[268] TE TOA TAKITINI
Registered at the GPO as a Newspaper.
Number 49.
1st August, 1925.
Hastings
[A photograph with the following caption.]
The wife and family of Bishop Azariah. The eldest son is a doctor, the next a lawyer, and the last a minister. The eldest daughter is Secretary to the Bishop.
Published by the Rev F A Bennett and printed by Cliff Press, Queen Street. Hastings, HB.
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Te Toa Takitini.
Registered at the GPO as a Newspaper.
The price of the paper is 10/- year.
Addd ress letters to ‘Te Toa Takitini,’ Box 300, Hastings.
Te Toa Takitini, 1st August, 1925.
BISHOP AZARIAH.
The name of Azariah’s diocese is ‘Dornakal,’ the name of the area in the south of India.
Many Pakeha and Maori in New Zealand are helping to spread the Gospel to the Indian
People in Azariah’s Diocese. Our Archbishop (Julius) says: ‘Christ did not leave it to a few people to preach the Gospel to peoples living in darkness; rather this is a task given to the whole Church.’
This is an article from the Bishop’s paper: ‘The Presiding Bishop has agree to appoint the man I named, the Rev P H Lloyd, as my assistant. I am overjoyed that this matter has been concluded. In recent years I have felt the weight of the burden I have been carrying alone. This is a large Diocese for one person alone. It is impossible to do all the things expected of a Bishop. Therefore, I am delighted that my child, Mr Lloyd will be consecrated as a Bishop to help me. This man has worked under me for twelve years, he it was who carried on my work during the Great War, and we know each other very well.’
It is right that we should help Bishop Azariah’s work. Scholars think that his area is ‘Distant Tawhiti,’ the marae from which our ancestors came.
That homeland contains a huge number of people. In Bishop Azariah’s area alone there are six million people, that is, five times the population of New Zealand.
Through the efforts of the Bishop and his ministers, ten thousand new people are joining the Church each year. We, the Maori Church, have promised in Synod to give one hundred pounds every year to spread the Gospel to the people of India. It was arranged that each Archdeaconry in the Diocese of Waiapu contributes £33/6/8. The Archdeaconry of Hawkes Bay has done so. The Archdeaconries of Waiapu and Tauranga have yet to do so. Our ancestors said:
Mau te rourou, maku te rourou, ka ora te manuhiri.
Your little basket of food and mine will satisfy the guests. [cf Nga Pepeha 1981]
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Solomon says: ‘Send out your bread up-on the waters, for after many days you will get it back.’ [Ecclesiastes 11.1]
Christ says: ‘You are the light of the world.’ [Matthew 5.14] ‘You are the salt of the earth.’ [Matthew 5.13] ‘You are my witnesses.’ [Acts 1.8]
You, the remnant in each place, let your thoughts go back to the words of our fathers who have died, who, at the first Synod held at Waerenga-a-hika in 1861, passed the motion: ‘This Synod believes that it is right for us who have received the Gospel, to devote our [koha sic – offering ?kaha- strength] to bringing that Gospel to peoples living in darkness.’
When we support our Missions for spreading the Gospel, we fulfil the command of our Lord, and the motion passed by those who rest in the presence of our heavenly Father.
A NOTICE
The Church at Omaio.
This is to advise you that work has begun on the church at Omaio, Bay of Plenty.
This church is a memorial to our young soldiers who died on the field of battle as well as to those who died at home, Maori soldiers and Pakeha soldiers.
The church will be consecrated and opened in March next year. The date will be determined by the Bishop of Waiapu and our Member, the Hon A T Ngata.
Hakaraia Pahewa,
Minister of the Parish of Te Kaha.
Te Kaha,
8th July, 1925.
MOHAKA AND NUHAKA.
Napier, 10th July, 1925.
To the Editor, Te Toa Takitini.
