Maori Church and School

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 658, 15 February 1952, Page 12

Maori Church and School

THE STORY OF TE AUTE COLLEGE, by R. R. Alexander; 15/-. RANGIATEA, the Story of Otaki’s Maori Church, its. First Pastor, and its People, by Eric Ramsden; 25/-. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ‘A MAORI, by Reweti T. Kohere (with the aid of the New Zealand Literary Fund). All published by A. H. and A, W. Reed.

(Reviewed by

A.

M.

| ) HERE are personal links between these three books dealr ing with the impact of Christianity on the Maori. Archdeacon Samuel Williams, founder of Te _Aute College, superintended the | building of Rangiatea, the Maori church | at Otaki, and the Reverend Reweti Ko- | here was a pupil at Te Aute under its | great headmaster John Thornton, and ) remembers Archdeacon Williams. | The history of Te Aute College is a localised history of Maori education. As the cradle of the Young Maori Party, Te Aute was the primary cause of the movement that raised the people from | despair to hope and action. Many of the leaders in peace and war have been Te | Aute old boys. The author tells us that at one stage in the second war they comprised, with one exception, all the officers of the Maori Battalion. Mr. Alexander’s book is not a literary history, but it is valuable as a well-docu-mented record of the college’s rise to its long-occupied pre-eminent position, through difficulties of finance, Maori criticism, fire and earthquake, and neverending controversy about the best kind of education. The author includes biographies and reminiscences of old boys, the school roll year by year to 1950, and | data about scholarship and games. There are over 30 well-chosen illustrations. ) | Mr. Ramsden’s story of the Maori ‘church at Otaki, which the late Bishop | Bennett describes in an introduction as | | "the oldest of our real Maori churches," extends to a history of Christianity in the Waikanae-Otaki area, with excursions into national and Anglican policy for the Maori. He links Rangiatea with | the sacred homeland = centre Ra’iatea, which he has visited in the Society Islands, and tells in detail the story of the Anglican Church on the southern west coast from Hadfield’s arrival in 1839 to the Rangiatea centennial ceremonies at Otaki in 1950. To a subject that he loves, Mr. Ramsden has brought great industry, the methods of a historian, including full documentation, and the ability ‘to cast his tribute in literary form. Hadfield, who became Bishop. of Wellington and Primate, is the hero. and the author rightly notices the absence of a biography of this great missionary, sO perceptive of the true interests of both races and so fearless in ex- pressing himself. Te Ruaparaha is another leading figure, and pains are taken to depict him as less black than the traditional portrait. From the New Zealand as well as the local point of view, this is an important book. The illustrations are admirable. In his autobiography, a sequel to his Story of a Maori Chief, Mr. Kohere tells in simple and often moving language of \his childhood in the Negatiporou wilds, his education et primary school, Te Aute and Canterbury College. his school teaching, and his work in the church, Eventually he settled on a farmparsonage near the East Cape (on a

stipend ‘of £75) so that he might bring up his children on his own "paternal ground." He still lives there. In him two cultures are blended, and he has a firm hold on the’ great simplicities of life.