The Significance of Wiremu Tamihana Duncan Roper Draft of a book chapter which formed the basis for a paper presented at the seminar on Colonialism and Christianity, Wellington, sponsored jointly by the Maori Anglican Diocese of Wellington and ACS, May 2003.

Outline

1. Wiremu Tamihana and John Gorst
2. Wiremu Tamihana and Ranginui Walker
3. The Rejection of Utu, and the Communities of Te Tapiri and Peria
4. The Failure of Kawanatanga and the Colonial Threat
5. 'The Sticks' - Transcending Rangitiratanga in Relation to an Effective Kawanatanga
6. The Missing Sermon at Peria in October 1862
7. The Taiaha and the Petitions to Parliament
8. Christ and Culture

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1. Wiremu Tamihana and John Gorst

John Gorst arrived in New Zealand on the 17^th May, 1860. A month earlier, war had broken out in Taranaki. Gorst soon made the acquaintance of Bishop Selwyn, whom he described as the most unpopular man in the colony because of his support for the Maori cause in Taranaki. He spent some months at a Maori school for boys near Taupiri, in the Waikato. While there he met Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi, the Maori 'king-maker'.

 

In September 1861, George Grey, in a second term of office, replaced Thomas Gore-Browne as governor. Shortly afterwards Grey appointed him as Resident Magistrate in the Waikato. His task was extremely difficult, as it required him to exercise British authority in territory under the control of the King Movement.

 

Imperial troops invaded the Waikato under the pretext of a pre-emptive strike in July, 1863.  Thus Gorst served as a magistrate in the Waikato during the immediate period prior to the outbreak of the war. Upon returning to Britain after his expulsion from the Waikato by Tamihana's compatriot in the King Movement, Rewi Maniapoto, Gorst wrote  his book, The Maori King,  which was published in 1864. (Recently republished by St Paul's book Arcade and  Oxford University Press, 1959.)

 

In this book he Gorst endeavoured to provide both the general public as well as the home authorities in Britain a detailed personal insight into the background and complexity of the conflict in the Waikato. That he knew Tamihana well is obvious from a reading of the book: the imprint of Tamihana's  conversations with Gorst appear on almost every page.

 

Subsequently, Gorst entered a very successful career in British politics. He became a Privy Councillor, and at one time or another was Solicitor-General, Under-Secretary for India, and Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In 1906, now as Sir John Gorst, he returned to New Zealand to represent the British Government at the Christchurch Exhibition. He took the opportunity to revisit the places and people he had known so well forty years earlier. In New Zealand Revisited (Isaac Pitman and Sons, London, (1908)) he compared the young colony of his youth with the country as he now experienced it. In the chapter of this book, entitled Wiremu Tamihana, the man who had worked with many of the leading politicians of the nineteenth century- Disraeli, Gladstone, Randolph Churchill and Balfour to name but a few - wrote this remarkable appraisal of Wiremu Tamihana:

 

I have met many statesmen in the course of my long life, but none superior in intellect and character to this Maori chief, whom most people would look upon as a savage.  (John Gorst, New Zealand Revisited, Isaac Pitman and Sons, London (1908) p141)

 

As an example of what Gorst was referring to, we might begin by considering Tamihana's response to the ultimatum to the king movement on the part of Governor Gore-Browne in April 1861. (The full texts of the declaration together with Tamihana's response are reprinted in Evelyn Stokes's Wiremu Tamihana, Rangitira (Huia Publishers, 2002, pp207-223 ).

 

The basic demand of the governor was that the Waikato give up their King and submit to the sovereignty of the British Queen as set out in the Treaty of Waitangi. The following excerpt from Tamihana's reply exemplifies Gorst's assessment of his intellect and character.

 

Speaking of the way in which he had embraced the sacred name of God of the Old and New Testaments, he goes on

 

This great name of God which is spoken to me, why is this free to me while of this name of King it is said, it is not right (to mention it): it is a sacred thing. Enough, O friend: it is founded only upon the relation subsisting between the master and his slave; although the word of the slave may be right, the Chief will not admit it to be right.

 

In these words Tamihana effectively begins by pointing out that the British place more importance upon Maori bowing to the political rule of the British than to accepting the rule of God over their own lives as a nation!

 

He then likens the relationship between God and king (or queen) to that of a master to a slave.

 

Finally, he likens his own relationship to the governor to that of a slave to a Chief. The only problem is that, although the slave may be right, the Chief won't admit it!

 

The whole tenor of the stance is drawn from the Old Testament. Tamihana is stance toward the governor is like the prophet Nathan in his rebuke of King David!

 

He then goes on to quote from directly from the book of Deuteronomy. The reference is to the importance of the choice of a King for the Jews to be of Jewish stock.

 

This is it, O friend, look you at Deut 17:15. If all the Kings from the different countries were from Rome only, from thence also might come one for here. But is not the Queen a native of England, Nicholas of Russia, Buonaparte, of France, and Pomare, of Tahiti - each from is own people? Then why am I, or these tribes, rebuked by you, and told that we and you must unite together under the Queen.

 

He then goes on to ask the question as to why the Americans, who after all are of the same race as the British, are no longer required to submit to the authority of the British Queen, and then, quoting Ephesians 2:13, further goes on to state that the deepest bond between the Maori and the British is through Christ.

 

But now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:13) 

 

However, in the midst of this unity in Christ, the peoples of the worlds are diverse. As such they need Kings for themselves. Tamihana then goes on to say that he has no intention of causing offence. He simply wants to have the freedom to make up his own mind on these matters. In this regard, he then turns to the Treaty of Waitangi - a docu-ment the very few of the Waikato chiefs actually signed. He deals with it by way of a story:

 

Look! There are two stores of goods (or shops). The goods in one shop are sold. Those of the other are not sold. Now do you consider because the goods of one store are sold that the goods of the other went also. I say that they did not go. So with the consent of one Chief; that which belonged to another did not go by such consent being given. It is a similar case to that of the two stores. What harm is there in this name (the Maori king) that you are angry about. (Stokes, op cit p219)

 

The message is clear. The Maori tribes are in two groups: those who signed the treaty and those who didn't. Those who did agreed to offer their lands for sale to the Crown. Those who didn't, did no such thing.

 

However, the next point made by Tamihana - in the context of the discussion between British colonialism and Christianity - is nothing short of mind-boggling! Tamihana has his priorities absolutely right when he writes:

 

The great thing has been given to us, even the sacred things of God. We accepted those sacred things - Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Marriage. I say, O my friends, that the things of God are for as all. God did not make night and day for you only. No. Summer and winter are for all; the rain and the wind, food and life, are for us all. (Ibid p219).