Sir, on my map are the names ‘Mohaka’ and ‘Nuhaka.’ I have yet to find a Maori who can explain the meaning of those names or who knows whose dialect they belong to. One Maori, with his tongue in his cheek, explained them in this way. A Pakeha arrived at the village we now know as Mohaka and saw the Maori doing a haka. He was very pleased to see their excellent haka. When it ended that Pakeha called out, ‘Ko ana Maori iu kiwi te mo haka.’ [? You Maori are the Kiwis who know how to do the haka!] The Maori thereafter called their village Mohaka. As for Nuhaka, there he
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saw a different haka, a new haka, and the Maori called their village ‘Nuhaka.’
My friend, Editor, I keep scratching my head and mulling things over, thinking that that man was deceiving me. He was pulling my leg, and they have become long. So you, Hemi Huata, or one of your friends, might explain the meaning of those names.
Kimi Matauranga.
THE DISTRICT MEETING OF THE CHURCH AT MOTEO.
On 29th August the meeting of the Area Synod of the Hawkes Bay Archdeaconry will be held at Moteo. On Sunday 30th, the Bishop will take the service and address the Hui. On Monday 31st, at 9.30 a.m. the Synod will be opened and the work of the Synod will continue until the evening.
Those participating will be the lay representatives chosen by each village in the Parishes of Hawkes Bay from Nuhaka to Tahoraiti. Those spokesmen are people who have been confirmed by the Bishop and who partake of the Lord’s Supper.
It is for the Minister to gather together the people of each village in his Parish to elect a Lay Representative as Synod member for that village. The Bishop has given instructions that a person should not be elected if he is unable to attend the Synod. Therefore, you Lay Representatives who have been chosen should not be absent on the day of the Synod.
Those villages who have not yet arranged your Lay Representative should write to me, Rev. Peneti, Box 300, Hastings, or sent a telegram to Rev Bennett, Hastings.
‘MANKIND’
T Wi Repa MB
‘Let us make mankind in our own image.’ – Genesis 1.26
Of all the earth’s creatures, human beings are the most remarkable. At least, this is what I think. It is what gets my vote. Only a god, perhaps, is more wonderful that human beings. However, I have not met that god. If I should meet such a person in the world or in the sky or in the waters under the earth I would know what he was like. That is, of course, apart from God Almighty and his Son, Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah, in speaking of the names that Christ will be given says, ‘He will be called Wonderful.’ (Isaiah 9.6) Let us consider how remarkable he is at this time. This is the time to consider how what Christ did was more wonderful than all that is done on earth.
But let us speak about the beasts. The lion, the elephant and the eagle are remarkable creatures. They are remarkable in a different way from human beings. The lion in Africa is not able to hear the roaring of the lion in Auckland.
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Nor can the elephant build an aeroplane to carry him from Ceylon to see the African elephants. And the eagle is not as fast as the bird built by man to fly in the sky.
People wanted lions to have wings. People excavating the layers of Nineveh have found images of lions with the heads of eagles and with wings. Their photographs can be seen in the back pages of the Oxford Bible. There are peoples who have worshipped elephants or eagles as gods. People’s understanding will no longer let them have such gods. Children can shoot eagles with pea-rifles. But I am deviating from the title of our article, ‘Mankind.
Now at last, in recent years man has begun to look at his nature. I would say that thirty years ago the subjects taught in learned circles were the gifts, or better, only the fruits of a person’s brain. The way people are was investigated and taught to doctors. However the side of a person that is valued by the world – his upbringing, his being part of a family, a hapu, a tribe, a people, the skilled work they do, the relationship of one people to another people, the bringing together of the peoples of the world, the beginning of living together in villages, the origin of learning to write and to speak – these are at last being worked on by the learned people of the world. A reputable body has been set up in England now to pursue this subject. It is called ‘The Anthropological Society.’ This is a Greek word: ‘anthropos’ - a man. And ‘logos’ – a word. Within this is a group dedicated to finding out what mankind was like before they separated into different peoples. The name of this group is ‘The Ethnological Society.’ This too is a Greek word: ‘ethnos’ – a people, and ‘logos’ – a word.
This is sufficient explanation of this aspect of our subject, ‘Mankind.’
