THE BAPTISM OF TE PUNI

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 3, Issue 3, 1 November 1970, Page 137

THE BAPTISM OF TE PUNI

June Starke

The Rex Nan Kivell collection of early Australian and New Zealand pictures in the National Library of Australia includes an oil painted by Charles Decimus Barraud generally entitled Baptism of the Maori chief Te Puni in Otaki Church, New Zealand. It is signed and dated 1853 and the catalogue records that Sir George and Lady Grey were in the congregation. The baptism was performed by Archdeacon Hadfield. This painting is historically significant in that it gives expression to the ideal of British colonial policy of the day which saw the peaceful and successful colonisation of New Zealand achieved through the rapid assimilation of the Maori race into the pattern of civilisation accepted by Victorian England. The work, commissioned by Sir George Grey, graphically supports his despatches, which unfortunately concealed as much as they revealed, reporting success to the Colonial Office towards the achievement of this aim. The central figure, an aged and influential chieftain, had facilitated the establishment of the New Zealand Company settlement in the Wellington area to the advantage of both the settlers and his own tribe. He had gained the affection and respect of the settlers from their first landing near his pa at Petone. Sir George Grey must have held Te Puni in high regard as he was one of the retinue of chiefs with whom he surrounded himself and was, with Tamati Waka Nene, chosen by Grey as an esquire on the occasion of his investiture as kcb by the Chief Justice, Sir William Martin, in November, 1848. Rangiatea Church would have been a fitting background for Te Puni’s visible acceptance of Christianity. Completed in 1851 it was the largest native church in the country and revealed the skill and artistry of the Maori in building a Christian edifice while employing his traditional means of decoration.

However history poses queries as to where the baptism actually took place and research, sparked off by a continuing study of Bishop Hadfield, soon reveals that the artist built up a composite picture. It is only in recent years (probably no earlier than 1950) that the venue of the baptism has been cited as being at Rangiatea Church in Otaki. Mr Nan Kivell when he acquired the painting only identified the church and not those portrayed and considered that ‘the very interesting painting by C. D. Barraud dated 1852 showing a tattooed chief being baptised . . . was apparently painted at the same time as the picture of the interior of the Otaki Church which was lithographed and coloured’. 1 There is no doubt that the carving on the Altar rail, the tukutuku panels, the rounded pillars and the placing of the windows are those of Rangiatea. But Archdeacon Hadfield made it impossible to accept that the baptism took place there. This indomitable missionary struggled valiantly to see the colony established on a firm basis where Maori and

European could live on terms of equality to their mutual advantage. He considered the event of enough importance to write of it in a letter to his mother which recorded not only his feelings on receipt of the news of the death of his father but also his marriage a few weeks earlier to Kate Williams. On 28 June 1852 he wrote: ‘Last Sunday week I was in Wellington to baptise the oldest and most influential chief in that district - Te Puni. Sir George and Lady Grey were present also a Mr Dundas. I saw a Mr Barraud who sends sketches to the Illustrated News [slV] so perhaps you will see a sketch of it.’ 2 His regard for Te Puni is revealed in his annual report to the Church Missionary Society for 1852. Archdeacon Hadfield expresses his sense of gratification in admitting the old chieftain into the Church ‘because of the high character he had borne among the English for integrity’ and for his deep interest in Christianity. He found - ‘. . .his humility in many respects very remarkable. As an instance of this I may mention that in the selection of a name, though several great names were suggested to him, he asked me to recommend some very simple one, and finally took the name Johnson - the name, I believe, of Dr Johnson, who had showne [5/c] him kindness when on a visit to Auckland.’ 3

The Wellington Independent of 23 June reflects the Archdeacon’s feelings towards Te Puni in its account of the baptism. There is no mention of the venue. ‘Our readers will learn with great pleasure that their good old friend E’Puni was, on Sunday last, received into membership with the Church of England - the ceremony of baptism having been performed in the presence of a large congregation of natives by the Rev. Archdeacon Hadfield. It was indeed a sight, no less interesting than instructive to witness the venerable old chief with his long grey beard, meekly kneeling at the Altar of the white man’s God, after having probably served in the capacity of Priest among his countrymen under very different circumstances, during several years of his life. E’Puni has long been known as the warm friend of the settlers, and the promoter of good feeling between the two races, and he will, no doubt, be remembered in this settlement with feelings of attachment and respect. Sir George and Lady Grey with several ladies and gentlemen attended to witness the ceremony, and the Governor’s presence on this occasion, cannot but be viewed by the natives generally, as a mark of that respect which is justly due to E’Puni, and in which we cordially desire to unite.’ 4 But to begin the story of the painting it is necessary to go back to a comment made by Kate Williams shortly after the completion of Rangiatea Church in 1851. At this time she was living with her brother Reverend Samuel Williams at the Otaki mission. In a letter of 11 Octo-

