Te Kopara 75
[3] Te Kopara, Number 75, Gisborne, 30 April, 1920.
‘Iti te Kopara, kai takirikiri ana i runga i te Kahikatea.’
Although the Bellbird is small, he plucks at the Kahikatea. [cf Nga Pepeha 908]
INFLUENZA AMONGST THE MAORI PEOPLE.
In recent days influenza has returned to some parts of Hawkes Bay and to some other places. Although it is not as severe as the occurrence of that illness in 1918, the number of people with the illness has perhaps passed that in 1918. One thing is very clear, that it is afflicting Maori more than Pakeha.
If we look at the number of people who contracted the illness in 1918 we see that four Maori got it for every one Pakeha. Two per cent of Maori caught that illness. We know that some places were not touched by that illness in 1918. Had it reached all parts that number would have reached three per cent meaning that three in every hundred Maori would have caught that flu.
If this is the case that more Maori contract that influenza (whether it be more or less severe this year than in 1918), is it not right that we should look at the reasons - at how Maori live, at personal hygiene? And is there something about Maori blood that means it is not able to fight the viruses causing the illness?
It is not thought that the first question is a main factor. As for the second question, although Maori behaviour differs from that of the Pakeha it cannot be said that the Maori are a dirty people. The Maori are the same as the Pakeha. There are dirty people. But the behaviour of the illness shows that it does not avoid clean houses. The flu does not consider people’s faces; whether they are dirty or clean it still arrives. But it has been observed that in clean houses its effects are less severe than in dirty houses. It is not possible to say that one of the above reasons accounts for the Maori People suffering more during the time of this illness.
Tests have shown that if a group of Maori is in touch with a Pakeha group and the living habits of those Maori have changed then there is a more rapid impact from things which weaken them and their blood. The reasons for that enfeeblement of Maori are not known. Some say that the problem springs from the new teaching. Others say
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that the teaching is right but that Maori are slow to seize upon the teaching of the new age.
We all know that Maori bodies are not as strong as those of their forebears despite the education designed to care for the Maori People.
In these days Maori are not thriving. Thoughtful people are concerned for the Maori People. They are enjoying more education, they have more possessions, they are physically well-provided for, but despite these good things , Maori are not physically strong.
Is there no medicine to cure what is happening to the Maori People?
I am convinced that there is a medicine. But Maori must make every effort to promote those ways which will lead people to health. Here are some of the ways to health. (1) That Maori people take to heart the idea that physical well-being is more important than getting possessions. (2) That efforts are made to combat those bad actions that enfeeble your bodies – drinking and lazing about. (3) Not marrying within your own hapu but seeking more distant blood. (4) Taking great care with the raising of infants that they may grow up strong and lively.
There is another illness that has a devastating effect on all Maori tribes – tuberculosis. This illness was brought by the Pakeha to the Maori and it is now affecting Maori very badly. Many young Maori are suffering from this illness and many other kinds of illness. It is the quality of New Zealand wind that has saved the Maori; had it been another land then Maori would have been consigned to oblivion. It has not been possible to prevent this disease. It is a disease which is passed on to others. The patient who catches this illness must have a separate bedroom in which he alone sleeps. Living together and sleeping together in the same room facilitates the passing on of tuberculosis to others. You Maori must not despise the instructions of those Pakeha who have been carefully taught what to do. Do not think that your knowledge of these diseases exceeds that of those Pakeha who have been trained as doctors to care for your bodies. Some Maori know that what I am saying is right. Some Maori despise it and will never listen.
Maori People, this is a difficult time for you. It is not known at this time whether you will emerge into the world of light or will be consigned to oblivion. Many of your relations have been carried off by the flu. Many Maori are being taken each year by tuberculosis. Think carefully about these matters. You are a brave people when it comes to fighting your enemies. So make a stand, Engage in your battle to do away with your illnesses.
Dr Mercer, MD
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NEW GOVERNOR-GENERAL FOR NEW ZEALAND.