 

In short, what Tamihana is saying is that we accepted the gospel as a universal message of salvation applying to all peoples. However, in the same breath he says that they in the Waikato, had rejected colonialism! Not only that, in their main focus upon the matters of political allegiance to the British Crown, he accuses the British of failing to live by Biblical principles! This is made plain in the following words:

 

My friends, do you grudge us a King, as if it were a greater name than God? If it were that God did not permit it, then it would be right to object, and would be given up; but it is not he who forbids; and while it is only our fellow-men who are angry, it will not be relinquished. If the anger is lest the laws should be different, it is well; let me be judged by the Great Judge - that is by God, by Him in whom all the worlds that we employed in have their origin. And now, O friends leave this king to stand upon his own place, and let it rest with our Maker as to whether he shall stand or fall. (Ibid p219).

 

I, for one, stand amazed at the integrity of this man. The logic and acumen of his arguments; the forthrightness with which he confronts those who would demand his political submission; above all, what impresses me is the fact that he fears God a lot more than he fears men. Would that today we had men and women leading the nations of the world possessed these qualities!

 

The Response of Governor Gore-Browne to Tamihana's letter.

 

John Gorst reports this whole incident on pp109-118 of The Maori King (1959 edition).

In particular he records Browne's reponse to Tamihana's letter as follows:

 

All doubt is now at an end, and it is evident that if the Maories will not submit, this part of the colony must be abandomed to Maori law, of which the aptest symbol is the tomahawk. (Gorst op cit p117)

 

In truth, of course, this response tells us more about Browne than Tamihana.

 

Browne was a government official of limited capacity for intellectually dealing with substantive issues. His perception of the Maori King movement was one that saw it in the simplistic terms of a bunch savages trying to defy the glory and might of the British Empire. On the other side of the world from its centre of power, he stood at the pinnacle of the of this awesome civilization, and wasn't about to condescend into an academic debate with an ignorant Maori chief!

 

However, for his part, Tamihana's reading of Chapter 17 of Deuteronomy hadn't been limited to verses 14 and 15, instructing the people of Israel to appoint a king over them from their own brethren.

 

He would also have read Deuteronomy 17:18-20.  This calls upon the king of Israel to write for himself a copy of the book of the law, to read it daily,  - partly to gain a full sense of the responsibility of supervising the administration of the public legal system, and partly to learn to fear God, and 'in his heart would not be lifted up above his brethren'.

 

In Tamihana's eyes, Browne's whole attitude to the crisis in general, and the issue of the question of kingship in particular, was characterized by a lack of the fear of God. He was placing the matters of the political sovereignty of the British Crown ahead of the things of God. In this respect too, Browne was guilty of lifting himself above his brethren.

 

No doubt, Browne considered Tamihana's forthrightness as a mark of arrogance and disrespect. For his part, Tamihana intended no disrespect, but found both the Colonial demands expressions of shear power. In particular their intellectual justification was sadly wanting.

 

Tamihana and Paul McHugh

Indeed, on this score, I would love to be able to listen to a debate between Wiremu Tamihana and one of the foremost legal scholars in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi, Paul McHugh, in respect to the matters raised by the former in the letter to Governor Browne.

 

In his book, The Maori Magna Carta, McHugh asserts that all Maori became British citizens by virtue of the declaration of British Sovereignty over New Zealand. (The Maori Magna Carta p114, especially note 49).  

 

McHugh's views are indebted to the way in which such thinkers as Locke, Austin and Dicey have influenced the legal theory and practice of the British tradition. In this respect, although not entirely discounted, the earlier influence of the Stoics, Aristotle and Aquinas, upon the issues of international law and its application to indigenous peoples, in particular, was certainly an important factor in the tricky issues concerning the legal obligations of the iwi in the Waikato who had not signed the Treaty.

 

It is most unlikely that Tamihana had any knowledge of all this theory. However, he did have a grasp of the issues that was very profound. He described it in the terms of  his famous theory of the sticks in the ground:

 

He illustrated his conception of the Maori king by pushing two sticks into the ground. 'One is the Maori king, the other the Governor'. He laid a third stick on top of the other two. 'This is the law of God and the Queen.' He then traced on the ground a circle around the sticks. 'That circle is the Queen, the fence to protect all.' (L.S.Rickard, Tamihana:  the Kingmaker, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington and Auckland. (1963) p74)

 

In terms of the international law developed by the Spanish Thomistic thinkers of the sixteenth in their confrontation with the ugly face of Colonialism in what is now Latin America, the declaration of sovereignty of a 'civilized' power over a territory inhabited by tribal peoples entailed them with responsibilities to develop a just social order in the territory that, in particular,

 

á      Respected native title rights to land, and

á      Respected the exercise of power by through the authority structures inherited by the people.

 

In particular, the later powers should only be curbed in the face of serious abuses in the form of cannibalism and habitual inter-tribal warfare.

 

It is clear that, quite apart from the Treaty of Waitangi, which he didn't sign, Tamihana worked within the framework of these principles.

 

I have laboured this point simply to illustrate that Gorst's claims concerning the intellect and character of Wiremu Tamihana are not exaggerated.

 

It is, in many ways unfortunate that Tamihana's intellectual skills had to be tried on the context of a political situation that was both full of tension and carried out with people of such limited caliber as Governor Thomas Gore-Browne.

 

It is not without reason that Tamihana gave Browne the name 'Angry-Belly'.

 

2. Wiremu Tamihana and Ranginui Walker

One thing that is very evident from a consideration of the above correspondence between Governor Gore-Browne and Wiremu Tamihana is the fact that the latter worked out of an intellectual frame of mind that was deeply influenced by his reading of the bible.

 

John Gorst makes the following comments that are very pertinent to any assessment of the issue of Christianity and Colonialism amongst Maori in the mid-nineteenth century. Of Tamihana he writes:

 

Having embraced Christianity from conviction, and not from hereditary custom, and being in the habit of constantly reading the Bible as almost his only literature, he argues on religious maxims, and intersperses his writings with Biblical quotations, in what appears to us an unusual degree. It would be a mistake to suppose this the result of cant or hypocrisy. Most of the Maories are exceedingly fond of reading the books of the Old Testament, in which they find described a state of civilization not unlike their own. (The Maori King, p103)

 

There were two ways in which Maori came under the influence of Christianity during the nineteenth century. The first was through the teaching, leadership and life of the missionaries. The second was the influence of their reading of the Bible in their own language.

 

There are certainly good reasons why the former of  these - the influence of the missionaries might be considered colonial. However, to suggest that the latter - the reading of the Bible should be seen in such terms is, quote frankly, ridiculous.

 

The influence of the Bible upon British culture is substantial, but still over-exaggerated.

The main point is, however, that culturally speaking, the Bible is not British. It is Middle Eastern. Furthermore, in respect to the Old Testament, it's an ancient book. In this respect, as Gorst makes quite clear, Maori read the Bible, not in the light of British culture of the missionaries, but in the light of their own culture.

 

Tamihana was raised in the culture and religion of his ancestors. As such it had scarcely changed in several hundred years. However, during the course of his lifetime, it changed on a massive scale.

