Te Kopara 87
(Maori Version at PapersPast.)
[3] Te Kopara, Number 8, Gisborne, 31 May, 1921.
‘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]
THE HUI TOPU OF THE MAORI CHURCH IN THE DIOCESE OF WAIAPU.
The Bishop’s Address.
Alcohol
People concerned about the health of the body, the mind and the soul of the Maori People are looking into the consumption of alcohol.
The people of the Tai Rawhiti are doing well but only in certain districts, the other places continue with their habitual ways.
Through the good work of the police and the hotel owners the evil consequences have been reduced, but drinking is still a problem where the law prohibits it, but it is taking place outside the hotels. There is a lot of alcohol being brought into those areas, and it is being brought in by the Pakeha. There is also much alcohol being brought in on the side and distributed by the hotel owners.
In those places where the hotel owners choose to disobey the law out of greed, much drunkenness is seen and there are bad consequences.
Many hotels in dry areas would not survive for six months were it not for the Maori.
The Licensing Committee, the police, and the community at large are aware of these infractions and wonder why the hotels retain their licences. I think the present law is wrong.
On this subject I want to speak about the practice of drinking alcohol at tangihanga. This practice is increasing in some areas. You are all familiar with our request to the Government to change the law so that a Maori will break it if he is caught carrying alcohol.
At this time it is agreed that, no matter how diligent the police are in applying the law, wrongdoers will not be discovered. So let us be diligent as we look into and discuss this subject today and seek to devise a suitable law. The Government has tried and has expressed its sorrow but it has not been able to fight this problem. The war has ended, they are now free, and therefore we must apply ourselves to this cause if we are to get what we want.
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Giving Land to the Church.
I am very grateful that a great deal of land has been given to the Diocesan Land Board. Maori should know that these lands are not lost to them but will be looked after well for them in perpetuity and will not be used for any purpose other than those specified when the land was given to the Church.
The authority of the Trustees is a right [?mana whakaeke - ?to lease, to access] and not like that of private trustees.
This is the case with all lands that people are thinking of giving to the Church for churches, for clergy houses, for mission houses, when they are given to the Diocesan Land Board.
Education.
Te Aute College. Everyone who knows the situation at Te Aute College agrees with the choice of R G Loten as Principal. Mr Loten is a man who sets clear standards and he is a good man. He knows his job and he knows what people are like; he also has a love for the Maori People. He is a man who commands respect, he looks carefully into policies, he has a loving heart, he is man of spirit. Our hope is that the College will go from strength to strength under his policies.
Agriculture. The School has taken over the management of 600 acres of Te Aute for its farming programme. This land has been set aside specifically for this project.
You should be clear that the provision of the highest levels of education will not be diminished by the farming curriculum. Able children will still be able to aim at the Matriculation, Civil Service and other examinations.
It is thought that Te Aute will also seek to prepare young people for the work of the Ministry. You can be assured that the curriculum provided by Te Aute will not be inferior to other Colleges in this Dominion.
But you must also remember that higher education is not appropriate for many boys. It is these who will be taught farming. These will be taught the subjects appropriate for them and when they have passed these they will join the farming class, preparing them to return home with a love of the work and knowing how to run a farm.
Hukarere School. I have no reason to talk at length about this School. Miss [Emira] Bulstrode, the Principal, is on holiday in England. Miss Hall is standing in for her as Head Teacher. The School is doing very well under Miss Hall’s leadership. There is no reason for me to say more because the Inspector’s Report is very clear.
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Waerenga-a-hika School. The increased cost of everything has meant that there have been problems with financing this School. The fees for children being educated here have been raised twice. Despite this the school’s debt has risen to more than £1000. It may be necessary to reduce the number of children attending the school in order to reduce the amount being spent on running the school. This would be a grievous measure. I salute the excellent work of the teachers of the School – Mr McGruther, the Head Teacher, and Mr Lazaron, the Assistant.
The Abandoning of the Faith.
I am very sad at the number of Church people who are forsaking the teachings of the Faith. Many people who have been baptized and confirmed, and some who take Holy Communion, hold lightly to the tenets of the Christian Faith, and in times of illness or when things go wrong do not hold strongly to the teachings of the Faith. We see this in the number of people going to tohunga and participating in deluded practices.