Wherever we look in the world, people are the same. Although those in Africa have been darkened by the sun, or the eyes of those in China are drawn out; whether their skins are red or yellow or white or purple, they are all human beings. They all come from the one seed planted in the Garden of Eden, the seed of which God said: ‘Let us make mankind in our own image.’ Although we believe that Adam and Eve were the first people, there may have been people before perhaps. But our roots are different. Humankind came from the one seed. Where they came into being we don’t know. The fruit of that seed is, we know, in various places. This belief relates to Christ saying, ‘Go and preach the Gospel to the whole world.’ [Mark 16.15] ‘There are other sheep that are not of this flock,’ [John 10.16] meaning the Jews.
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Therefore, this shows that the Son of God did not reject his family in the world, whether white or black, Greeks or foreigners.
Where people live.
God says: ‘Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool’ [Isaiah 66.1]. The footstool of God is where people live. Beginning in the North, in the lands of snow, where people live – we have Greenland. Labrador, Iceland, Norway, North Russia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, Finland, Japan, China, New Zealand, America, Egypt, Spain, Italy, Russia and other countries. There are places where it is very hot – Africa, India, Burma, Malaya, the West Indies, the Philippines, and Hawaiki. There are no places in the world without people. Where a branch of the human race came from to settle in their land we cannot know. The remarkable thing is that, even though they live in darkness like the Aborigines of Australia, they are not different. They are all human beings living under the curse pronounced by God on their forebears, Adam and Eve: ‘By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.’ [Genesis 3.19] They also fulfil the blessing, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’
Some scholars say that the black people of Africa trace their ancestry back to Ham, Noah’s son, while the peoples of Asia, of which we are one, are descended from Shem. The white people of Europe are descended from Japheth.
About People.
The Psalmist says: ‘The dead do not praise you.’ [Psalm 115.17] I say that neither do the beasts praise God. People were the fulfilment of the labour of God. When they were completed he rested on the seventh day. In lists of the creatures of the eth one sees that human beings are placed at the top. The creation of human beings was more wonderful than the creation of all the animals. Therefore, they are classed as a ‘primate,’ that is, as ‘Number One.’ The understanding of a human being is said to be ‘finite’, he has a beginning and an end. That of God is ‘infinite,’ he is without end. The Scriptures call him ‘The Ancient of Days.’ [Daniel 7.26] But what is remarkable about human understanding is that they were, as it were, set apart by the Creator to be a ‘[Ata] of the covenant under him.’ The story of the giving of understanding will be written by and by. This understanding came upon every people. This people would take up their portion of understanding and, when they died, a different people would take it up. When that lot died another people would snatch it up and keep the fire of enlightenment burning. Such a treasure which belonged to the whole world could not be hidden or kept to oneself. The peoples who cherished that treasure in ancient times, in the times of the Hebrews, have all perished – the Egyptians, the Romans,
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the Greeks, the Assyrians. However, because they lived as [ata] for the covenant of enlightenment, their name abides in this present world. At the time when these peoples were going about in the world, the ancestors of the English, the French and the Germans and other peoples now enlightened, were still cannibals. Now things which it was believed then could not be accomplished by the heart or the hand, are easy.
The Seed of Humankind.
The book of the Jewish people, the Old Testament, says that Adam and Eve were the first people in the world. Four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ into this world those people were made by God. Our stories say that Tiki was the first man and Hineahuone the first woman fashioned out of earth at Kurawaka. Although it is not clear where Kurawaka is. But we know where the Garden of Eden was. It was in the area of the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. One of the accounts handed down by our tohunga says that Tanenuiarangi was the first man. One account says that one of the children of Rangi and Papa-tua-nuku, Tumatauenga, was the first man. But the Hebrews say that Adam was the first man and that his [wawata] occurred 4004 years before the coming of Christ. Scholars who have looked into the writings of the Egyptians – for that people knew how to write - see that those people wrote about the doings of their kings who lived 6000 years before the birth of Christ. Their writing is known as ‘hieroglyphics.’ The experts who read those writings are ‘Egyptologists.’ Some remarkable writings have also been made at Nineveh. The great power in that area 8000 years before Christ was Assyria. Their king, Shalmaneser, took captive the ten lost tribes of Israel. We know that the Jews are the descendants of Judah and Benjamin. There were writings from 10,000 years before the birth of Christ. Tera belonged to that people. He was the father of Abraham who migrated from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan.
