For more than 120 years Robbie Burns has sat on his pedestal in the heart of Dunedin, but why does a statue of an 18th-century Scottish poet hold such an exalted place in our city?
Charmian Smith finds out from Sean Brosnahan, curator of an exhibition at Otago Settlers Museum, celebrating the bard's 250th birthday.
Wherever Scots have gone - and there are few places in the world they have not gone - they have taken the works and the cult of Robbie Burns with them, says Sean Brosnahan.
Burns has become a worldwide phenomenon and Dunedin is no exception.
In fact it has a very close connection, as the poet's nephew, Rev Thomas Burns, was the spiritual leader of the Scottish settlement of Otago.
Mr Brosnahan has curated an exhibition of items associated with the Scottish bard as part of the city's celebrations of Burns' 250th birthday tomorrow, January 25.
"Scots emigrants found their homeland immortalised, the countryside described and the old language and old stories [in his poetry]," he said.
The museum has several copies of Burns' works brought by early settlers in its collection, some so well used they are falling apart.
Robert Burns (1759-1796) grew up in Ayrshire, southwest Scotland, after the United Kingdom (England and Wales) and Scotland were united to form Great Britain in 1707.
It was a bicultural society, Mr Brosnahan says.
Those who wanted to get on had to anglicise, so the old Scots Lowland dialect, Lallan, was dying out and Burns was keen to collect songs and folklore before they did so.
His mother and cousin spoke the language and sang old songs when working, so he was brought up in that culture.
His family were struggling tenant farmers, but despite their impoverished circumstances, his father, William Burnes (his sons changed the spelling of their name), went to great efforts to have him and his brother Gilbert (Otago's Thomas Burns' father) educated, Mr Brosnahan said.
"That's what marked him out and made him so popular with Scottish society, because he spoke in the language of everybody.
"The upper levels of society could appreciate that he was a man with poetic genius and they encouraged him to forget the Scots and just go for the English, but he wasn't having that.
"He switched back and forth. His poetry is both in English and uses classic poetic forms, and also written in the Scots dialect."
He wanted to make his life's work collecting the old songs and folklore of the countryside and that is why, more than any other poet in any other country, he is so identified with the national spirit and ethos of Scotland, he said.
One of his best known poems, Auld lang syne, which is still sung around the world in various guises, was a reworking of an old song he had collected.
But not all Burns' poetry is based on old songs and stories.
He had a strong streak of the patriotic and espoused the brotherhood of man, which often took him to the edge of what was politically acceptable in his day.
He was almost prosecuted for treason becuase of his admiration for the French revolution.
"He lived in a very class-ridden society with a rigid social hierarchy, and no matter how exceptional his talents, his aspirations were always going to be be limited by his humble origins as the son of a tenant farmer.
"He felt that very keenly and felt quite trapped by those social restrictions.
"That song A man's a man for a' that is an appeal for a new social order where 'Man to Man the world o'er / Shall brothers be for a' that!'."
However, Burns was always aware he had to support his family, and could not afford to become a revolutionary.
He sought patronage, and became an exciseman, which provided a regular income, as his poetry could not.
Burns is often thought of as a boozer and womaniser - since the statue was erected in the Octagon, there has been a well-known joke that he has his back to the kirk and his face to the pub, according to Civis in the Otago Daily Times in 1909.
Sir Joseph Ward, then-prime minister of New Zealand even referred to it in an after-dinner speech in London in 1911.
According to Mr Brosnahan, in the context of his time Robert Burns was not an exceptional drinker - people drank a lot in those days.
He enjoyed carousing but he wasn't an alcoholic and he didn't drink himself to death despite what some biographers have said.
One item in the exhibition, an ornate snuff mull made from a horn, is connected with a drinking competition.
But Burns was a witness, not a competitor. He was given the horn by Alexander Fergusson, who was competing for the privilege of blowing a famous whistle as the last man standing at an infamous drinking contest in 1790.
The story is told in Burns poem The Whistle.
However, Burns was a womaniser. He wrote his first poem when he was 16 and infatuated with a neighbour's daughter, and women inspired him more than anything else, Mr Brosnahan says.