Some tohunga have authority but that authority comes from the devil and is not the authority of Christ. They are making people return to primitive ways and many people are possessed by the devil. Let me make it very clear, the person whose faith in Christ has grown cold and who turns to the tohunga is opening his heart to Satan. This is a way for the devil to enter into a person. Many Maori have visited the tohunga and have become the dwelling-place of demons and are like those we see in the Scriptures. One cannot deny these instances. I have seen this situation among the native peoples of South Africa when the witch-doctors get power over them.
This situation has been seen in parts of the world in which the cross of Christ has not yet been proclaimed and in places where people who have been baptized have gone back to their primitive gods. One of the signs that confirms that such people are indwelt by the devil is the way those demons emerge when they are cast out in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Let me summarize this matter to make it very clear. The name ‘tohunga’ suggests that these people have the power to instruct. But that power comes from Satan. Tohunga work for Satan. They are the enemies of Christ, fighting against the cross of Christ. A person who follows the Maori tohunga is opening up his heart for Satan to enter in along with all the afflictions he brings.
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The reasons for the growth of the activities of the tohunga. The main reason is that the children are not being carefully taught the basics of the Christian Faith. You have the remedy; gather together the children on every occasion. The time used in teaching Christ’s little children is not wasted. ‘It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’ [Matthew 18.14]
I am handing over to you these little children for you to care for them well.
The life of the Church in this Province depends on them in the days to come. You are to teach them. Teach them the all-important words of the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that they understand. If we neglect them they will take up the false teachings and primitive practices which will lead them to wrongdoing and to death.
Let us be careful that we do not despise one of Christ’s little ones. [Matthew 18.10]
CROSSING THE BAR
Tune: Hymn 10
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
[The following is my back-translation of the Te Kopara text:
The sun sets, the stars emerge,
I hear a clear voice calling me,
May the waves of the bar not be rough
As I set sail for the sea.
A full tide, moving easily, calm,
Without foam or roar,
Which came from the great deep
And will return to its source.
[Kakauri - ?the darkness deepens], the bell for worship,
Afterwards the dark,
Let there be no sorrowful farewell
When I board this ship.
Although it be in full flood
And my home is hidden from view,
I shall see my steersman
When I have crossed the bar.
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THE FAULTS OF THE PAKEHA.
To the Editor of Te Kopara.
The Pakeha thinks that he is superior to the Maori People, that he is an example to all the other peoples of the world, that he was created by God to rule those peoples whose skins are not white. It is true that the Pakeha has plumbed the depths of knowledge, he has girded the earth with his telegraph communications, his ships have sailed over all the oceans, he has taken himself into the skies, and the deep waters are his playground. During the war that has just ended we saw the ascendance of the learning of the Pakeha; the earth wondered and trembled.
But with the increasing knowledge of the Pakeha was there also an increase in people’s well-being, in people’s happiness? That conflict clearly showed how wrong Pakeha ways are – and in these days the world is still evil, very evil. People’s hearts are not content; they are on fire, fearful, hurting. Apitana Ngata questioned this aspect of the Pakeha when he asked in Parliament, ‘Is the Pakeha’s the only right way?’ ‘Is the white man’s the only scheme of life?’
The Pakeha’s project is wrong – a rotten project. The Pakeha’s project is not Christ’s project, rather it rejects the teachings of God, it stifles love. Because of this project the peoples were in conflict, they contended with each other, they were envious of each other, they fought, they suffered, they wept. The project of the Pakeha was laid down by Darwin – survival of the fittest [Ko te mea kaha e ora.] On the basis of this rule the people sought to get great wealth, to have large fighting forces, to have many and large battleships. It is obvious that this programme results in rivalry, ill-will, and war. Where do we see people following the path of love and reconciliation? The Pakeha knows that those strengths are in his hands and therefore it ix right for Maori to be his slaves and it is right to confiscate Maori lands. The Germans mistakenly thought that they were the strongest people in the world therefore they fought to bring other nations under their rule. When the great conference was held where the conditions for peace were laid down it was Wilson, President of America who set out his thoughts most clearly. He it was who said that it was not right for one nation to rule over another nation if that nation did not agree. Wilson is a man of faith.
Another great fault of the Pakeha is that he despises a man who depends on the seat of his brow to make a living. The Pakeha uses money to make money and money has precedence over people. Companies think of people as parts of their machinery which turns day and night to make money for them.