 

Furthermore, by far the greater part of these changes were initiated by Maori themselves. The missionaries did not 'force Christianity down their throats'. When Maori finally embraced it, they took it very seriously. In Tamihana's case, as the above exchange with Gore-Browne makes plain, it was the convictions that he had largely arrived at out of his own reading of the Bible that led to his conflict with the might of the Imperial Army in his beloved Waikato.

 

The King movement was something of a mixed bag. Rewi Maniapoto represented a more traditional Maoridom, one that was both vigorously anti-pakeha and much less under the influence of biblical principles. However, for those chiefs of the peace-party, influenced in no small measure by Tamihana's leadership, we have an example of an indigenous Christianity that was opposed to Colonialism.

 

This phenomenon, amongst a number of other factors, effectively refutes the case that Christianity in New Zealand is to be considered an integral part of colonialism.

 

In what follows, I shall simply recount the main phases of the life of Wiremu Tamihana and the contributions he made to the transformational development of Waikato Maoridom of his times.

 

3. The Rejection of Utu, and the Communities of Te Tapiri and Peria

Sadly, upon a world-stage, the general claim of people like Rangi Walker concerning the unholy alliance of colonialism and Christian mission, has considerable validity. However, this general validity cannot be permitted to distort facts that do not fit it. In this respect, there are two issues of major importance that invalidate the generality of Walker's claims concerning the intentions and actions of the Church Missionary Society being an advance guard for cultural and social perversion of Maoridom:

 

á      The failure to appreciate the work of the British societies: The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and The Aboriginal Protection Society, with particular reference to the colonialism of the New Zealand situation in the early nineteenth century.

á      The life and work of Wiremu Tamihana, both during the early phase in which alliance between colonialism and Chrisitian mission was being tempered, and the later phase in which it once again became dominant.

 

We drew attention to the first of these at the end of the previous chapter. Our concern here will be to consider the way in which this missionary effort affected the life of Tamihana.

 

Wiremu Tamihana was born around 1820, and grew up under the name of Tarapipipi, the son of the warrior chief, Te Waharoa. In his youth and young manhood, Tarapipipi experienced the culture and religion of Maoridom as it had existed largely unchanged for many centuries. During his lifetime however, the extent of the change to Maoridom brought about by the contact with European culture, was massive. To that process, as Wiremu Tamihana (the Maori version of his baptismal name William Thompson) he sought to bring a vision of renewal and development to the life of his people that neither sought to make Maori culture into an ikon, nor sought for its rejection  in favour of wholesale Europeanization.

 

That Tamihana came to know the Bible through the efforts of the missionaries is, of course, true. However, the missionaries were invited onto tribal lands by his father Te Waharoa.  Whilst Te Waharoa  never revoked his pagan and warlike ways, his younger son was deeply affected by the  biblical message conveyed to him by the missionaries.

 

However, Tamihana was far from being an Uncle Tom. Although the missionaries introduced him to the Bible, it was this book itself that made the greater impact. His knowledge of the Bible was prodigious but, to a large extent, self-taught. He was never subjected to the kind of theological education that most Churchman in the western world experience. He once contemplated going to the Anglican Theological College, St. John's in Auckland. However, he decided against it when he learnt that if he did so, he would have to give up smoking his pipe! The overall result of this decision was that he dedicated his life to serving his people with the Good News of the Kingdom in a way that was more in keeping with the offices of a politician, a town planner, a school teacher, a diplomat and a statesman than that of a churchman! The point here, however, is that he was spared the influence of an English church style education upon how to read the Bible.

 

In the early days of embracing the new faith he and the other members of the tribe taking the step were very much in the minority and, as such, experienced many difficulties. It was hard enough to start practicing a new way of life without having to do it in the midst of the majority of a tribe firmly set in their old ways.  Those breaking with tradition are rarely looked on with favour by their fellows and the indications are that those who re-mained pagan were apt to pour scorn on those who adopted the new faith.

 

Hence, initially under the guidance of the missionary, the Christian inhabitants of what is now Matamata, some one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Auckland, built a pa on a piece of ground owned by the Church Missionary Society. The pa was called Tapiri, and was the home to the Christian members of the tribe for some eight years. This step was taken before the death of Te Waharoa. As the younger son, Tamihana was not the first choice to succeed him as chief.  Despite leaving the traditional pa, and declaring that he would no longer participate in the tribal warfare related to the settling of utu, he was prevailed upon by the tribe to replace his elder brother as chief. Initially the invitation was given in a manner that also encouraged him to forsake his new faith and return to the old ways - particuarly the warlike ones - for the sake of his father.  Tamihana remained firm in his convictions, and was still made chief. Furthermore, he took further positive steps to bring an end to the tribal wars that were taking toll of the lives of Maori peoples by thwarting the efforts of war-parties. This involved the sending of warning-parties ahead of them in the singular endeavour of preventing bloodshed.

 

The planning of Te Tapiri was principally due to Tamihana. It was laid out in miniature streets graveled with pumice soil from the river banks. As it was not built for war, there was no stockade; a simple fence sufficed to enclose it. Both in its general appearance as well as in its social relationships and overall pattern of life, the community impressed both locals and travelers alike. It was a kind of innovative and progressive anabaptist community that was governed jointly by the commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, but in a way that tried to enhance traditional mutual obligations with the rest of the tribe. Thus, Tamihana posted the following code of laws at the entrance to Te Tapiri.

 

 

My friends, listen to me.

 

God has said: Thou shalt not commit adultery. If any of us commit adultery, let him be put out of this pa.

God has said: Thou shalt not steal. If any of us steal, let him be put out of this pa.

God has said: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. If any of us work on the Sabbath day, let him be put out of this pa.

If any of us swear let him be put outside.

If any man be tattooed after joining this pa, let him be put outside.

(Harold Miller, Race Conflict in New Zealand, 1814-1865, Blackwood and Janet Paul, Auckland (1966) pp150-151).

 

When the latter finally provoked him by saying that he had no right to interfere in tribal affairs whilst not living on tribal land, the community moved their town to Peria, in the Maungakawa Hills. It remained Tamihana's much favoured home for the rest of his days, and a detailed description of it was made by J.C. Firth, (J.C. Firth, Nation Making, Lon-don (1890) p37), who considered that it embodied the best features of Maori traditional settlement with abundant marks of the genius of Tamihana. Every morning  and evening a bell called the people to prayer; work was communal, yet every individual household was complete with its garden of wheat, maize and kumara. It probably represented the happiest period of Tamihana's life.

 

4. The Failure of Kawanatanga and the Colonial Threat

The British attitude to the settlement of New Zealand had always been two-faced. On the one hand it was genuinely motivated by a humanitarian concern for the indigenous peoples. This was, in part, a result of the disastrous and shameful treatment of the indigenous Tasmanians - the latter had virtually been exterminated by the guns of the settlers. On the other it was motivated by the concerns and interests of the British Empire, both in terms of its own reputation and in terms of dealing with the claims of rival 'civilized' powers.