Human bones have been found in some deep caves in the earth. Their skulls have been measured. They have been found to be from a period in earth’s history before the time of the Hebrews which was said to be 4004 years before the birth of Christ. Therefore, we know that human beings are ancient creatures in the world.
I end this article here. There is more to follow. It is not intended to belittle or to despise the Bible. There are some things in the Bible that are not very clear to the human mind. But as people persevere with examining things being discovered about difficult passages in the Bible, they will become clear.
The purpose of my writing these things in ‘te Toa’ is to spur on people’s hearts to be alert. That’s enough for the time being.
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THE TREATY OF WAITANGI
Looking Back.
R[eweti] T K[ohere]
‘Second: This is the year 1924, 84 years on, what will be our standing as Maori among the Pakeha?’
- Herepete Rapihana.
Before the Treaty.
In the May edition of Te Toa Takitini last year, Herepete Rapihana asked this question and after many months there has still been no answer. It is a wise question and deserves an answer. There are people who can answer it.
The answer will become clear if I set down what the Maori People were like before the Treaty of Waitangi and from the time of the Treaty to the present day. Was the condition of the Maori before 1840 better or worse than it was subsequently? If it was better, would that have continued had there not been the Treaty? If it was worse, did the Treaty bring a stop to that situation? You can see, Herepete, that you have posed a difficult question.
I want to answer the question and clear the way and perhaps some may follow up and give voice to their own thoughts and we may see if it was good or bad that we came under the shelter of England.
What the Pakeha say about Maori is true, that we are a very wise people. Our ancestors sought to discover the Invisible God. They prayed to Io-mata-ngaro [Io of the hidden face], that is, to Ihowa [Jehovah – God]. They gave names to the many aspects of Io – Tane, Rongo, Tumatauenga, Tangaroa, Rongomai, Ruaumoko, Haumia, Tamaiwaho, Tunuioteika and other lesser gods. To preserve the stories of Io some of them were consecrated as tohunga. However, although Maori knew Io they did not benefit from Io; Io did not teach them that it was very wicked to eat people. The very darkest days for Maori coincided with the years during which the missionaries lived in the Bay of Islands, but through the strength and fortitude of the messengers of the Gospel the Maori stopped devouring human flesh. Now, one cannot say that Maori would be better if they had not received the Faith. One could perhaps say that what was wrong about the coming of the Faith was that the missionaries cleared the way for bad Pakeha. However, even if the missionaries had not come, wicked Pakeha would have arrived here. Some of the Pakeha who lived among the Maori were convicts who has escaped from Port Jackson. It was the missionaries who had the idea that the Maori People should be brought under the protection of England
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so that they had laws and a government to enforce the laws and manage the country. The Treaty of Waitangi was made to protect the Maori People and the Pakeha as well, and not to divide peoples and tribes by having different authorities. Therefore, I contend that the Treaty of Waitangi was good for the Maori People. If there had not been a Treaty and if there had not been a government then this country would have been like hell, without law, without justice, without good.
Now another question presents itself: this is the question. Are the English the wisest people, the right people, to take the Maori People under their wings? Had it not been the English, which foreign people would have done well? All the nations of Europe say that the English are the wise people, the right people, to deal with native peoples. Some people say and I have heard that France is good to its native peoples. It is said that the French have not made problems for the natives of Tahiti. Had we come under the rule of the Germans or the Spaniards we would have suffered, so I say that it is fortunate that we came under English rule in 1840. Had we come under different nations we would have been ill-treated by bad foreigners like the Pakeha convicts from Port Jackson and the whalers and the Pakeha who fled from their own countries to hide in New Zealand.