ber 1851 to her brother Henry she observed that Mr Barraud had been at Otaki to ‘take some sketches of the church for Sir George (Grey) to send to the Church Missionary Society’. 5 The result of this expedition must have been the drawing of the interior of the Church which was lithographed in colour and referred to by Mr Nan Kivell. An engraving of the lithograph appeared in the Illustrated London News of 9 April 1853 and later in the Church Missionary Intelligencer. 6 There is no reference to the Governor’s commissioning of the painting amongst the Grey papers held by the Auckland Public Library but the Barraud papers in Alexander Turnbull Library produce the first reference to this commission. Sarah Barraud, wife of the artist, wrote to her brother William Style on 18 November 1852:

‘We had an old chief to dine with us last week - E Puni. He behaved very well using knife and fork as dexterously as any European. When we were going to help him again he patted his stomach and said he was “nice nice full”. Charlie has been taking his portrait for the Governor representing him being baptised by Mr Hadfield. Sir George and Lady Grey and several other persons were present and also included in the picture.’ The artist must have worked in a leisurely fashion as it was not until 20 August 1853 that both the Wellington newspapers announced that they had been favoured with a private view of a picture which Mr Barraud had just finished. The commissioning of the painting by Sir George Grey is noted as is the artist’s intention of sending the work to England to be chromo-lithographed. The Wellington Independent describes the picture ‘The painting delineates the interior of a Maori church, the Rev. Octavius Hadfield, Archdeacon of Kapiti, at the altar, his hand being extended forward, and E Puni receiving the sacrament of baptism. To the left of the altar are His Excellency the Governor and Lady Grey, with Sir Godfrey Thomas 7 , J. H. Wodehouse, Esq. 8 and G. Dundas, Esq., Commissioner of the British Whaling Company at the Auckland Islands. On the right we recognise H. T. Kemp, Esq. Native Secretary; and in front several members of E Puni’s family and other chiefs and natives belonging to his tribe.’ 9

Both papers make reference to the faithful likenesses of those portrayed and see this as adding to the value of the ‘commemoration of an interesting event’. But the New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Straits Guardian although failing to recognise the Church portrayed actually records the venue of the baptism and comments on its significance: ‘[The painting] represents the interior of the native chapel at Petoni [sic] in which the venerable chief - the days of whose age are three score and ten - having almost reached the term of his earthly pilgrimage, is about to become a Christian . . . With reference to the incident

which forms the subject of this picture and which is intimately connected with the colonisation of our country, among the associations which it wakens in civilised minds are those connected with infant baptism; for in old Christian countries that anyone should arrive at the age of maturity without being admitted by baptism into the pale of Christianity is a most unusual occurrence. But here - in this country and in this rite - we see old men and children praise the name of the Lord, and confess that his name alone is excellent.’ 10 Such was the reaction of Wellington colonists to the acceptance of Christianity by a highly regarded chieftain of the proud race on which an alien culture was making its impact. Sentiments expressed, moreover, by those who had come to the infant colony to make a better life than that offered in their homeland where Englishmen were forcibly coming to recognise that hundreds of thousands of their fellows worked and suffered and lived in as much ignorance of Christianity as any ‘noble savage’.

It is significant that on the same page of the New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Straits Guardian a reference is made to the engraving in the Illustrated London News (of 9 April 1853) of the interior of Otaki Church from Mr Barraud’s drawing but the two works are not linked. The inference that can be taken from this is that contemporary Wellingtonians knew where the baptism took place, especially as the Wellington Independent did not find it necessary to mention the venue.

The Petone pa at this time is recorded as being the largest and best fortified in the Wellington district, and its 136 residents better off as regards ‘comfort and wealth’ than all other Wellington natives. 11 William Colcnso writes ‘they have built themselves a weather boarded Chapel with shingled roof. . . their one glazed semi-gothic window in the East End of their Chapel had a large plain cross in it - painted red on the outside. 12 He makes no mention of distinctive Maori decoration in the Chapel. In marked contrast to this, Rangiatea Church at Otaki was remarked upon by clergy, travellers and the Governor himself. Archdeacon Hadfield reported to the Church Missionary Society that it was ‘the finest native building in the country’; 13 Reverend Richard Taylor termed it ‘a noble Maori edifice’; 14 Charlotte Godley while not admiring its ‘barn-shape’ found the ‘inside very handsome in effect in the peculiar Maori style’. 15 Sir George Grey in a letter to Reverend H. Venn, secretary of the Church Missionary Society, referred to the building of the church by native labour, its cost to build and observed that ‘being built of the most durable materials will stand for a century at least’. 16