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Women and children work for small wages to get large profits for the companies. Most of the benefits go to the bosses only without them having to make effort or to lose sweat. This Pakeha practice is the main reason for the troubles of our time, it is the main cause of strikes. The vast majority of the people of the world have little to live on and give them dignity; most of the money is in the hands of a few. The Pakeha concentrates on money without thinking of people. A Pakeha rule is not to love making money – ‘business is business.’ For many years the Turks oppressed the Armenians and the great powers took no notice. England did take notice because Mesopotamia is a land with oil and there was a large English army there. Money was used to guard the oil wells but no English soldiers protected Armenia which had no oil and no wealth. Oil is more important than people!
There will be no peace for the world while the Pakeha retain these ideas as the basis for what they do – competition between nations and seeing money as more important than people. The Pakeha may think of themselves as superior to native peoples but the great war in Europe made it clear that the Pakeha are not superior to native peoples because in that war the Pakeha committed atrocities unknown to native peoples. The right thing for the Pakeha to do now is to be ashamed, to abase themselves, and to repent. If there is no repentance the world will continue to be troubled and will be continually afflicted by God.
It is true that the Pakeha is good but he can descend into evil, into the depths of evil. Apirana Ngata was right when he said, ‘Wherever the Pakeha places his feet that is where the native people experience pain and troubles.’ This is a lasting truth, some Pakeha have brought great affliction to the native people of some islands resulting in the disappearance of those people. Perhaps it was right for the Germans to poison people in battle, but there was no justification for the destruction of those people.
There is something else about which the Pakeha is wrong, although it is not a great fault. Although the Pakeha will maintain that clothes are not part of a person, they make much of clothing. People with beautiful clothes are praised while those with shabby clothes are despised. Pakeha women are obsessed with adorning themselves. Pakeha women compete as to who has the most beautiful clothes. Sometimes the dresses of Pakeha women were worn long; why are even mothers wearing dresses now that have been shortened to the lengths they wore as children? It is right to have nice clothes but not as a source of pride. It is a sign of
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a mature child that they do not give much thought to adornment. Lloyd George, Prime Minister of England, is not a man who gives much thought to clothes, nor does Arthur Balfour, one of the wisest men in the world, nor did Gladstone and most of the great men of the world.
Another Pakeha fault is the expansion of work, of troubles, of annoyances for people. Pakeha practices ensure that there is plenty of food for people, but some Pakeha foods are not beneficial but rather contribute to ill health. What is good about the sweet foods of the Pakeha – lollies, cakes, puddings, mustard, vinegar, pepper, [hohe], alcohol? Had these food not been made by the Pakeha then people would not have become ill. Eating the sweet foods of the Pakeha as children leads to people becoming toothless. The many Pakeha foods make cooking arduous. The Pakeha have many different kinds of clothes and possessions in their houses. The many things required by the Pakeha mean much work; much work makes people bad-tempered, they grumble, they are bored, they have no time to rest, to still their minds, to think about God, and, as a result the Sabbath day become a day for sleeping or for sport. The Pakeha has made people to be like machines turning over all the time – a machine without soul or mind – turning, turning, and only stopping if it breaks or completes its work.
I end this article here. These are the major faults of the Pakeha as I see them. By and by I shall write about the faults of the Maori. The right way, I believe, lies between that of the Pakeha and that of the Maori.
GREETINGS TO THE WOMEN OF HUKARERE.
This is to convey my greetings to my old pupils of Hukarere. I cannot find adequate words to express my greetings and gratitude to you for your loving gift that I have received. If God pleases the time will come when my sister and I return to live amongst you. At that time you must come to the place where will be living do that we can return your kindness. You will appreciate my great distress at my being parted from Hukarere. For twenty years
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I have taught at that school, all of them very happy years. Miss Hall and my younger sister are running the school now. I have great affection for all my children I have left behind. I am grateful to our heavenly Father who through his blessing has restored my body to health. Therefore I hope to return to some Maori district to live so that we can work together to grow the Kingdom of God. My greetings to your mother at this time. My heart cries out for you and I have great love for you all scattered in various places.
Yours sincerely,
J H Bulstrode.
London, England.
