Post by NZBC on Jan 5, 2010 22:09:21 GMT 12
A rather singular resurrection movement is now being carried on amongst the Chinese. It seems that the friends of all the Celestials who came to this colony from one of the Canton provinces and who died at Dunedin, have raised a fund to deport to the burial places of their ancestors the bones of the defunct. A society has charge of the operations. They employ ressurectionists, who are busy, not only in Dunedin and throughout Otago, but over the whole colony, disinterring the natives of this particular province. In Dunedin 38 bodies have been raised. A special storehouse has been built near Dunedin, and a considerable number now lie there, awaiting shipment to China. Each coffin is properly labelled with the name of its inmate, so that no confusion shall arise, and this has been rendered the easier, as a full record is kept by some leading Chinese of every one of their countrymen buried. Rather a quandary arose over the remains of one individual, which had gone to the professor of anatomy at the local University. However, the comforting fiction that the University was a barbarian burial-place satisfied the inquiring friends, and certain bones were duly produced, which were accepted, on the word of the professor, as those of the particular deceased. Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IV, Issue 416, 9 February 1883, Page 2