After the Treaty.
Herepete asks about the state of the Maori People from the time of the Treaty of Waitangi to the present day. I have pointed out above the afflictions we would have suffered had we not come under English rule. The major thing the Maori suffered under the Treaty of Waitangi was the confiscation of the lands of tribes and hapu, after the fighting with the Government. It is true that this was a great wickedness; certainly, it was punishment for the rebellion of the Hauhau but the punishment was greater than the sin. It was not remarkable that Maori were ill-disposed to Pakeha. Maori saw that they were in subjection to the Pakeha and that their lands were coveted and wrongly taken. Consequently, they were angry and fought with the English like the Boers and the Irish. Both the Boers and the Irish fought bitter and major battles against the English but not a single acre of their lands was confiscated. The peoples of Egypt and India are opposed now to English rule. The real reason why the Hauhau lands were confiscated was the Pakeha desire for land and the weakness of the Hauhau. This practice of seizing land by plunder is [makakawa] to educated peoples. Germany was our object of revenge but her lands in Europe remain intact; not a bit has been taken.
One affliction suffered by Maori is the taking of their land for very little payment, even in exchange for tools. Some lands were taken by deceptive practices by the Pakeha – ‘the world-enveloping dishonesty of the white man,’ as Robert Louis Stevenson said.
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Now the land owned by Maori is constricted while the Pakeha has much. But let us not forget, inasmuch as we have been robbed by the Pakeha, that the value of land during the last one hundred years was very little compared with the value today. Tools, guns, gunpowder, adzes, hatchets, were what were most valued by our ancestors.
When Maori came into contact with Pakeha they learned many bad practices such as drinking alcohol, betting, theft, lying, despising religion, and many other dreadful things.
One thing which taught Maori bad practices was the land court. With the land court there was an overflowing of all kinds of wrongdoing – lying, theft, envy, strange behaviour, lovelessness, greed. Although it was known that a person had a right to the land they were plundered, even killed. I think that many people in possession of land today have no right to it but are there because of theft and fraud. I am someone who goes through the records of the land court and I have discovered the falsehoods of those who have now departed to the belly of the earth. They have gone but their frauds live on and will do so until the end of the world. The land court is something that one cannot gainsay, because although it is tainted a man will cling desperately to the land of his ancestors, his parents, his children.
It is also clear that since we entered the Pakeha world, the new world, we have been afflicted with many sicknesses. For many years the number of Maori has decreased, and it is a cause for celebration that now the Maori population is increasing again. The disappearance of the Maori is not like the disappearance of the Moa, but they are being lost among the Pakeha. Our blood is being mixed with that of Europe. The waiata is true:
[Haere ra e waro ki Ingarangi ki Rehia Rae;
Mau e rere a utu atu ana ko Tau-te-here.
Hei a Hikirangi e, he tangata here puke:
Ko te Kawana hei whiu atu, ki tawhiti.
Ki a Tataiarorangi tau!]
In these days we have come up against the heedlessness of the Pakeha; Maori and Pakeha have jostled one another; many hapu are without land which has flown before Pakeha practices like shell blown by the wind. The Pakeha want our remaining lands and, although we make every effort to hold on to it, the Pakeha laws separate us from it, undo what ties it to us. In the days of Timi Kara’s Government the Maori People were agitated on hearing of the Confiscation Law. We wondered how we were going to be plundered. Today the law that is getting its teeth into our remaining land is the Rates Act. I am very anxious about it.
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A loud and united Pakeha voice is urging the Government to give the law more teeth. Who are we Maori that we should stand and frustrate the desires of the Pakeha? We have become a small people in the world. The law which requires rates from a single Maori for land that belongs to many is wrong. The man is being expected to pay rates because the land has not yet been divided up. He is being asked to pay rates on all the land although he is only living on one part of it. It is being rated because no money has been forthcoming to improve it. Maori land is being rated when there are no roads to the land and the councils are not keen to make roads to Maori lands. All these laws are wrong and they transgress the basic principle of English law which is justice. If the rates are allowed to bite when there is no means of making money from the land, it is, in effect, plundering the land and striking down Maori when their hands are bound.
