, comfort, resources and money to push us to the edges of our self-imposed limitations.

It will usually follow a path laid down by others and incorporate us into the timeless fellowship of pilgrims. Where pilgrimage is mostly about the journey, Jenny Boyack and John Hornblow have given us a guidebook to destinations. This is the book’s weakness but also, oddly, its great strength.

I think it is difficult to design and manufacture a pilgrimage. Pilgrimages grow, organically, from the culture and spirituality of people as they respond to the holy in the places where they live.

They arise as people recognize the “thin spaces” and wish to go there, to experience what others have experienced before them. Pilgrimages may be about the journey rather than the arrival, but to exist at all they need some longed-for destination.

And Pilgrimage Aotearoa gives us 100 of those. As a useful and beautiful guide to some of our spiritual and cultural heritage this book is well worth the purchase price.

I believe that, also, it might be the seedbed for pilgrimage in our beloved Motu.

Haerenga Tapu Aotearoa | Pilgrimage Aotearoa is available for $49.50 from Philip Garside Books