The Church in New Zealand

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 50, 17 December 1924, Page 19

The Church in New Zealand

Introductory Wo have been favored with a series of articles compiled by the late Very Rev. R. P. Yardin, S.M., a missionary in the diocese of Wellington, recording the riso and progress of Catholicity in the Canterbury province. The writer gives in detail an amount of

information concerning the early Marist Missionary Fathersthe pioneers of the v Faith there as in most other parts of New 'Zealand. With that exactness so characteristic of those of his nationality (He was a very cultured son of France, and during his lengthy priestly career held high and responsible offices in his Order and in the Church) Father Yardin prefaces his narrative with a vivid description of the territory to he won for the Church after a series of inter-tribal native conflicts, followed years afterwards by the arrival and settlement of colonists from the Old Land. As Procurator-General of the then newlyfounded Society of Mary, Father Yardin (who was a, contemporary of the founder, Father Colin) in 1859 took an active part in the establishing in. England of the Institute of Notre Dame des Missions, and in the sending of the pioneer Sisters of that Order to New Zealand; the facts connected therewith being stated in the Life of Very Reverend Mother Mary Da Coevr Be Jesus. Father Yardin's articles open with introductory paragraphs, evidently written a good many years ago, which read thus: t. CATHOLICISM IN THE PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY (NEW ZEALAND) < "The last council of Sydney to which we have often directed the attention of our readers has .shown the vitality of the Australian Church. In the midst of the splendid

CATHOLICITY IN CANTERBURY: EARLY MISSIONARY'EFFORTS.

clergy, who at the present time surround the first Australian Cardinal, the Marist Fathers have worked and are still working with an energy that Heaven has blessed. This study of Rev. R. P. Yardin and the actual state of Catholicism in Canterbury will prove it. Rut in order to appreciate the results, it .is necessary to know the difficulties. It seems to us that a glance at the history of the Maori tribes before their evangelisation, recalling to mind the cruelty of these cannibalistic people enables us the better to set forth the beneficent deeds of the Missionaries and the zealous efforts they displayed." Before the Missionaries Came At the time when the Europeans commenced to immigrate to New Zealand, that is to say towards 1815 or 1820, a. civil war, the causes and events of which would take too long to explain, set the Maoris quarrelling, and stained the whole island with blood. Our story commences with the events which took place from 1828. The tribes had for ring-leaders Rerewaka, chief of Kaikoura, and Rauparaha, an important chief of the tribe of Ngatitoa. Rauparaha. left with 340 chosen warriors, all armed with guns and considerable ammunition. The expedition sailed towards Rangitoto (D'Urville Island). At this time the Sounds, the Waimea, the Wairau as far as the Awatere, and the west side of the South Island were occupied by the Rangitane and other numerous tribes who were incapable of resisting with their old Maori arms the warriors of the North who were armed with guns, swords, and bayonets. They were defeated and devoured in hundreds; others were sent to Kapiti there to suffer the same fate, and the few who remained were reduced to slavery by the heartless victors. Arriving at Rangitoto, Rauparaha divided his fleet in two parts and took one part for himself, and the other part made towards the Waimea. Only the expedition to the west met with success. Concerning these expeditions they went via Kaikoura, Kaiapoi, and Akaroa. They are differently accounted for by the Maoris, according as they belong to the conqueror or conquered. I will base my story principally on the facts related by Rauparaha's own son: On leaving Rangitoto, Rauparaha went first towards Kekerangu; but he found the pah abandoned. The inhabitants being informed of the enemy's approach evacuated their fortress and took refuge in the pah fortified at Omihi to the south of the Peninsula of Kaikoura. Rauparaha arrived there in the morning of the 4th day after his departure from Rangitoto. The inhabitants of the principal pah were awaiting a visit from Maranui, the head chief of the South. They begged the warriors of the North to be their friends, hut discovered their mistake too late. Rauparaha leaped on the beach with his men, pursued the inhabitants who fled towards their for-

tress and entered it with them. They say that 1400 men, including the chief, were slain or captured. After some days of rest passed in great feasting, furnished by the corpses of the vanquished, the conquerors sent to Kapiti a party of their prisoners either to he reduced, to slavery or to be devoured at the heinous feasts of their friends. The victors then continued their journey to the South. About twenty miles from Kaikoura, Rauparaha discovered the pah at Omihi, where Kekerangu and his. people had taken refuge. It was situated near the sea, in a strong position, and was well fortified (on all sides). Rauparaha resolved to attack it, but he was repulsed several times with heavy losses. Despairing of taking possession of the place by force he devised a singular stratagem. Having learned that the inhabitants were reduced to the last extremity by starvation, he commanded two of his men, who were excellent swimmers,, to fling themselves into the sea in front of the fort, at daybreak, and to imitate in their movements the gambols of porpoises. Meanwhile he would hide with his warriors behind the rocks near the pah. This plan succeeded only too well. In the morning, the besieged who had exhausted their last provisions three days before, seeing the two men whom they took for porpoises sporting in the water near the shore, left their post, dashed into the water in order to seize them. The sham, fishes were slain, but the pah was taken. Rauparaha with his warriors had rushed towards the pah. Having discovered their mistake the inhabitants returned promptly to their stronghold, but it was too late, the northern warriors had entered before them. The camp was reduced to ashes, and many were massacred. Nothing of this fortress remains to-day save a heap of ruins and a few cabins occupied now and then by poor Maori fishermen. After having satisfied his vengeance Rauparaha returned with his prisoners to Kapiti. Arriving at Salt-Water Creek at the mouth of the Ashley, he left a part of his fleet there and set off to Kaiapoi (Kaiapohia of the Maori) with a small number of his warriors. His intention, said he, was to make a treaty of peace and of alliance in order to realise the project formed by TePahi of reuniting all the Maori tribes so as to form one great nation. Maranui, who doubtless learnt from the refugees the fate of their friends at Omihi, had suspicions of the friendly intentions of his visitors. Yet he concealed his doubts and invited the principal chiefs to his pah where they were treated with generous hospitality. Nevertheless, it was not before long these good relations began to diminish. The Northern chiefs proved hard to please and at the time menacing. Maranui possessed a treasure which tempted the greed of TePahi, who at last asked him for it. "It belongs to the tribe," said Maranui. "And I can neither give it nor sell it: we need it." "Oh, well," said Te-Pahi, "if you do not give it to me willingly I will take it by.