 

Prior to 1838, the more humanitarian attitude was dominant, and the support of the British Resident, James Busby, for the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand, is evidence to the effect that broader coloninal intentions were not high on the agenda.

As Claudia Orange remarks:

 

During 1838 there was a marked shift in British attitudes towards New Zealand - a fatalistic or defeatist acceptance of the inevitable. The tide of British colonisation could not be held back forever, the Maori world was changing and the initiative would pass by right to the British. Maori capacity to exercise control over New Zealand affairs was belitted, and it was easy to conclude that an unencumbered Maori sovereignty was no longer worth supporting. Maori innocently contributed to this by periodically expressing a desire for British law. They also seemed to be acquiescing in speculative land dealings in the last year or so before 1840; if evidence were needed to justify the loss of Maori independence, land-sharking provided it. (C. Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi, Allen and Unwin, Wellington (1987) p27).

 

From the standpoint of the British, there were three main objectives  to be achieved in the Treaty proposals of 1840: the legal status of the country, particularly as it related to resident Europeans and the sovereignty aspirations of the French and the Americans

over the country; the humanitarian concern for the welfare of the  Maori; and the need to convince the Maori that further British intrusion should be accepted, with land sales from the Maori to be granted exclusively through the British Crown.

 

The Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed by the Maori, has three clauses:

 

Article One - the Kawanatanga or Governorship clause

 

This involves the ceding of certain powers - summed up as kawanatanga - from the chiefs to the British Crown.

 

Article Two - the Rangitiratanga or Chieftainship clause

 

This involves  a guarantee to the effect that the powers of Chieftainship in respect to the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands, forests and fisheries and other properties that they individually or collectively possess. The Chiefs grant the exclusive right of purchase of same to the British Crown.

 

Article Three - the British citizenship clause

 

The British Crown extends the full rights of British citizenship to the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand.

 

In the wake (a) of the earlier attitudes of the British government to the colonization of New Zealand,  and (b) the problems associated with that lack of an effective legal system to deal with the musket wars, and a whole range of other intertribal conflicts, in con-junction with the unscrupulous behaviour of many Europeans outside of the authority of the rangitiratanga, the missionaries believed that the consequences of signing the Treaty on the part of the Maori would be overwhelmingly to their benefit.

 

Tamihana was not a signatory to the Treaty. However, he did live the mature years of his life during the period in which the consequences of the signing of the Treaty was given the opportunity to prove itself.

 

The Maori had no first-hand experience of either sovereignty or kawanatanga. The latter term derives from the missionary attempt to translate the New Testament into Maori. As such it derives from two words; the English 'governor', transliterated as 'kawana' and the Maori '- tanga' that has the same basic force as the English '-ship'.  Hence, as a student of the New Testament, Tamihana's understanding of what was entailed with kawana-tanga would be based largely upon the exercise of power by people such as Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea. He would have understood this to involve a responsibility to oversee and exercise a form of political and legal power that was concerned with the inter-relations between different groups of people under his jurisdiction. Jews, Sam-aritans, Galileans all had their local 'tribal' jurisdictions. These were all recognised by the governor and, for the greater part,  not to be  interfered with - he wanted, for exam-ple, nothing to do with putting Jesus to death. That was entirely a Jewish matter.

 

Thus, under the terms of the Treaty, Tamihana looked for an effective development of a system of law and order that would transcend the limitations of the authority of rangi-tiratanga to deal with both inter-tribal conflicts and the bad behaviour of Europeans in relation to the Maori peoples.

 

A reading of The Maori King by Sir John Gorst shows very clearly that, in Tamihana's mind, the British had failed in their treaty obligations to bring kawanatanga to New Zealand. This was one of the principle reasons for his supporting the role of the Maori King - that of helping to  provide the kind of trans-tribal law and order needed for the effective rule of law over the country.

 

The other reasons had to do with an increasing awareness of the more ugly side of the intentions of British colonialism. This prejudice on the part of the colonists is well illustrated in the various encounters during a journey and visit to Auckland in 1857, prior to his full commitment to the course of action involving the appointment of the Maori King. The object of his visit was to interview the Governor regarding the state of the country as it affected the well- being of Maori people in particular. He had drawn up a code of laws which seemed necessary to him to dealing with the existing chaos, and wanted to discuss it with the Governor. However, a subordinate government official kept him waiting all day. The numerous pakeha visitors were given preference, and he was advised to come back the next day. He did not return. Having failed to see the Governor, he went to visit the Native Secretary to ask for a loan to build a new flour mill at Peria. No doubt because the person concerned  knew of Tamihana's opposition to further land sales, the request was refused.

 

However, both his statesmanship and his humility were  put to the test in the last of the three insults he received on that ill-fated journey. He took his passage back to Peria by way of a small cutter. In the course of its trading, the master had occasion to run the cutter into a small bay to get water. Ignorant of his passenger's rank, of Maori custom and of civilised manners, he ordered the Maori Kingmaker in the words:

 

Here, you nigger, go ashore and bring some water aboard. (Firth, Nation Making, op cit, p32)

 

These words, indicative of  a  racist slaver owner to the ill-gotten gain of 'his property' to  do his bidding, were a major insult.  Had he done it to Rewi Maniapoto, the master of the cutter would not have lived to see the sun go down. For his part Tamihana, after an initial surge of anger, fetched the water, but his humility was sorely tested. However, it served to give him insight into the problems of the racial prejudice, particularly on the part of  'the less civilized' pakeha that lay in the way of a fair and just treatment from the settlers and their government. The insults only served to deepen his conviction that the only way of preventing  his people from becoming a race of slaves in their own country was by means of an effective development of their own  national identity, coupled with a con-certed attempt to resist further land sales.  For this to be achieved maoridom needed the king as the symbolic focus of  their transtribal nationhood.

 

Tamihana therefore threw all his formidable skills into the support of the movement for the establishment of a Maori king. Whilst he did not initiate it, these skills certainly gave the king movement  its new vision, one that was not to be anti-pakeha, but to work cooperatively  with the pakeha within the terms of the Maori understanding of the Treaty of  Waitangi. As such it was welcomed by a number of more enlightened Europeans, such as Sir William Martin as well as the then Governor of New South Wales, Sir William Denison (Rickard, p76). However, it was viewed as a threat both by the people of Auckland and by Governor Gore-Browne.

 

Browne, both in the part he played in the Waitara dispute and in his correpondence with the King movement, showed himself to be completely out of his depth. His lack of appreciation of the Maori view of the ownership of property, as well as his inability to enter dalogue with the  King movement reflected  a high-handedness that simply confirmed Maori suspicions. With the dismissal of Gore-Brown and the re-appointment of Grey these suspicions were further hardened with  the decision of the latter to construct the protective fortifications known as the Queen's Redoubt south of Auckland.