Lord Liverpool, Governor-General of New Zealand, has announced that the King has appointed Lord John Jellicoe, CB, GCVO, CVO, OM, Admiral of the English Fleet, as the new Governor-General of New Zealand.
This is a great honour for us, and it is right that all the peoples – Maori and Pakeha – should rejoice at the coming of this warrior is coming to be our Head. This man is indeed one of the leading people in all of England. He was the Commander of the English Fleet in the recent war. He was also the man chosen by the Government of England to visit all parts of the Empire and inspect them and to report on the best way to protect the Empire in conflicts with the enemy at all times. That report has been presented to Parliament and has been accepted. There is one thing that can protect all parts of the Empire at all times and that is its fighting fleet. Therefore it is right that all peoples under English rule should assist in this. This is why he came here recently. So, given all that he has achieved, it is wonderful that he has been chosen to be our Head. Indeed, the ship that carried him to all parts of the Empire was our own battlecruiser, the New Zealand. Secondly, he said in a speech he made recently that at last he would see the beautiful land of New Zealand. And he thought that perhaps in the future he may return to live here permanently. His wish has been fulfilled in these days.
THE PRINCE OF WALES AND LORD KITCHENER.
At the time the recent war began in 1914, the Prince of Wales asked Lord Kitchener to send him to the war. The war at that time was still being fought in open ground and had not yet taken to the trenches. The Prince said to Kitchener, ‘It doesn’t matter if I am killed by a bullet. I have four younger brothers who can take my place.’ Kitchener answered him, ‘Were I sure that you would be struck down by a bullet I would not hold you back, but I cannot allow you to be taken prisoner by the enemy and, given the present situation in the war, it is quite likely that you would be taken prisoner.’ We now know that from the time that the fighting line of the English was secured, then the Prince of Wales was permitted to go and fulfill his wish.
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A FAREWELL MESSAGE FROM THE BISHOP OF WAIAPU.
To my Maori People. I have boarded the ship which will carry me to the land of my fathers. The hawsers at present hold me to New Zealand; when they are cast off then we will leave Wellington and begin to swim across the Moana-nui-a-Kiwa {Pacific] which separates the land of my people from your land. Therefore, before I sail I want to send my parting words to my Maori People whom I love dearly.
I am going to the place where my ancestors grew up, to the land that has been distinguished by great people, and for learning and beauty and greatness; to the home I love, to the soil where we were moved to action recently, to the land of the [Whakaaro Ataahua – Beautiful Thought]. I am going to see my friends from the time when I was a child, to refresh my ideas, to collect together the strands of the rope that have loosened in the many years spread out behind me, and to bind them again into the bottom of my heart. I am going to see, to listen to, and to learn from, the meeting of all the bishops (the Lambeth Conference), to see if I cannot find ways to make progress on the important issues affecting us at this time – issues Spiritual and Physical; and to get insights in the school of learning – the assembled thinking of the great men of God from all parts of the world. There will be some weighty matters relating to how our Faith is growing and living. And so I am asking you to pray that we may wait upon the Holy Spirit to guide and teach us.
Although the hawser which ties us to your land will shortly be cast off and I will set out for Great Tawhiti , Long Tawhiti, Distant Tawhiti, there is an invisible rope that binds me to the land of your ancestors – the rope of love and of shared ideals which cannot be broken. New Zealand has raised many children, and I am one of them, even though my actual mother is England, and I will still cling to her even though the ocean separates us.
Many a time I find myself thinking about the first missionaries when they sailed the seas not knowing what they were coming to – the Reverends Samuel Marsden, William Williams, and Henry Williams, Bishop Selwyn and others. There was no rope to link them but they offered up their lives to spreading the Gospel despite sufferings, until death. But I am in a different situation. I am going from the ancient dwelling of your ancestors but I am still linked in the knowledge and unity and love because of the wonderful work of the missionaries of old times. This is what firmly binds me to you until I return although we are separated by the Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.