To return to Barraud’s painting, there is no evidence to suggest that it was in fact lithographed and it would seem to have remained unknown and forgotten until acquired by Mr Nan Kivcll. It can be assumed that Sir George Grey did not bring it back to New Zealand

when he returned for his second term as Governor. It is likely that it was Eric Ramsden who filled in the details of the chief participants in the painting for Mr Nan Kiveil. 17 Mr Ramsden assumed that the baptism took place at Rangiatea from the evidence of the picture in spite of Archdeacon Hadfield’s letter and a firmly expressed opinion of Miss Amy Hadfield. She wrote to Mr Ramsden and pointed out that: ‘Te Puni was ... as my father said a Wellington chief and his monument is at Petone. There wouldn’t be any reason to go to Otaki when my father could be in Wellington . . . My uncle, aunt and my mother are not in the picture ... I wonder whether Mr Barraud took a picture of the Otaki Church and then put in his sketch. It’s rather shaken my faith in artists. . ,’ 18

This leaves Miss Hadfield with the last word to date on the story of Barraud’s painting the composition of which can only point to collusion between Sir George Grey and the artist with a linking of the lithograph of the interior of the Church and the painting. A letter from Sir George Grey to Reverend H. Venn, of 28 May 1850, encloses a drawing and an account of the baptism of an aged and dying chief (Te Ngahue). ‘The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr Chapman of Rotorua and was one of the most interesting and impressive sights I have ever witnessed’. 19 This correspondence clearly indicates the Governor’s use of the Church Missionary Society as a valuable agency for bringing the apparent success of his policy before the British public. 20 It reveals, too, Grey’s feelings on witnessing the baptism of a chief who was unknown to him prior to the event and who, moreover, had played no part in relations between European settlers and Maori people. It is natural, therefore, that Sir George Grey should consider the splendid church at Otaki as a fitting background to the recording of the baptism of an influential chieftain whom he held in high regard to illustrate at its best the progress towards Europeanisation of the Maori.

REFERENCES Note: Unless otherwise noted all manuscript material cited is held in Alexander Turnbull Library. *Nan Kivell to E. Ramsden, 20 September 1950, in Ramsden papers. 2 Hadfield to Mrs J. Hadfield, 28 June 1852, in Hadfield papers held by City of Wellington Public Libraries. 3 Annual report to the CMS for year ending 31 December 1852, in Hadfield, O. Letters to the CMS. Typescript MS pioi.

4 Wellington Independent, Wednesday 23 June 1852. S C. Williams to H. Williams, 11 October 1851, in Hadfield papers. 6 Church Missionary Intelligencer, Vol. 5, 1854, P 267. 7 Step-brother and private secretary to Sir George Grey. 8 Son of a prebendary of Norwich who came to New Zealand for health reasons. See Marshall, M. to Isabel Percy, 1 September 1850, in Marshall, M, Letters. Typescript MS in Alexander Turnbull Library, pi 5. 9 Wellington Independent, 20 August 1853. My thanks are due to Miss Margery Walton for pointing out this item and thus facilitating further research. 10 New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Straits Guardian, 20 August 1853. 11 Kemp, H. Tacy, Notes embracing statistical Returns in connection with the Native Population ... in the beginning of 1850. In New Zealand Government Gazette. Province of New Munster, 21 August 1850, P 74. Journal, 25 March 1845, in Colenso papers. Typescript MS Vol. 1, P 176-177. 13 Hadfield to Venn, 28 March 1850. Hadfield, O. Letters to the CMS. Typescript MS, P 69-70. Journal, 25 October 1849. Typescript MS, Vol. 7, pi 7. 15 Godley, Charlotte. Letters from early New Zealand 1850-1853. Christchurch, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1951, pm. 16 Grey to Venn, 21 April 1850, in CMS micro MS CN/014. 17 See Ramsden, E. Rangiatea. Wellington, Reed, 1951- Appendix C, pp 336-8. 18 Hadfield, A. to E. Ramsden, 19 January 1951, in Ramsden papers. 19 Grey to Venn, 28 May 1850, in CMS micro MS CN/014. 20 An example of the use made of this information by the CMS is indicated by the quotation of Grey to Venn (note 16 above) in the description which accompanies a coloured engraving of the interior of Rangiatea in Illustrations of missionary scenes. Mayence, Joseph Scholz, 1856, pis.