 

In many ways, Tamihana's vision was simple. Its most important and far-sighted feature was in the uniting of the Maori people so that they could respond together to the advance of the pakeha. Coupled to this was the resolution to cease from any further land sales either to the Government or to individual European settlers. In this he was no reactionary wanting to turn the clock back. To the contrary he was most appreciative of the good things brought to New Zealand by colonisation, and wanted to see the process of social and cultural intercourse proceed apace. His vision for the Maori king entailed the estab-lishment of a justice system that would unite Maoridom under the overall acknowledge-ment of the Queen of England, but would, at the same time be administered by Maori themselves. Whilst this had features of the ardent Maori nationalism, the evidence of John Gorst would suggest that it was as much motivated by the fact that twenty years of  rule by pakeha Governors in consort  with a colonial government  had done nothing to establish the justice system that would have been expected to follow from its claim to political sovereignty over the islands. The results were plain to see. The pursuit of utu continued; the worst features of  European culture -such as  the increasing rum trade - were taking their toll upon the well-being of the people; crimes of murder and theft were left untried and unpunished.

 

His vision also included many positive points associated with European settlement, particularly the pursuit of education and the development of agriculture. These features had figured prominently at Peria, where the school presided over by Tamihana was very well known both for its standard of conduct and for the quality of its education - in both Maori and English.

 

The successful implementation of this vision was, in many ways, dependent upon avoid-ing war between Maori and Pakeha. To this end Wiremu Tamihana used all his skills. He tried to curb the inherited cultural instincts of the Maori to resolve disputes by means of the show of arms, while negotiating with the Pakeha powers - both in respect of gaining their support for the Maori King,  and in thwarting their attempts to gain Maori land. The reader is referred to his  biography (L.S. Rickard, Tamihana the Kingmaker, op cit) for the details concerning Tamihana's attempts to negotiate this diplomatic tight-rope.

 

 

5. 'The Sticks' - Transcending Rangitiratanga in Relation to an Effective Kawanatanga

The best way of trying to understand Tamihana's vision for the king movement is as an extension of the communal settlements of Te Tapiri and Peria. The latter had been established as Christian communities retaining close relations with their Ngati-Haua kin. This context had seen the positive development of the runanga in respect of the develop-ment of a law-abiding community. It was also the context from which Tamihana had sought to thwart the slaughter associated with utu-as-revenge killing, the development of education and many other cultural features important to the ongoing development and inner transformation of Maoridom.

 

The problems facing Ngati-Haua in the 1840's were exactly the problems faced by the whole of Maoridom in the central North Island. Tamihana's vision had always been of trying to work with pakeha, not against them. However, he was constantly hampered by prejudice and broken promises to the extent that he came to the view that only by participating in a movement trying to unite the warring tribes of Maoridom into a single nation, could their identity be preserved.

 

In this respect Tamihana sought to exercise a leadership with respect to both Christian and pagan Maori, as he had already done at Peria. This influence was again primarily with respect to the need of Maori to be governed by the justice of a legal system. In his mind, the model for the implementation of his vision was provided by the attempt to overcome the lawlessness of the Israelites in their early Old Testament situation of entering the Promised Land.

 

Thus the Torah was to make its contribution to the shaping and further development of Maori custom -as it entailed the development of rangitiratanga on what remained of their ancestral lands. The movement, under his leadership, had the aim of uniting the warring tribes a single nation that, in terms of its identity, would make its contribution to the development of the law of the country, particularly in respect of  the jurisdiction over what remained of their traditional lands. In this, though himself not a signatory to the Treaty of 1840, he advocated a form of peaceful co-existence with the colonists that would be characterised by a further development of the existing level of cultural and commercial exchange. Had his vision been realised, the likely course of New Zealand history would have seen the development of a single political nation with two ethnicities, each having a measure of power in respect of the lands they owned and occupied. This would have entailed a freedom of movement between the two regions, and would have functioned rather like the current situation between England, Scotland and Wales. As discussed earlier in this book, this vision is described in his own words and actions as follows:

 

He illustrated his conception of the Maori king by pushing two sticks into the ground. 'One is the Maori king, the other the Governor.' He laid a third stick on top of the other two. 'This is the law of God and the Queen.' He then traced on the ground a circle around the sticks. 'That circle is the Queen, the fence to protect all.' (L.S.Rickard, Tamihana, the Kingmaker, p74)

 

This symbolism makes it very clear that, just as Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales had one monarch, providing a political unity, so too Tamihana's proposal entailed a political unity of Maori and Pakeha under the British Queen. Furthermore, just as the British constitution permitted features of national distinctiveness to  Scottish law, so Tamihana's argument entailed a similar priviledge for the Maori - a feature implicitly provided for in the 'rangitiratanga' or chieftainship clause of the Treaty of Waitangi. The sticking point arose because of the differing perceptions of the role of the governor. As far as the Imperial and Colonial authorities were concerned, they could not see the co-lateral proposal of the Maori King other than in the overtly political terms that would entail him being a rival to the Queen. In fact, this amounted to a modernist assumption concerning the identification of a state with a nation that, in colonist eyes,  justified the Empire's use of its military power to crush an emerging national identity.

 

As far as Tamihana and other members of the King movement were concerned, the issue concerning the Maori king was one of seeking to provide a symbolic focus for the devel-opment of Maori identity from a group of warring tribes, having no higher allegiance than that of the tribe, to that of a form of nationhood based upon a common language, ethnic ties and cultural traditions that transcended tribal allegiance. In this respect, it is significant that, in a major recent historical study, The Construction of Nationhood, (Cambridge University Press, (1997)), Adrian Hastings has demonstrated that it is these factors rather than the political ones that are foundational to nationhood. Hastings has subjected the modernist understanding of nationhood and nationalism characteristic of such writers as Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, to a thorough re-analysis. By contrast to their views concerning the eighteenth century historical beginnings to nations and nationalism, Hastings argues for a mediaeval origin to both. In this respect he also argues for a significant place to given to the development of biblical religion and vernacular literatures, with particular reference to the English example. He then broadens his treatment significantly so as to include a discussion of  a wide range of other examples, including those of the Balkans and Africa.

 

With the benefit of Hastings' analysis, it is clear that the role of the governor, in Tamihana's proposal, was twofold. Politically, he represented the Queen, as symbolised by the third stick and the circle on the ground around the three sticks. Nationally, he represented the settlers, as coming from nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It was in this latter sense that the governor and the Maori king were the first two sticks in the ground. However, in the light of the idolatrous power of Empire, this dual functioning of the governor in Tamihana's vision was lost in the glory of the British Empire, and it was only the political reality - exercised as sovereignty - that functioned in the minds and hearts of the Governors, the settlers and even in such thinkers as John Stuart Mill.