I am moved at the thought that the threads of the rope that binds us together are broad and deep and very strong, but they also serve to bind us to God.
From your Father in the Lord.
William Walmsley Waiapu, Bishop.
RSS Rimutaka.
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THE JUDGEMENTS OF JUDGE JONES.
The Editor of Te Kopara did not see Reweti Kohere’s letter before it was printed. It would have been better had Reweti taken that serious matter to the Government officers. Our Kopara cannot be drawn into those matters. The Apostle Paul [sic, Peter], our Teacher in such matters, says: ‘Honour everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor. Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.’ (1 Peter 2.17-18). If we look at the conduct of Paul when he stood before the judges – Felix, Festus and Agrippa – we see his forbearance and his respect for the judges. Best wishes, my friend Reweti, and please don’t be distressed. It was out of concern for our name of Christian and the good news of our Kopara that we wrote these thoughts about your letter.
BRIEF ITEM.
When the Hon J C Parr, the new Minister for Schools, came to Hastings to open some new schools here, he spoke words of warning to people purchasing land. He had heard that some land was being sold for £200 and acre. He said that such an amount would never be regained and that such a price was not right for farm land. The day is coming when the price of land will go down. That Minister said that the price of good land in England is £40 and acre – that is farm land. This is a warning to those purchasing land let they get themselves into trouble.
{Children with severe influenza should take Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure, 1/9, 2/9 a bottle.}
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A SECOND LETTER FROM TE HAU MATAIRA.
To the Editor of Te Kopara.
Please give the following words to our bird, Te Kopara, for it to carry to the eyes, the ears, and the mouths of all the people of the voting areas of the North, the West and the South, those who saw and discussed and listened to the words of Huta Paka in Edition Number 66 of Te Kopara. My friend Huta, why did you awaken from sleep my children and grandchildren sleeping in Taranaki, in the valley of the Waikato, and me here in the Chatham Islands, to tease us. You may not have woken the young ones but you certainly woke me, the elder, up. You certainly fulfilled the Proverb of Solomon, using a rod to prod, to wake up my children and grandchildren from sleep who know that this day is a Sabbath of the Lord when there comes round the changing of the years when God washes away the foul smell from the earth. Then they will rise and find that all is good and clean on the earth and all things are made new. It was the case that people thought that they could wash the earth and make it clean. Then the whole world was engulfed in war. That man could wash the earth, that he could accomplish even a little part of the work of God was not possible. The Kaiser and his millions of Germany tried in vain to cleanse the earth; he could not do it because he did not make the earth and all within it. But God who made those things can alone cleanse it and will do it. God has clearly shown us that he is stronger than mankind. For three years men were killing men until their strength was exhausted. For one year God’s pandemic struck down more than men had done in those three years. Had God persisted in destroying people for three years there would not have been a living person going about on this earth. Does this say something about your gratitude, spread about on Te Kopara, for the work of the Tai Rawhiti? The Tai Rawhiti has collected the first figure and has begun on a new figure. The first amount is for the young men who have returned from the battlefront; the second amount is for the purchase of education. Huta, the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon says, ‘ If a man looks at a girl with lust in his heart then that man has committed adultery with that girl before he has even touched her.’ [cf Matthew 5.28] There is a parallel here to your gratitude and praise for the two tricks of the Tai Rawhiti. Look at Chapter 23, verse 23, of the Book of Matthew. Huta, had you begun looking at the first books of the Bible right to the end of each chapter then you would have been alerted
