A window into Chinese environmental views in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1870s–1910s

Scholars have written detailed studies of evolving European interpretations of the changing environment of Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as producing a sizeable body of work on Mori systems of thought as tangata whenua (Indigenous people of the land).While several studies have examined the environmental history of the Chinese in New Zealand, with one exception, we simply do not have any knowledge of the environmental views of nineteenth-century New Zealand's third-largest ethnic group.This short exploratory article examines the plurality of environmental perspectives of the Cantonese migrants who came in increasing numbers to Aotearoa from the mid-1860s.It highlights the manner in which Cantonese deployed concepts such as fungsui/fengshui (literally, wind and water) to interpret Aotearoa environments as well as the importance of imported deities in drawing New Zealand into Chinese cosmologies.