 

It may be argued that had Tamihana and his associates succeeded in realising their vision, the achievement might well have served as a shining example to the ongoing problems of tribalism that have wreaked havoc in most of the colonial political regimes  taken over by independence movements - the Solomons, Rwanda-Burundi as well as elsewhere in Africa - even in  such countries as Kenya - as well as, in a somewhat different way, in Fiji.

 

Tamihana's vision for uniting the tribes under a king was inspired by his reading of the Old Testament. In particular he was fond of quoting:

 

You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality; and you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice and only justice shall you follow, that you may live and inherit the land which the LORD your God gives you. (Deut 16:18-20)

 

 When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, 'I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me'; you may indeed set as king over you him whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you. (Deut 17:14-15)

 

His vision entailed the office of kingship as both a symbol and means of promoting a form of justice that would have effectively set aside the  issues of tribal rivalry and their customs of utu (revenge) that had promoted  the endless inter-tribal warfare between them. This would be replaced by a system of law that would promote a system of justice for all. It would have involved a reshaping of tribal custom as well as an appropriate drawing from British Common Law, the Ten Commandments and the Torah. It was also to provide a national symbol giving a Maori identity that was distinct both from Tribe and  Pakeha. However, the potential for an expression of enmity toward the latter, was, for him, a secondary consideration. For his more pagan compatriot Rewi Maniapoto, however, the latter was the prime factor. As the situation between Maori and Pakeha grew more tense leading to war, so the de facto leadership of the king movement moved toward Maniapoto. Gorst, for example, refers to the peace-party and the war-party in the King movement, with Tamihana and Maniapoto as their respective leaders.

 

It is of some value to consider the elemental theory of Tamihana in relation both to the Treaty of Waitangi and to the basic principles of International Law, as developed by Vitoria and Grotius, discussed in the previous chapter.

 

The fundamental principles of international law were that any claim to sovereignty over a territory inhabited by tribal peoples by a 'civilized' power entailed responsibilities to oversee the development of a just legal and political system that was characterised by two particular features:

 

á      The honouring of all land and property rights of the indigenous peoples in the territory.

á      To work with and respect the existing authority structures governing the social orders of the indigenous peoples.

 

In broad terms, the text of the Treaty embodies these features. At the time of signing, however, none of the parties envisaged the kind of phenomenon proposed by Tamihana: the internal trans-tribal movement toward nationhood. Furthermore, this kind of internal development from tribalism to nationhood was rare under colonial regimes. In most cases, the colonial powers preferred to exercise their political sovereignty in ways that, whilst granting the tribal structures a limited form of traditional authority, preferred to impose their own legal and political systems. With the twentieth century breakdown of political forms of colonialism, the results of these policies are only too evident: tribal, racial and nationalistic traditional rivalries re-emerge to provide barriers to the cohesive development of an indigenous form of political nationhood that is based upon an ethnicity that transcends the traditional loyalties.

 

The New Zealand case is best understood as an attempt on the part of the Imperial and Settler Governments to stamp the same kind of colonial pattern that developed elsewhere. This entailed a form of political sovereignty that was determined, in the interests of colonial settlement, to grant only minimal rights under the terms of the Treaty. As the latter provided no specifics for a Maori King allowing for the existing loyalities of the Tribes and Chiefs to be transcended, it was not difficult to make a case against the Maori King.

 

The counter-argument, of course, was simply to the effect that the authority of the Maori King was something that grew out of the existing authority of the Tribes and Chiefs. As such, it was covered by the second article. Moreover, it fell within the ambit of the obligation, under International Law, for the sovereign power to develop the legal and political systems in ways that took the existing authority structures of the indigenous peoples, including their potential for internal development, fully into account.

 

Suffice to say that, during the 1860's, the Settler Government in particular, was determined to impose an interpretation of the Treaty that was contrary to the one signed by the Maori in 1840. Not only that; it was also contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the principles of International Law. (Refer to C. Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi, op. cit. Chapter 8, A War of Sovereignty pp159-184)

 

Suffice to say, that if Tamihana's theory had been accepted as the basis for the relation-ship between Maori and Pakeha under God and the Queen, then New Zealand might not only have been spared the kinds of injustice and acrimony that followed. It might also have served to provide an example in which an indigenous tribal social order was able to develop into a nation working cooperatively alongside a settler nation under the one political sovereignty, that could have served as a model for many of the problems now experienced as a consequence of the failure of colonial regimes to deal with this kind of problem, exposing the post-colonial era to the ongoing problems of tribalism.

 

 

6. The Missing Sermon at Peria in October 1862

We may illustrate the international significance of Wiremu Tamihana relation to the unholy alliance between colonialism and Christian mission with reference to an important convention held at Peria, home of Wiremu Tamihana, in October 1862, only months before the outbreak of the hostilities involved with the Waikato war, the most serious conflict ever fought on New Zealand soil. Some of the more significant features of the event were recorded by John Gorst in New Zealand Revisited (op. cit. pp 242-253). Two sermons were preached on the Sunday, one by Wiremu Tamihana, the other by Bishop Selwyn, then Anglican Bishop of New Zealand. Both sermons took as their starting points the text from Psalm 133: 'Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity.' Tamihana's was preached in the morning, the Bishop's in the afternoon.

 

In view of the impact of these and subsequent events upon the course of New Zealand history the two sermons turn on the problems of colonialism and Christian mission, particularly as they relate to the power of the ancien regime in the form of the British Empire headed by a Queen, constitutionally deemed to be the head of both Church and State.

 

After a consideration of the two sermons, we will focus on this matter by way of the elements of a third sermon that might have been preached in the evening. It concerns the promotion of the Good News of the Kingdom to the nations in a way that directly considers the unholy alliance between European colonial expansion and Christian mission focused upon the particular circumstances  prevailing in New Zealand during the 1860's.

 

Tamihana's sermon emphasised the benefit to the Maori people being united under a Maori king. Formerly perpetually engaged in quarrels and wars, they were now in the process of uniting in nationhood, with each tribe pursuing the interests of all.

 

The Bishop's sermon applied the text to the situation between Maori and Pakeha, with a none-too veiled implication of the threat posed to this relationship by the Maori king.

 

I searched the Scriptures to see whether God approved of division. I searched in vain from the beginning to end. The only thing I saw was that God approved of unity. It is Satan who causes division; unity is Christ's. (L.S.Rickard, Tamihana the Kingmaker, op. cit. p139)

 

The bishop enlarged upon this theme with reference to Solomon, and of how - as a con-sequence of his change of heart - the Israelite kingdom was divided. He reminded his listeners of the feud between the Jews and the Samaritans, and  the way in which this was supposed to end with the coming of Christ. He went on to point out that the children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth were to be united with the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Christ.