force." The assembled chief's were acquainted of this .insolent menace and it was resolved that if Te-Rahi repeated his threat he would be put to death, with all his followers. lie came again, the next day in fact, and showed himself more insolent than before. Forthwith the .Maoris fell on him and slew him; then disarmed his warriors, and killed them with their own weapons. On hearing of this massacre, Rauparaha was filled with sorrow and indignation, but instead of immediately avenging the death of his uncle, he gave the signal for departure and went directly to rejoin his men who were awaiting him at Salt-Water Creek, ordered the contingent which he had left at Omihi, to ■come to him and advanced on Kaiapoi with all his forces by land and sea. The siege lasted for nearly six months, and during this period they made excursions into Canterbury, as far as Rakaia, in order to procure provisions. All the plantations were devastated, the little native villages burnt ,and the inhabitants who fell into the hands of the conquerors slain and eaten. They believed that it was at this epoch that the forest of Ohoka, which was situated at the east of the Waimakariri, was destroyed. A party of Maoris had taken refuge there in order to avoid being slain, the warriors of the north set fire to it, and of this beautiful forest there remain only woods, calcined and half-rotten, and a European village, called Wood-End. The besiegers, finding that the provisions were exhausted, resolved among themselves to put an end to the siege by a new means. They opened up a regular system of trenches and undermined the bulwarks. Having reached the palisade they collected a large quantity of wood and set fire to it. The wind was favorable, the fire spread from the bulwarks to the palisades of the ramparts which soon became a vast field of fire. The defenders, who had hastened to put an end to the disaster, receiving the blaze full in the face, were obliged to retire.

The assailants pursued them, a terrible struggle took place on the ramparts and in the blazing village; it ended in the defeat of the Kaiapoi men, and was followed by a horrible massacre. In order to gain an idea of the number of those who were killed and eaten after the taking of Kaiapoi, it suffices to mention that some time after the founding of Canterbury, the Protestant minister .of Wood-End collected charred bones and interred them near the town of Kaiapoi. Rauparaha returned to Kaiapoi with his spoils and his prisoners. However, the inhabitants of Akaroa had not forgotten Rauparaba's threats and immediately after his departure they took steps to protect themselves from his vengeance. In the middle of the upper part of the port there is a promontory about 300 feet high. The Maoris built a fortress there. Scarcely was it finished and provisioned than Rauparaha arrived to gratify his vengeance. It was towards the end of 1830 or at the beginning of 1831, an English vessel, the brig Elizabeth, commanded by Captain Stewart, arrived at Kapiti to take on a cargo of wood and phormium. Rauparaha entered into negotiation with the captain, and promised him 15 tons of prepared phormium, if he would take him and 15 of his followers back again to Kapiti. The captain agreed but they say that while he was in his cabin with the chief, he was forced to take on board a hundred warriors, who lay hidden in the hold, whence they came out only when the brig was in open sea. It is hard to believe that so great a number of men could have succeeded in coming on board and hiding there unknown to the captain. (To be continued;) <*> THE LITTLE GIFTS OF LOVE. Ah, those are the gifts which have the very essence of the festival pervading them: those are the little tokens of what still comes to us, in spite of all our perverse and wilful crushing out of the sweetness of the. divine simplicity and humility, and of the clouds of world-dust with which we hide the soft radiance of the star above the manger bed. We may blind our eyes with the electric blaze without which our strained and weary nerves are becoming incapable of perception, and bewilder ourselves with the vulgar multiplicity of our possessions, but the Holy Night has ways in which to let its central tender light shine in upon us, and there never can come a time in which we lack opportunity to find the glory of God and the surpassing joy of limitless love even in places so humble that only the shelterless seek them for their homes. Every love gift has gone back to Bethlehem for its consecration. Having that it cannot fail to be precious to the receiver. —Frances E. Laxigan.J <X>_ : . The outstanding thing in a truly Catholic life is the clarity of its conviction about our end and destiny. In this is included the clean cut sense of the meaning of this "life in its relation to eternity. , We know why we are here, and the knowledge begets natience and willing sacrifice.'