BEFORE THE FIRST FOUR SHIPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21411, 12 August 1931, Page 10

BEFORE THE FIRST FOUR SHIPS

MISSIONS IN CANTERBURY AND OTAGO ' Speaking at the Bryndwr Methodist Church on Sunday morning, the Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt stated that the first knowledge of Christianity was believed to have been brought to the Maori villages in what is now the province of Canterbury by a West Coast Native named Taawao, who had been instructed in Christian truth by a Wesleyan Native of the Ngapuhi tribe from the north of Auckland. The first organised Christian mission in the South Island was begun by the Rev. James Watkin at Waikouaiti on May 17„ 1840. The Rev. Samuel Ironside, another Wesleyan missionary, had instituted a second mission at Cloudy Bay on December 26, 1840. Bishop Pompallier, of the Roman Catholic Church, left the north for Banks Peninsula in September, 1840, in the ship Sancta Maria. He spent a mouth at the peninsula and then proceeded to Otago, returning later to Akaroa, where he installed Father Comte as rector. The district covered hy James Watkin. the pioneer preacher, embraced all the territory south of the Waitaki. During 1841 Samuel Ironside sent out preaching squads of Natives from Cloudy Bay. These covered the area from Port Underwood southwood to the Waitaki River. The Native Taawao, who was subsequently baptised as Rawiri Kingi, and another Native who was baptised by James Watkin as Hohepa Korehi on January 9, 1842, both acted for a time as resident Wesleyan teachers at Port Levy. Mr Watkin stated in his diary for January 10, 1842, that Hohepa was the chief instrument in preventing the introduction of French Catholicism to Port Levy, Hohepa had come from Port Underwood to assist Watkin as a Native teacher.

In 1844, when Frederick Tuekett, in the ship Deborah, was seeking for a site for a Scottish Free Church settlement, he had on board the boat the Rev. J. F. H. Wohlers, a Lutheran minister. Tuekett advised Wohlers to take up mission work at the Peninsula, but be declined to do so on the ground that the field was being adequately worked by the Wesleyans and that he would not drive a wedge between their work centred at Clpudy Bay and Waikouaiti. After the Wairau massacre of 1843, which shattered Ironside’s mission, the work of the Maori pastors in Native villages north of the Waitaki had less oversight. This led the Rev. Charles Creed, who succeeded Watkin at Waikouaiti in 1844, to extend the boundaries of his parish from Foveaux Strait to the KaikoUra Mountains! A LONG TRAMP. On September 22, 1845, Charles Creed, accompanied by three Natives, named Rawiri Te Maire, Wiremu Patene, and Hohepa Maru, left Waikouaiti Bay in a small schooner for Banks Peninsula. After sailing for four days in the teeth of a gale they reached Akaroa Harbour. Here they visited the European settlers, baptised some prepared converts and celebrated a number of marriages. Leaving Akaroa on October 5, 1845, they tramped over the hills to Port Levy, where a dozen Europeans and 300 Maoris were settled. Services were held at every Native settlement on the Peninsula. Pigeon Bay, Rapaki, and Port Cooper were visited, and contact was established with several Europeans who had settled at Port Cooper. Still on foot, Creed and his companions skirted the site of the future city of Christchurch and passed on to visit the Maori kaingas in the vicinity of Lake Ellesmere. After traversing the Canterbury Plains and fording many of its rivejs, Mr Creed recorded his conviction that ultimately this vast expanse would be made available for very extensive sheep and cattle runs. Turning their faces southward the itinerants caller at all the Native settlements along the route. They visited the old Te-wai-nte-ruati pa near Temuka, and held services and conducted baptisms and marriages at Timaru, Makihikihi. Waitaki, and other Maori villages. After an absence from home of 51 days, on 47 of which they had travelled almost continuously on foot, the missionary and his Native helpers reached Waikouaiti on November 12, 1845.