 

He concluded with a parable easily understood by the Maoris. He told them of an isolated solitary piece of water that sprang up in a swamp. It was great only in the mud. On its own it was neither water nor land. It could not be ploughed nor could vessels sail in it. In the end it would disappear, suitable only for eels to crawl through and pigs to wallow in. He contrasted the water in the swamp with a pleasant stream newly born from the womb of the heavens. He pointed out that the latter lost its significance in its confluences with other water courses in pursuing its destiny toward the ocean. He concluded with the following words:

 

So in like manner this is my greatness, that of the one man, to be lost in the Church, that of the Church to be lost in Christ, and the greatness of Christ to be lost in God, 'that God may be all in all'. (Rickard, op.cit. p140-141)

 

According to John Gorst, who learnt of these events from the Bishop himself, Selwyn's intention was to urge upon the Maoris the great advantages that would arise from the cordial union of the Maori and Pakeha peoples, and emphasised the impossibility of such a union taking place unless they agreed to submit to one law and one sovereign. (John Gorst, New Zealand Revisited, op. cit. pp244-45)

 

In almost every respect, Bishop Selwyn was the very antithesis of the portrait of the Vic-torian bishop of the Anglican ancien regime drawn by Anthony Trollope in his novels comprising The Barchester Chronicles. He was well used to travelling by horse-back and canoe in the New Zealand  bush. He was adept at caring for his own needs, always mak-ing it a principle to look after himself down to the smallest detail when staying with the many he visited while moving around the country. He was equally at home whether visiting Maori or pakeha. Furthermore, he was not afraid of incurring the wrath of the European colonists by speaking his mind on contentious issues. Gorst remarks that when he first arrived in New Zealand he was the most unpopular man in the colony because of his courage to speak the truth in respect of the injustice of the sale of Maori land in Waitara that led to the war in Taranaki. In this respect, though his views were also supported by the Chief Justice, Sir William Martin and the former Attorney-General, William Swainson, the settlers were not impressed by such support being given to the natives, even though they might be in the right. (Ibid p27)  However, on the issue of the development of an independent Maori national identity focused upon the Maori king, Selwyn was unmoved. It is doubtful that his views were solely motivated by a fear for their welfare consequent upon a war. His ability to stand up for what he saw as the truth of the matter was well demonstrated in the Waitara dispute.

 

Given the difference of views of two men of such integrity preaching sermons at the small Maori settlement of Peria on that historic Sunday, it is of some interest to investigate the nature and significance of their differences. Both men held the Bible in high regard.  However, their different approaches to it, as evidenced by their respective sermons  preached on the verge of the outbreak of the most serious armed conflict ever fought on New Zealand soil, make a comparison of their approaches of much more than mere academic interest.

 

Tamihana's sermon was orientated to the benefits that had already accrued to Maoridom as a result of the efforts of the tribes that had elected to unite under the banner of the king. The vision inspired by the injunctions given to Israel in the book of Deuteronomy had already begun to bear fruit. These tribes had formally been in constant readiness for war. Now, they were in the process of working together to establish their cooporative sense of nationhoood, one that was involved in the development of a system of law and order. How pleasant it was for brothers to dwell in unity was a celebration of the fruit of the Good News of the Kingdom of God bringing healing to a nation. Of course it was not difficult to make criticisms of their efforts at nation-building. They had bold ideas on setting up a system of law, but had many problems putting it all into practice. Given the situation of the musket wars of the 1830's, however, they had come an incredibly long way in thirty years, and much of this was the fruit of the missionary work.

 

The Maoris would have found much to agree with in the bishop's sermon. At that time the supporters of the Maori king, with the possible exception of Maniapoto, were neither anti-pakeha, nor anti-queen. Indeed, Tamihana and many other chiefs had recently received letters from the tribes sympathetic to the King movement who had embraced Roman Catholicism, encouraging them to convert on the grounds that the necessity of their allegiance to the Queen of England would be thereby reduced! Tamihana and his fellows were indignant. They were very happy to continue worshipping in accord with the Anglican habit of the prayer book custom of praying for the effective governance of the British Queen. Gorst cites a circumstance in which he, the Maori king and the missionary Ashwell shared the same prayer book, at which at the conclusion of the prayer for the queen, the Maori king said a loud 'Amen'. (refer Gorst, New Zealand Revisited, op. cit. pp 221-222). Hence, they could not understand why the bishop disapproved of the Maori king, especially in view of the fact that Israel, in a comparable situation of their history, had been granted this kind of freedom - a king from amongst their brethren to give them  national unity in the integration of their tribes.

 

It is clear from his parable that the bishop viewed the Maori idea of the King, developed by Tamihana, as an isolationist national entity that would lead the Maori away from ef-fective contact with the rest of the world.  It would be like 'stagnant water in a swamp' - as land it would not be suitable for ploughing, as water it would not be suitable for vessels to sail in. It is difficult to see the Maori vision accurately portrayed by this parable. Tamihana's explanation of the way in which the Maori king was to work with the Governor under the law of God and the Queen, both under the effective protective governance of the British Crown over the islands, had a level of sophistication that made its interpretation by the bishop's parable almost insulting. Furthermore, the ways in which the Maoris had already learnt from and adapted to the benefits of European culture, without jettisoning their own distinctiveness, were very obvious. Added to this the British themselves - at the instigation of the British Resident James Busby - had only thirty years earlier attempted to establish a form of Maori political unity over the northern parts of New Zealand.

 

It is not difficult to fault the bishop's sermon on other grounds. The Church of Jesus Christ was itself divided, as the overtures to the Anglican Maoris at Peria by their Roman Catholic cousins had shown. Hence, when the Church itself failed to display the kind of unity spoken of by the bishop, how could it claim to represent the undivided authority of Christ?  Surely, in the terms of his sermon, its own disunity must be derived from Satan!

 

At this point the bishop's message exposes the kind of problem that is typical of the kind of spiritualising of the bible that renders it very difficult to apply its message to the real problems of everyday life. Between earth and paradise the unity of humankind in Christ has been established only in principle - as the full fruit of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, it will only be free of the sin that renders the evils resulting from the differences between peoples with the coming of paradise at the end of the age.  All human institutions, whether they be marriages, families, nations or churches, are part of the real world that is God's creation in the process of redemption. During the time between earth and paradise, there is both unity and disunity. In the context of this battle between the kingdoms, it is the task of human beings to exercise their offices to promote peace, harmony and forgiveness in the process of an exercise of cultural power that more faithfully reflects the realization of the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.