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to the activities of the Tai Rawhiti. Your reading of the Bible is somewhat random and you fix on the 16th [?Chapter] of Proverbs, and do not take into account Proverbs 3.27; Romans 13.7, 15.27-28. Huta, if it was with the arrival of the Faith at Paihia that such works began then the North and the West and the South would not be asleep, but it was left until the seventh day, the Sabbath of God, to do. Therefore the South says to you to take in the notice published in Te Kopara 66 and look carefully at what Solomon says in Proverbs 16.16. Because there are two aspects of wisdom: there is that which a person applies to his work in this world, and there is that which God gives a person so that he can accomplish what God gives him to do, like the wisdom given by God to Solomon. Huta, the ministers have preached that wisdom from the time the Faith arrived at Paihia, Bay of Islands, right up to the present day. Our ministers use mornings and evenings to teach us the way and the words by which we may get wisdom. Yet even if those words are few we don’t grasp them and still you are saying to collect a lot of money and then we will find wisdom. Huta, Solomon sought wisdom from the first, then he got wisdom, and afterwards he was given wealth. When we go into our churches to listen to the teaching of our ministers, they say to us morning and evening: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart and mind.’ And also, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Were a person to enter body and soul upon that teaching then perhaps our children would get that wisdom which it is said, Huta, is better than silver and gold. The truest conviction that we humans can hold on to is that God can do all things. And there is this, that wisdom can be seized in one’s own language –your language, Maori, your language, Pakeha, your languages, peoples, your own languages. Because, we do not know which language we will have to use when we are judged by God; if it is to be in the English language that would have been mentioned in the Bible. I have not found mention of this there but perhaps those of you who are striving to abandon our language and to get a new language, new skin, and new food, have done so. My friends, there is little difficulty involved in getting wisdom. It is you who magnify the difficulty, the penny that a man puts in the plate for the minister is a lot less than the one hundred pounds a man pays to have his son educated at the large colleges. The waiata of the elders says: ‘Return to me, to your mother.’ [Grey – Moteatea p.274]. I must bring this to an end for you lest the name of the writer falls off the bottom of the page.
T H Mataira
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THE MORMON CHURCH AT THE MEETING OF THE WORLD-WIDE CONFEDERATION OF CHRISTIANS.
To the Editor of Te Kopara.
Greetings to you, running the work throughout your area. May every good blessing rest upon your home and upon your family.
A Few Words for Te Kopara to Carry.
A large gathering was held at the beginning of this year in Pittsburgh, a big American city. This meeting as the ‘Ecumenical Conference of all the World’s Christians.’
Wise people from every Church throughout the world attended that meeting. Many matters were dealt with by that meeting but one loomed large. That matter concerned the Church which calls itself the true Church, the Mormon Church.
One day in April the following article was printed in the Auckland Star: ‘James E Talmadge, an apostle of the Mormon Church, attended the conference of world Christians.. When he arrived at that hui he made it clear that he was at the meeting as a spokesman for the Mormon Church. Whereupon that meeting said to that apostle that he had no right to speak at that meeting or, indeed, to attend.”The reason why you have no right to a place at this gathering is that it is widely acknowledged that your Mormon Church is not a Christian Church.
First, a major activity of the Mormon Church is the overturning of the teaching of the Gospels, and it does not hold to the customary practices of the Christian Faith.
Secondly, the Mormon Church has openly revealed in its actions and in all its organization, that it is opposed to all the ways of the Christian Faith.
Therefore the final word of this gathering is that there is no place of the Mormon Church or its spokesman in any Christian meeting such as this.”’ I end my letter.
From your brother in the Lord,
E M Eruini,
Tokomaru Bay.
[The Mormon Church has also been banned from Australian territory. –Editor]
{For Flu take Woods’ Greta Peppermint Cure, 1/9, 2/9 a bottle.}
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MINISTERS’ STIPENDS.
This matter is being widely discussed in these days and it is right that the Church should give it serious thought because the cost of everything is going up; the only thing that is not going up is the minister’s stipend. Here is an article that appeared in the Waiapu Church Gazette, Number 11 [sic]: ‘We have been told that several Pakeha clergy in the Diocese of Auckland have resigned from their work as ministers and have taken up other work because they were unable to live on the small stipends they were receiving. Those ministers who are able to survive in these days are either those who are not married or those of independent means who enter the ministry. Other than these two, some clergy survive by earning money in other ways to supplement their stipend. If a minister has to take up this third option he is unable to visit in his parish, particularly those who are ill. Added to this, he is unable to make time for study with the result that his fitness for the work of ministry declines and the work of the faith suffers.’