[We have been informed that Miss Bulstrode will arrive in New Zealand in July. Her elder sister arrived in England before the death of their mother. The younger was sailing between New Zealand and America when she received the telegrammes. We thank these ladies for their great love of the Maori People. – Editor]
LETTERS RECEIVED.
To the Editor of Te Kopara.
Greetings to you who send our bird that carries news to all the marae of Aotearoa and crosses over to Te Waipounamu also. On 15th April Wiremu Ratana arrived with two hundred, more or less, of his people. I am very grateful to the visitor and to the local people for the peaceful nature of the whole hui and for the good done to the sick to whom Wiremu Ratana ministered. Throughout the hui there were no problems. As a result of the excellent organization by the management committee and of the great blessing of God upon this hui, the hui met for four days in beautiful weather and I was able to observe carefully Wiremu’s work of arousing, of waking up the hearts and minds of Maori men, women and children, to be firm in their faith in God, the Supreme God. He was able to get into the heart of a person so that they were able to put away the old sins, the sins of the ancestors, of the parents, and even the children. And it was not just a proclamation of forgiveness. Therefore, my Maori friends, some of you possess the powers of our ancestors, those of the tohunga. I do not think it is right for you to publish in the Pakeha newspapers your criticisms of our relation, Wiremu Ratana. Wiremu does not visit the marae of the country to say to you, ‘Tohunga,
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give me your Maori powers.’ Rather he says, ‘You should want to present your Maori powers to God, not to Wiremu Ratana.’ I shall not give the name of the man who spoke to the reporter of the Hawkes Bay Herald but the man does come from Te Mahia in the Te Wairoa area. Therefore , my friends, we should be very careful in what we do in criticizing the activities of some of us. Think it through before speaking to the world. May the blessing of our heavenly Father be upon us all.
Tuahine Renata,
Waimarama. 2/5/21
To the Editor of Te Kopara.
If you approve, please load on board these words. To Te Hau Mataira, greetings to you, beyond the waves of the sea. Te Kopara will wing this to you. Thank you to Te Kopara that brings insights and challenges on its wings.
I have seen your criticism of my article in Number 81 of Te Kopara. I find fault with all that you say. It does not deal rightly with the subjects of my letter. You jump to the great treasure of the peoples of the world including us at this time, namely, schools, which you use as a stick with which to beat me, and you ignore the subject of my letter. Therefore that letter of mine serves to condemn you. But I know you and what you are like; someone who is always thinking of a fight and who uses the debating pages of newspapers to express your opinions. So you latched on to the excellent words of Huta Paaka praising the works of the Tai Rawhiti and filled the wings of Te Kopara with your loads. Therefore I say that you have the debating pages of newspapers to yourself. Whatever your ongoing concerns I shall be asleep.
Paratene Ngata.
Waiomatatini, 16/4/21
For children’s coughs and breathlessness. Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure.
A LETTER OF EXPLANATION
To Te Hau Mataira, Te-kare-o-te moana, Wharekauri.
Friend, greetings and thanks. This is a letter of explanation. Perhaps you have forgotten or do not know one of the rules of Te Kopara which is, ‘If the
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Committee finds that a letter from a correspondent is not appropriate for publication then it will not be printed.’ We are not able from now on to print any controversial letter from you because you have used our bird as a platform for attacking some other contributors. Your enemies have been Huta Paaka, Paratene Ngata, Reweti Kohere and some others. It is acceptable to respond to what someone has written but the answer should be correct and life-enhancing. I would say this to you, when you are hammering on a flat surface and you strike the nail, sometimes most of your hammer hits your own thumb and it is only the nail that prevents your thumb from being completely crushed.
Hau, enough! It could be said that your stomach is full of quarrelling. Were all of us like you then all the articles in our paper would be offensive, stirring people up like the waves of the sea. My friend, I think it is time to stop your contentious articles, but we would be happy, indeed delighted, if you continue to send articles, but let them be peaceful ones. Best wishes, friend.
From your brother-in-law,
W K P Rangihuna
For the Committee.
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.
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
Hymns, 9d
Prayer Book with Hymns, soft cover 1/6
Prayer Book with Hymns, red cover 3/-
Prayer Book with Hymns, hard cover 5/6
Prayer Book, New Testament and Hymns, red cover, 4/6
Prayer Book, New Testament and Hymns, superior cover, 7/6
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