 

How did the British Empire of the Nineteenth century fit into the scheme of  'the water courses flowing from one to another, losing their identity in the process' of the bishop's parable? This question goes right to the heart of the unholy alliance between colonialism and Christian mission. During the nineteenth century, the Empire had a dual purpose: it fostered and aided the Christian missionary vision in a manner that enabled the benefits of 'civilisation' to be shed abroad. However, it also exercised  political power that did little to nurture or develop the national identity of native peoples. Political power was established and maintained by the Empire principally for the benefit of the British. Whilst in some cases this did not involve colonisation on a large scale, in others it did. New Zealand, subsequent to the 1850's began to fall into the latter category. Unfortunately, the British missionary enterprise effectively accomodated itself to the worldliness of the British Colonial and Imperial enterprise.

 

The Anglican version of the ancien regime shaping many features of the bishop's outlook

inherited all the features of the unholy alliance of the Constantinian settlement that subsequently saw Europe as a 'Christendom'  governed by either Monarch, Pope or Emperor, in the name of God. In the Anglican model the monarch was the head of both Church and State. As such Bishop Selwyn, no less than Governor Grey, gained his commission from the Queen. In so doing, Selwyn considered his pastoral ministry to be exclusive to neither pakeha nor Maori, but for both. Indeed it was in very strong terms that the Bishop intimated as much at Peria on the day following the two sermons:

 

Here am I, a mediator for New Zealand. My work is mediation. I am not merely a Pakeha, or a Maori; I am a half-caste. I have eaten your food, I have slept in your houses; I have talked with you, partaken of the Holy Communion with you. There-fore I say I am a half-caste. ..Yes, we are all of us half caste. Your dress is half-caste - a Maori mat and English clothes; your strength is half-caste -  your courage Maori, your weapons English guns... (H.W. Tucker, Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of Geoge Augustus Selwyn, Volume II, pp181-2, William Sells Gardner, (1879))

 

On these grounds, Selwyn endeavoured to help resolve the issues. There was agreement on all points except that of the Maori king. As far as the Maoris were concerned this was not only a legitimate expression of their rangitiratanga, granted under the Treaty that most of them hadn't signed, it also appeared to them to have support from the Old Testa-ment Scriptures.

 

With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to say that Bishop Selwyn should have directed his prophetic voice to the racism of his the pakeha compatriots - criticising  the acquisitiveness of the settlers, especially to those who were exercising their political power in dubious and underhand ways for the gaining of land from the Maoris.  However, he was so bound to the influence of the Anglican form of the ancien regime with its obligations on the part of both Church and State to the Queen of England, that he was unable to accept the idea of the limited form of sovereignty entailed by the notion of the Maori king.

 

The Third Sermon

Like all ancien regimes in Europe, the Anglican version was under the severe threat of the Enlightenment. More fundamentally, it was under the judgment of God. We might therefore envisage the third sermon being preached at Peria on that Sunday evening as one that took as its text the second chapter of the book of Daniel. Its vision of the great god-king made of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron being broken to pieces by the stone untouched by humanhand was being enacted before their eyes.

 

This sermon might have pointed out the way in which Western history had sought to remould the great image of the god-king by bringing it into a synthesis with the stone untouched by human hand. This image now embodied in the combined missionary and colonial power sanctioned by the Queen was in the process of trying to bring all peoples under its lordship. In the process the Queen was both supporting and denying  the indigenous nations the redemptive work of the stone cut by no human hand in respect of the restorative development of their nationhood.

 

The bishop and the other missionaries needed to realise the two-sided features of the ancien regime, and call them to act in the prophetic manner that accorded with their calling to serve and worship the God who tolerates no other ultimate source of order and meaning in his presence.

 

The sermon might have concluded with a reference to the text of Deuteronomy 17, so often quoted by Tamihana, but now orientated to the problematic pagan features of the tradition of European kingship.

 

With regard to what Tamihana had said in the sermon in the morning,  it  would have been quite proper for the bishop to try to redress the balance by pointing out the unity of Maori and pakeha in Christ. However, he went well beyond that. The clear implication of his message was to oppose the development of Maori national identity. It is clear from the parable of the pool in the swamp and the clear running stream that he viewed the whole idea of the further development of a Maori national identity  focussed upon Maori king as one that would lead the Maori into a cultural and social backwater.

 

The evening sermon might then have gone on to make the point that, for all its outward piety, the bishop's sermon effectively supported that inherent feature of the ancien regime that was at the heart of the two-faced  British colonial policy enacted by Governor Grey. If the bishop had been freed of the legacies of Hellenistic spirituality as well as the heritage of the Anglican version of Church-State relations, he might have been  able to exercise his prophetic task more effectively. As it was, in the context of the razor-edge issues of the time, the prophetic failures of the bishop did nothing to halt the outbreak of war in the short term, contributed to the devastating loss of Maori national aspirations in the medium term, and lent a legitimacy to the attribution of the under-mining of Maori national interests on the part of the missionaries involved with the Treaty of Waitangi. As a result of his de-facto siding with the Image of the god-king in the form of Governor Grey and thus aiding British colonial interests, the then Anglican bishop of New Zealand left a heritage which enables the more prominent Maori leaders of the twenty-first century to misconstrue the missionary effort as an integral part of the colonial enterprise. As the title to his book on a Maori view of New Zealand history suggests - Ka Whawai Tonu Matou (Struggle Without End), Maori leaders like Dr. Rangi Walker, prefer to identify with a secularisation of the pagan views of Rewi Maniapoto than with the more biblical vision of Wiremu Tamihana.

 

It would be quite unfair to make Bishop Selwyn personally responsible for all of this. He just happens to be the one in whom all of the sins of the great unholy alliance between colonialism and Christian mission in the form of the various ancien regimes  dating from the Constantinian settlement, comes home to roost on New Zealand soil.

 

The evening sermon at Peria might have concluded with references to the two documents considered at the end of the previous chapter. These, dating from the earlier period in which the British policies of both Church and State were more sympathetic to policies of The Aboriginal Protection Society,  each in their own way,  had  a strong prophetic bearing upon these matters. Upon learning of the introduction of a Bill into the British Parliament concerning a proposal of the British Government to open up the islands of New Zealand for limited colonization, the Church Missionary Society made a petition to the Parliament that included the following comments:

 

That, adverting to the disastrous consequences to the Aborigines of  uncivilized countries, in their rights, in their persons, their property, and moral condition, which have uniformly followed European Colonization in every country wherein it has been carried on - in attestation of which deplorable fact, your Petitioners appeal to the Evidence delivered before the Aborigines' Committee of your Honorable House in 1836 and 1837 - your Petitioners most earnestly deprecate the establishment  of British Settlements in New Zealand, for the purposes of Colonization, in the manner proposed by the Bill in question. (quoted from Allan K. Davidson and Peter J. Lineham, Transplanted Christianity, College Communi-cations, Auckland (1987), p52)

 

This makes it clear that the early dominant interest of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand was for the welfare of the Maori peoples, and that they were well aware of the potential threat to them posed by the consequences of colonization. This was clearly different from the point of view espoused by Selwyn in 1862.

 

The ambivalence of the early missionaries associated with the promotion of the Treaty of Waitangi concerning the way