I certainly to not agree with those who say that when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi the Maori Chiefs were agreeing to all Pakeha laws when the situation of the Maori was different from that of the Pakeha. If this saying is right then the Maori were blind when they made the agreement and it is a fundamental English law that a man cannot agree to a contract unseen. It could appear that he was presented with the good parts of the law while the bad parts were hidden. When they signed the Treaty of Waitangi, our ancestors would not have known that they were agreeing to the rates law.
This is what Mr Coates, the Minister of Maori Affairs, thinks. I heard him, with my own ears, say it at the hui at Wai-o-Matatini. Mr Coates is our palisaded pa, and he is supported by our Maori Members and by Pakeha members who are broad in their thinking and men of integrity.
(To be continued.)
GIFTS TO TE TOA TAKITINI
We have received Ngati Porou’s gift to Te Toa Takitini of twenty-five pounds. Thank you for this generous gift to our treasure. You are the tribe that has taken advantage of education, and you appreciate the good things that have come to the Maori People through having Te Toa Takitini. It is this spirit amongst you that will bring about great things. It is you and Te Arawa who have blessed our paper with sustenance and with articles. Thank you.
We also thank Mrs Woodbine Johnson of Gisborne for her gift to Te Toa Takitini of five pounds. Thank you, Kui, for this great blessing to our pet.
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THE HUKARERE JUBILEE.
The following contributions have been received by the Trustee in Napier for the chapel for our children.
From Te Arawa
£ s d £ s d
Ohinemutu Church
Women’s Committee 24 0 0 H A Lloyd 1 0 0
Pae Thom 1 0 0 A J North 5 0
Rama Mason 1 0 0 Papawharanui
Ngaroma Steele 2 0 0 Whakarewarewa
Rato Lyons 1 0 0 Women’s Committee 24 0 0
Wiki Todd 1 0 0 Areta Haerewa 1 0 0
Tawahinga Butt 1 10 0 Miriama Wikiriwhi 1 0 0
Ngangaru Te Awekotuku 2 0 0 Tuihana Kuini Te Muera 1 0 0
Terita Te Awekotuku 2 0 0 Tiaria Delamere 1 0 0
Mereana Te Awekotuku 2 0 0 Rangingangana
Ruihi Martin 1 0 0 Wikiriwhi 1 0 0
Te Aho Martin 1 0 0 Emire Rikiti 1 0 0
Anu Hemana 1 0 0 Rangitiaria Ratema 1 0 0
Pinenga Hall 1 0 0 Rangitaia Natana 1 0 0
Tawhi Larsen 1 0 0 Bella Wiari 1 0 0
Hineiri Hall 1 o o Maggie Staple Brown 1 0 0
Rev F A Bennett 1 0 0 Ohiwa Waaka 1 0 0
Rangipahere Mitchell 1 0 0 Mihi Rangawhenua 1 0 0
W Te Raihi 2 0 Ani Waaka 1 0 0
J O McMillan 1 0 0 Miss Seth Smith 1 0 0
Bella Thomas 5 0 Ngati Kahungunu
Heni Whakaiti Mohi 10 0
From the children of Rarotonga
Takau Tinirau Makea, Tere Tinirau Makea, Annie Wong Soon,
Lilian Brown, Paara Enoka, Tai Utanga, Louisa Crummer 18 0 0
We thank you, the children of Rarotonga, for your generous gift.
From Te Arawa.
We also thank the various hapu of Te Arawa for their generous gifts. Last month we expressed our gratitude to Ngati Porou. We are the people who live close to Hukarere and yet we had not yet stirred ourselves. We were contentedly asleep. But the loud sound of your shillings came into our ears and you woke us from our sleep. That is good. We will soon follow you! Give! And we will follow after you. Is that not so?
