Sun 17 Feb - Petone & Eastbourne

Petone - Henkel met some unexpected friends just days before his disappearance. Details are sketchy but there appears to have been some confusion over a bundle of flutes which he had sold some months earlier in the Hauraki region. Some disturbance was recorded as the musicians were seen being flung off the peer (pictured below) into the clear waters of mouth of the great fish.





















Interestingly, this event coincided with the arrival of Rev Samual Marsden (see interpretive painting below by G. Crewdson with his cat-o-nine-tails)


















And on to Eastbourne - where Henkel and his men were last seeing amoungst the small group of Whalers who were living there. His diappearance remains a mystery, it is possible that some of the men boarded the whaling ship Metabolan (which sunk off the coast of Kaikura some weeks later), there was also records of an attempted journey around the Pencarow heads towards the Wairarapa. The fact that eyewitness accounts do not match up leads to the suspicion that Henkel and his men were being persued and did not wish to be found.




































A ceremonial send off was made by the musicians on Sun 17 Feb 2008, parading into the sea where a portion of his favourite walking stick was released into the harbour.

Sat 16 - Lyall Bay

The rain drifted in and out with the magical breakers as did the queezy stomach of Mister Crewdson who managed to complete the performance despite an evening of oceanic proportions.






























The sea took its toll too with one of Henkel's men on this beach in 1832 when a gigantic seal rode up on the beach to the surprise of the sleeping clarinetist McBruce. Though injured he too managed to keep up with the gavotte just 12 hours later.

Fri 15 Cenotaph

A beautiful day down near parliament. There were no pigs at all, perhaps due the signage discouraging their presence. A lovely time was had with a crowd of friendly onlookers. Ministerial attendance was low, perhaps due to higher duties. Such snubbing from the aristrocracies was no hinderance to Henkel however, who was reknown for playing concerts of 'great veracity and aptitude amoungst company of all creed and race, not excluding two and four legged onlookers to whom any form of amusement seemed appreciated.'

Sunday 10 Feb - Scorching Bay

Fortunately for these sailors, Scorching Bay was the calmest spot in Wellington on Sunday and notably a significant pausing spot for Franz Henkel, who in 1831 had a feast of 'cray, mussels and local delights' according to his somewhat patchy diary.

Pictures are kindly supplied by Tom Appleton.











Isaac Smith and Gerard Crewdson prepare to lay the wreath of the un-named cross















A solemn moment as the first European picnic at Scorching bay is remembered.














The Flogging Parson (or Rev. Samuel Marsden as he was known in New Zealand) whipped the prisoners into repentance in Hobart, prompting Henkel to capitalise on the his fellow inmates musical skills.







Through flagmanship and semiphore bonding, the men form a covent of friendship.













The men set out to make friends with the locals.

Pictures from Saturday at Island Bay

Excerpt from Ancestor Henkel

Franz Henkel was born in Austria in 1801, the son of the infamous Johann Henkel who is widely recognised as the world’s first musical anthropologist. Johann was a very successful court composer who travelled throughout Africa and parts of Asia transcribing the music he found and adapting it to European compositions.

Little is known of his son Franz who it appears was dismissed from court in his late teens under some disgrace. Remarkably he reappears however in the early 1830s travelling the Pacific Ocean with an ad-hoc group of musicians whom he claimed were trained in the art of music anthropology. They are reported to have played in parts of Tonga, Tahiti and lastly in New Zealand. Here he travelled with his musical troupe playing to whalers, traders and most remarkably local Maori tribes. It appears that he was a master of disguise who was able to adapt his musical charlatanism to local folklore and European tradition alike.

It seems very likely that Henkel and his rowdy band were in fact escapees from Hobart Penal Colony with a modicum of naïve talent who managed to somehow acquire a shipment of Tasmanian-bound musical instruments.

This aside, Henkel’s troupe brought a true sense of the European travelling tradition to our shores, complete with their specially adapted wagon (much like the Medicine men of the Americas) and reportedly dancers and singers. The fact that he existed at all at those most unstable times is both a mystery and a remarkable feat.

Die Henkel Spur (The Henkel Highway – an illusion to his band of Highwaymen) was first plotted as a journey around the Pacific by a Tasmanian Music Academic who recently (2004) acquired a diary with sketches and most importantly musical transcriptions, written by the late Henkel.

In New Zealand he was reported to have travelled through parts of the Lower North Island, and up the East coast to the Coromandel Peninsular. Finally he is reported to have boarded the HM Pandora, a surveying ship that was to be instrumental in the mapping of much of New Zealand. This is the last known sighting of Henkel and his travelling troupe and their true fate is unknown.

Die Henkel Spur

Wellington Fringe Festival 8, 9, 10 Feb
15, 16, 17 Feb

12pm & 3pm daily