MAORI MEMORIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 June 1938, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES.

STRIFE.

by “J.H.S.” for "Times-Age”)

Sir George Grey’s journal in 1851 mentions that over the door a church at Rotorua, painted in Maori words, was a legend “This is the house of the only true God.” Heke wrote to Queen Victoria, saying that each of the three churches claimed to be the only true one, and the Maoris were utterly perplexed.

Rauparaha’s son, who had his head turned by having kissed Queen Victoria’s hand in 1850, charged a Missionary with Puseyism, and demanded her Majesty’s intervention. Alton Locke, the British tailor poet, reported that sectarian disputes among these half-converted savages grew into factions between the clergy, and were the talk of religious tea parties in England.

Fourteen years among the Maoris instilled in the heart of Bishop Selwyn a rare and generous charity to all men. Before his arrival, his own church and another creed had decided to allot the North Island of New Zealand to one Church and the South Island to the other, and thus prevent sectarian strife.

From “Te Karere,” a newspaper of 1855, we learn that Hone Heke, a Maori teacher, in addressing Governor Wynard and a large assembly, compared the imported teachers to a sack tied in the middle. Their mouth opened wide to pray, but any good thing put in could not reach the heart for the string was tight, like his pride. The poetic allegory and satire of the Maori was a bitter weapon, against which the newly acquired language of the missionaries was a poor defence.