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TE OPE WHAKAORA
TOM AITKEN's review of TE OPE WHAKAORA: THE
ARMY THAT BRINGS LIFE
A Collection of Documents on the Salvation Army & Maori
1884-2007, ed. Harold Hill.
444 pp. Flag Publications. 30$ NZ 978 0 473 12503 5
In 1992 a Pakeha Salvation Army Officer in New Zealand wrote
of the installation of a Maori officer as Convenor for the
national Maori Fellowship that, ‘I hope this move by the Army
was not just “tokenism”’ Previously, he thought, most “Maori”
decisions had been made by well-meaning Pakeha who sought to
represent the Maori mind––an impossible aspiration, often
mistaken, often inadvertently offensive. Salvationist and
Maori loyalties had clashed unnecessarily. Hill’s collection
of narratives, memoirs, letters, news reports and historical
analyses takes us through the extended century leading to this
turning point and beyond; Judith Binney, Emeritus Professor of
History and author of Redemption Songs: A Life of Te Kooti
Arikirangi Te Turuku, describes it as ‘very honest… revealing
the strengths in the movement, as well as some of its
mistakes’.
The ‘well-meaning Pakeha’ began work in 1884, led by Ernest
Holdaway, son of migrants from Hampshire, who spoke fluent
Maori and adopted Maori dress and a Maori version of his name.
Ivy Cresswell’s episodic and anecdotal biography of Holdaway,
Canoe on the River, here reprinted complete for the first
time, shows him travelling continuously during 1888-99 (with
one two-year break) through remote parts of New Zealand’s
North Island, preaching, writing, singing and advising on
medical and other practical matters. As was admitted in 1992,
some of his successors were unable to become an accepted part
of Maoridom, but Holdaway, undeterred by frequent canoeing
catastrophes, illness, bereavement, lack of comfortable
quarters and regular food, came close to crossing the racial
divide. Maori had been largely demoralised by the
land-grabbing, illnesses, indulgence in drink and gambling
which came in the wake of white settlement; for much of this
period they were expected to die out. Holdaway played some
small part in preventing this. But even he was never able to
see the Maori situation from quite their point of view.
In any case, the two-year break in his leadership was
symptomatic of insuperable problems. The Salvation Army was
neither rich nor awash with manpower; on necessarily objective
grounds it seemed unwise to tie up officers in work which,
although it was well received, was unlikely to finance itself
for decades to come. Salvationist practice required that
particular groups of soldiers did not become dependent on a
particular officer. Very able officers like Holdaway were
groomed for higher office and wider horizons by moving them
from job to job and country to country. Holdaway stayed loyal
to the Salvation Army come what may; others left, joining
churches that allowed them to continue work amongst Maori.
The 1992 arrangements outlined above are still being worked
out and problems will certainly recur. What has changed is
that in a country now widely styling itself “Aotearoa New
Zealand”, it will be difficult for anyone to suppose that
Salvation Army work amongst Maori is a dispensable option.
The book’s cover shows elegantly tattooed Maraea Morris in
Salvation Army uniform. Widowed by the rebellious Te Kooti,
she harboured thoughts of revenge but forgave him after her
conversion. The collection concludes with a quotation from
Judith Binney’s biography of Te Kooti: “If we… can discuss our
shared history… we may gain from that past. If [not] we will
have learned nothing from that past and exchanged nothing
between each other.”
(Tom Aitken’s Blood and Fire, Tsar and Commissar: The
Salvation Army in Russia 1907-1923 was published last year. It
can be ordered from numerous internet sites.)
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