Richard Davis--Missionary, Part II

Only Two Hundred Years Ago

Maori culture and civilization was a mixed bag.  The culture of cannibalism, utu (or revenge), and slavery benighted the Maori people.  However, missionaries who stayed the course, also observed positive aspects of Maori culture.

The missionaries wanted, above all, to expose the Maori tribes to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Gradually, as men and women repented of their sins and believed in the Son of God, examples of remarkable Christian faith began to emerge. 

But the scene documented by Davis below graphically underscores how the light, when it eventually began to shine, came as it were, through a debilitating darkness.  Amidst this darkness, the coming of the Gospel was like the light of Eärendil's star--a light which would shine when all other lights had gone out.

The Waitangi natives have returned from the Thames, where they had been to fight, and have killed the greater part of some poor people coming to Taiamai, under the protection of a chief who was absent when they met them.  They then transferred their fight to the place of the late Christian Rangi, to punish the misdemeanour of a young man.  They broke his arms, and beat him cruelly.  Then they butchered a poor slave girl in the most barbarous manner before the young man.  They first cut off one arm, and then the other.  They next cut deep gashes down her body, saying "I will have this part," "I will have that part to eat."  The merciless barbarians then cut off her legs while she was alive, and finally roasted and ate her.  They told the young man they had done this as a punishment for his crime.  My soul is filled with horror and dismay.  O Lord, in mercy interpose in behalf of these poor wretched heathen!  [John Coleman, ed., A Memoir of the Reverend Richard Davis (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1865), p.78.]

These events occurred early in 1826.  Davis had been living and working with his wife and family in the Bay of Islands for about eighteen months. 

Thank God those days have passed. 

Exceedingly Heavy Stones

Academic Celebrates Degeneracy

A Maori academic has come forth claiming that pre-European settlement, Maori were sexually degenerate and engaged in unGodly practices.  Nothing surprising there at all.  Naturally, however, this modern academic is also claiming that the degeneracy of Maori represents a long honoured, storied historical tradition, which means (queue the drumroll) that modern Maori can glory in such degenerate practices in our modern world.

For Maori who don't fit neatly into carefully constructed moulds of gender and sexuality the term takatāpui can be a relief.  Scholar Elizabeth Kerekere argues that pre-colonial Maori were sexually experimental people who openly accepted gender and sexual fluidity.  Anyone who didn't fit into heterosexuality was considered "takatāpui".  [NZ Herald]

What is startling here is Kerekere seems to think that she has achieved some sort of amazing discovery.  What she appears to have forgotten is that whilst pre-colonial Maori were cunning and  highly intelligent, they were also degenerate--pretty much like today's average secular atheist.

Kerekere, who identifies as lesbian, has spent five years writing her PhD and discovering new evidence takatāpui existed in pre-colonial society. It was released recently at Victoria University.

Five years is a long time spent researching and searching for something that one would have expected to have existed in spades.

An Ancient Curse Still Holds Afghanistan In Its Thrall

Healing in His Wings

When Christian missionaries first came to New Zealand in the early eighteen hundreds they were confronted by the Maori inhabitants who were sunk into gross sin--the sin of cannibalism.  The first Maori cleric, Matiu Taupaki specifically mentioned this curse upon the land when he spoke at a memorial service for one of the early missionaries, Henry Williams in 1876: 

"In an attempt to preserve the good, and disinter it from the bones, around 900 Maori from all parts of the country gathered at Paihia on the 11th January, 1876, having raised 200 pounds to erect a memorial to the late Henry Williams.  Reverend Matiu Taupaki--the first Maori to be ordained--delivered the oration at the unveiling of the memorial for Williams before the assembled Maori representatives.

Think of the wickedness of our island.  The exceeding heavy stone which weighed us down was cannibalism, but that did not deter him.  He forsook his own country and people, parents and relatives.  He arrived here in 1823.  He landed at Paihia, and there built his first fortress, the church standing before you.  It was in that fortress he forged the weapons of war wherewith to overthrow the strongholds of the earth." [ContraCelsum.  Emphasis, ours.]

Sometimes a gross sin is so insinuated into a culture that it becomes a damning blight that only the power of the risen Son of God can remove.  In the words of Matiu Taupaki, the curse gets to the point where it "is an exceeding heavy stone" which weighs the culture and people down.  In pre-missionary New Zealand it was cannibalism.  In Afghanistan it is the homosexual rape and sexual slavery of young boys.