A Notice
The Committee would like all contributions to arrive between now and September. When the money has arrived with the Committee they can decide on the date for the laying of the Foundation Stone.
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THE REPORT OF THE AREA HUI OF THE ARCHDEACONRY OF GISBORNE,
held on 23rd March, 1925.
The area Hui of the Archdeaconry of Gisborne took place in St Stephen’s Church, Te Araroa, on Monday, 23rd March, 1925, at 9.30 a.m. The Bishop of Waiapu presided at the Hui.
The President moved that Dr Wi Repa be Secretary. Agreed.
The Hui opened with prayer.
Three Parishes, Te Kaha, Kawakawa and Waiapu, had sent in the list of names of their lay representatives before the Hui.
The following representatives attended:
Parish of Te Kaha: Rev
Canon Pahewa, Tiaki Paora, Tamati Toka, Waiariki Pako, Ruakirikiri Karapaina,
Hunia Rae.
Parish of Te Kawakawa: Dr Wi Repa, Waiheke Puha, Hirai Te Ngahue, Himiona
Kururangi, Tuhaka Kohere, Wi Taotu, Matauru Wanoa, Hori Korehina.
Parish of Waiapu: Rev P Kohere, Hoani Huriwai, Wi Takoko, Tete Korimete.
Parish of Hikurangi: Rev Pine Tamahori, Rangi Kershaw, Hakopa Haerewa, Korau Haenga, Tumehe.
Parish of Tokomaru: Peia Koria.
No representatives from Whangara or Gisborne attended.
The Rev Wi Tureia was unable to attend because of the serious illness of the Rev Ahipene Rangi.
The President delivered his Charge which was translated into Maori by the Rev Pine Tamahori. The Charge is being sent to be printed in Te Toa Takitini.
After his speech the Bishop announced that during this Hui two lay representatives will be elected to attend the annual Diocesan Synod which will be held at Napier.
The following motions were passed:
1. From Canon Pahewa: ‘That this Hui thanks the Bishop for his Charge and asks his permission for the Charge to be printed for the information of the Maori members of the Church.’
2. From Canon Pahewa: ‘That this Hui thanks the Rev C A Fraser, minister of St Philip’s Parish, Christchurch, for his excellent sermons and teaching at the gathering of Ministers held at Rotorua last year.’
3. A question from Hoani Huriwai: ‘Could the area synod be held at Waiapu next year?’
4. A question from Rangi Kershaw: ‘How does a lay-reader get a licence to preach?’
(To be continued.)
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ITEMS FROM LAST MONTH.
Many important matters of concern to the Maori People came up during the past month.
A Separate Missionary Church for Maori.
We have seen in the Archbishop’s speech to the Hui held at Rotorua, that the heads of the Church had carefully considered this matter. The matter had been discussed for many years. But from the time Bishop Azariah from India visited New Zealand, plans were being made. In recent years many small meetings have been held about the issue. But this year the matter came before the General Synod held in Dunedin last February. That General Synod set up the Hui held at Rotorua. The Report of that Hui is with the Archbishop and he will lay it before the Standing Committee of the General Synod. That Committee meets in Wellington on 6th August. When the Standing Committee completes its deliberations then Te Toa Takitini will report on them. This will be a very high point in the history of the Maori Church.
The Depth of Education.
Some of the hapu of the Maori People have woken up to the need to find ways to prepare the children and grandchildren adequately for the days ahead of them. This year, at last, many of our children are attending the country’s universities. Nearly twenty Maori children, boys and girls, are at those universities seeking the qualifications and the degrees offered by tertiary education. Among all the peoples of the world the sign of the well-being of the people is their commitment to and their valuing of acquiring a university education. Likewise, the sign of a sick people is the way they despise learning and schooling. However, if such despisers have troubles they realise very quickly that they must find a knowledgeable doctor or lawyer to save them. The people of India are determinedly
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climbing the ladders of education. One of the Universities in in Calcutta. There are 26,000 young Indian people at that University. This a wonderful sign. May the Maori People make similar efforts.
The Maori Purposes Fund Board.
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