"He had lots of love affairs and he fathered lots of children in and out of wedlock, but the interesting thing about Burns as opposed to a lot of people who were like that, is that Burns was also a loving husband and devoted father - and he obviously had a loving, tolerant and accepting wife, Jean Armour, because she took him back and tolerated his indiscretions."
They had nine children and he had another seven or so with other women, quite a few of them servant girls, and Jean took at least one of those children into her home, he said.
Burns died at the age of 37. His heart had been weakened by poor diet and overwork in his childhood and he was buried four days later on July 25, 1796, the day his son Maxwell was born.
Despite his worries at how his wife and children would survive, a short time after his death, money started pouring in from all over Scotland and a memorial edition of his poems was published.
Robbie Burns is honoured wherever in the world Scots have gone, and Burns clubs are found world-wide.
The Dunedin club was founded in 1891 and Arthur Burns, Rev Burns's son and the poet's great-nephew, was its first president.
The statue in Dunedin's Octagon was erected in 1887 and is identical to others in Central Park, New York, the Embankment in London, and Dundee, Scotland, but many other statues of Burns are found around the world.
According to Mr Brosnahan, there are more statues of him than any other British person except Queen Victoria.
But the cult of Burns is not just about his poetry, sublime as it may be.
Collecting Scottish folklore and songs when it was under heavy assault from English meant that in a sense he saved Scotland's "soul", and Scottish emigrants took his works with images and stories of the Scottish countryside with them to destinations around the world.
'CyberBurns' greeting
Burns fans celebrated the 100th birthday of the poet by sending greetings around the world by the then-new telegraph system, according to Mr Brosnahan.
For the poet's 250th birthday there is a move, originated by Dr Leith Davis, of the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, to activate a "cyberspace" celebration, involving every city in the world having both a statue of Burns and a club or society devoted to his memory.
Each club would send fraternal greetings to every other member on the list at 1pm, Pacific Standard Time, on January 25, which is 10am on Monday, January 26.
Celebration time
Events celebrating Robert Burns' 250th anniversary
-January 25-February 28: "For auld lang syne: 250 years of Robert Burns", exhibition of artefacts associated with the poet, from Otago Settlers Museum's collections.
-On now: Dunedin Library Exhibition -"A Man's a Man for a' That", Reed Gallery, floor 3, public library.
-Today, 11.45am: Wreath-laying on grave of John Hamilton, a previous president of the Burns Club and a poet whose name is inscribed in Poets' Walk in the Octagon. Northern Cemetery. Refreshments available.
-Tomorrow, 10am: Church service in First Church of Otago, Dunedin, followed by refreshments in Burns Hall.
-Tomorrow, 1pm, the Octagon: Robbie Rocks. Dunedin rock bands reinterpret Burns' songs and compete for prizes of music vouchers to the value of $600.
-Tomorrow, 5pm: Prizegiving for Burns poetry competition and presentation of the Allan Miller Memorial Medal. Clifford Skeggs Room, Council Chambers. Tickets from DCC Events Centre.
Tomorrow: Burns Supper. Immortal Memory given by Prof Liam McIlvanney, Professor of Scottish Studies at Otago University, 6.30pm for 7pm, Victoria Hotel, St Andrew St.
Tickets from The Scottish Shop or 464-0330.
Full buffet meal with wine, fruit juice. Haggis ceremony with trimmings. Songs and piping. Toasts.
-Saturday, January 31, at 2pm, Otago Settlers Museum: Scottish Cookery for Children. Make "drop scones" or pikelets.
-February 4, 5.30pm: "Life of Robbie Burns" (with soloists etc), presented by Effie Cockburn, assisted by her husband and soloists Bruce McMillan and Patricia Scally-Richardson. Refreshments will follow. Otago Settlers Museum.
-Saturday, February 7, 2pm to 3pm, Otago Settlers Museum: Scottish Show and Tell. Bring items with Scottish connections for discussion. Afternoon tea follows.
-Otago Settlers Museum, Friday February 13, 6pm. Scottish Concert (dancers, pipers, singers, poetry). Burns Club concert.
Piping and dancing demonstrations, poems, songs and a haggis ceremony. Supper.
-Sunday, February 15 at 2pm, Otago Settlers Museum: Sean Brosnahan, curator of "For Auld Lang Syne: 250 Years of Robert Burns", discusses some of the rare Burns artefacts held by the museum.
