Arrowtown Chinese Settlement箭镇华人聚落遗址
- Type
- Overseas Daoist Temples
- Location
- New Zealand · Otago Region · Arrowtown · On Bush Creek, a tributary of the Arrow River; today a historic reserve.
- First built
- the 1860s · By 1885 it had ten huts, at least two shops and an association hall; it was restored following archaeological excavation in 1983 and is listed on the New Zealand Heritage List.
- Heritage status
- Heritage New Zealand List (Ah Lum's Store listed as Category 1)
Overview
After the Arrow River gold rush subsided in 1865, the Otago Provincial Council recruited Chinese miners from the Victorian goldfields to continue mining, and the Arrowtown Chinese settlement took shape as a result, one of at least ten Chinese mining settlements in Otago. The settlement was built along Bush Creek, with dwellings mostly dug into the schist cliff face for shelter from wind and cold; by 1885 there were ten huts, at least two shops and an association hall, and by 1888 about sixty people lived there permanently. The migrants were almost entirely male Cantonese miners: of the 5,004 Chinese in all of New Zealand in 1881, only nine were women. The settlement's most famous surviving structure is Ah Lum's Store, built around 1883, which is listed as a Category 1 Historic Place on the New Zealand Heritage List. In 1983, systematic archaeological excavation was carried out and five huts were reconstructed. It should be made clear that this is an archaeological site and historic reserve, not a surviving temple complex; ritual observance in the settlement mostly took the form of simple shrines within dwellings or shops, and no independent temple structure survives.
Highlights
- The most completely preserved Chinese gold-rush settlement in Otago
- In 1885 it had ten huts, two shops and an association hall
- Ah Lum's Store is a Category 1 Historic Place on the New Zealand Heritage List
- Archaeological excavation and reconstruction of five huts took place in 1983
- No independent temple survives; ritual observance took place at simple shrines