Now this is something that affects us at this time. There is nothing that should surprise us as we consider this matter. The above story is about Pakeha clergy and not about Maori clergy. We are happy that we have not heard of a single Maori minister who has resigned, giving as his reason the small stipend. But this thing affects all the Maori ministers, however perhaps it is made acceptable by the prospect before them.
Therefore, let this matter be considered by every marae, every tribe, every hapu amongst us who live under the shade of the tree of faith.
GIFTS OF MONEY FOR THE SOLDIERS.
The money allocated by the Government as gifts to the soldiers is £5,513,000. By 10th April, 84,319 soldiers had been paid a total of £4,966,147. A further 2000 soldiers were paid in London. Of the 86,000 paid, 5450 received more than £100, 15,059 received between £75 and £100, and 29,076 received between £50 and £75.
The YMCA as begun work among Maori. A section and house have been obtained for their work in Nuhaka. That house will be opened in May. The members of the Nuhaka Management Committee are the Revs. Matene Keepa and Williamson, Mr South, Matene Whaanga, and Kohu.
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FOOD FOR TE KOPARA
Name / Address / Payment / Subscription Ends
January
Daniel Campbell / Omapere, Hokianga / 2/6 / June 1919
Kameta Pou / Piiopio, Waitomo / 5/- / January 1921
Ngahuia Tihema / Tikapa, Port Awanui / 5/- / January 1921
Renata Taiapa / Port Awanui / 5/- / August 1919
Miss Florence Heron / Havelock / 5/- / March 1920
P Raihania / Te Haroto, Hawkes Bay / 10/- / May 1921
February
Wharepapa Perepi / Waipiro Bay / 5/- / May 1920
March
Pene Heihei / Kahukura /£1 / March 1923
Weeta Katae / Raukokore, Opotiki / 5/- / January 1921
Ahipene Hakahaka / Torere, Opotiki / 5/- / March 1920
April
Paki Ohuka / Whenua kura, Ruatoria / 5/- / March 1921
Te Rua Herata / Waitangi, Chatham Islands / 5/- / September 1920
Ed Reid / Whangara, Gisborne / 5/- / October 1919
Rev Rewi Wikiriwhi / Whakatane / 15/- / April 1922
Hurinui Apanui / Whakatane / 5/- / March 1921
Peta Pakuku / Wairoa, HB / 5/- / May 1921
L Snee / Box 119, Hastings / 5/- / April 1921
Wi Takana / Tahoraiti, Dannevirke / 5/- / April 1921
Te Hau Mataira / Te Kareotemoana, Chatham Islands / 10/- / March 1922
Wi Nuku / Kawera, Fernhill / 5/- / February 1921
RULES OF THE PAPER.
1. Te Kopara is published monthly.
2. The subscription for the paper is five shillings (5/-) a year paid by postal note or stamps.
3. Anyone wishing to take Te Kopara should send the money with the covering letter to
Te Kopara,
Te Rau Press,
6 Berry Street,
Gisborne.
4. All items you want printed in Te Kopara should be sent to the Editor,
Rev F A Bennett,
Kohupatiki,
Clive, Hawkes Bay.
A NOTICE
Those wishing to purchase Prayer Books, Hymn Books or Testaments should send their request to
Miss K Williams,
P O Box 41,
Hukarere, Napier.
These are the prices.
Large, soft cover 3/-
Large, red cover 3/6
Large, hard cover 4/6
Large, superior cover 6/6
Prayer Book with Hymns, soft cover 2/-
Prayer Book with Hymns, red cover 3/-
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Prayer Book, New Testament and Hymns, superior cover, 7/-
I will pay the postage to send the books to you.
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