Work Among Maoris

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 65, 14 October 1930, Page 3

Work Among Maoris

THE tfEXUODI&T MISSION. concert party in stratford. ""town hall growled. Jhere ,was a crowded attendance at the Town Hall last night for the entertainment given by the Mej;h,Pdist Maori Mission party, consisting of four Maori girls, and four Maori men, who sang j|a England.-and Maori, danced Maori measures, and played solos on guitars, etc. The concerted singing was very prettfo■'V and humorous,items were not wanttag. AH the items were heartily applauded, and encores were frequent. The Mayor (Mr P. Thomson) apologised for his absence: In the course of the evening the j Rev. Seamer, who was in charge of j the party, dealt in interesting falh- j ion with the history of the Methodist j Maori Mission. This year, he said, j the 108th anniversary of the founding of the Mission was being celebrated. A fact which illustrated how old the Mission was, was that ' in 1840, when' the -Treaty of AVaitangi was signed, the Mission had penetrated as far as Otago, ami in that year at Waikouaiti a house in th& European style was built for the Methodist missionary—the first house 1 of the sort to. be built in the South Island. In that year also the first immigrants arrived, and wtih them the first Presbyterian minister. O?HE START OF MISSIONS*

The Roman Catholic mission .-...wag. founded in 1838, the Methodist I r jJS" J.BS2. In 181 J, Rev. Samuel Marsdjjn, brought oyer some European lay** men, whom he left in New Zealand, and they taught the Maori; arts and crafts .and the rudiments of religion. A Methodist missionary visited the country in ISI9, "out he did not remain permanently. It was a significant fact that when the per- j scuis arriving to negotiate for the i purchase- of land for the Free Church/settlement in Otago they h£jd to negotiate w.jth nineteen chiefs, of ,WhQm seventeen were in the full communion of the Methodist Church. The Methodist Church had been op-

Expanses amounted to ZIB,OOO. posed to the too rapid influx of Europeans to New Zealand, knowing that if this took place the Maoris would not have scope for development under Christianity. Statistics proved that the Methodist Church had gone on right lines. In the early days of the Mission, Watkin baptised 3SO Maoris at Waikouaiti alone, and to-day in the whole of Qtago Southland and Stewart Island there were only 320 Maoris. Probably Otago suffered most from the influx of Europeans, the gold rush bringing great numbers of all kinds to the province.

TREATY OF WAITA>"GI. •Tamati Waka (Thomas Walker) Nene, named after a "Methodist Missionary, himself a Methodist, persuaded tlio Maoris to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, and ever since, when the Maoris thought the Government were not sticking to the terms of the Treaty they looked to the Methodists for help in the matter. In 1858 the M ethodist Church had 26,000 Maori members. Then came the Maori wars, and in 1872 the number was only 2000 .Last year the

Church spent £7600 on educational and other work among, the Maoris. The speaker quoted a locality where there was a population of 300 '| Maoris, who had been bitter against, the Government over since the Maori wars, and only six of their children were receiving education. He knew |of Maori childreli, who were in I r orse case than the children in the depth of a heathen country. The Maori children he had in mind received no religious training and in addition were subject to the worst influence of European' vices. The chief idea of the Methodist mission < was to wean the Maoris from super-} stition, and money >vas required to? ■.provide literature for the Maori '-, ■ children who were learning to . English.