Value Of Mission Work

In Polynesia

Has There Been Unnecessary Interference With Native Life?

By Julian Hillas.

(The following article is written by a man who has lived many years in Polynesia, and who, while privately expressing a warm regard for in dividual missionaries, definitely dis likes the missionary system. We pub lish his article, not because we agree with it—actually, we disagree with a number of his arguments—but be cause we believe that it is good for the missionary bodies that they should be reminded of the opposition that they always are likely to meet.—Ed.

“P.1.M.”) TO-DAY, after a full century, mission work in the South Seas stands at the cross-roads with a large interro gation sign marking the future.

Supporters of missions are quick to point out how easy it is to ridicule much of the early work in this field, especially the misplaced zeal of those enthusiasts whose chief concern lay in clothing the nude bodies of brown brethren.

Frankly, mission work in the Islands got off from a bad start, and I think it is still an open question whether the leeway has been made up.

Many of the men first sent out were uneducated, bigoted and “puritanically minded”. With what now seems to us incredible stupidity, they set about de molishing the cultural and social life of the peoples among whom they found themselves. Lacking sympathy with native customs, and wholly ignorant of anthropology, they saw in the former only the outward manifestations of Satan and, as such, attacked them with a ferocity out of all proportion to their importance.

No one denies the good intentions of these men, nor desires to deprive them of credit due for services which they rendered—services which one cannot however help thinking would have come a little later from other and purely secular sources. As forerunners of the_ approaching tides of civilisation, the missionary movement served a use ful purpose to imperial and commercial interests by softening the impact and by preparing the native mind to accept the inevitable as part of a divinely ordained schedule.

CHANGES wrought by mission influ ence in the domestic life and habits of the people generally were perhaps most clearly seen in Tonga where, by the close of last century, the population had been dizened out in old bonnets, shapeless gowns, trousers and swallow tailed coats for Sunday, and in place of their cool spacious houses, their homes had become receptacles for accumulated rubbish, the chairs covered with hide ous anti-macassars and the tables loaded with round worsted mats.

Admittedly, a reaction set in later, and a more normal state of affairs now exists, but I have yet to learn that the impetus for this came from within the mission society responsible. From all reports, the latter have consistently re sisted reform, only yielding when pub lic opinion or Government pressure forced them to do so. From my own observations in the Cook Group, I am certain it is with the deepest regret that the London Missionary Society re gards the passing of its own temporal power, and would, if ever the oopor

tunity arose, eagerly revert to the legal code framed by John Williams in 1826.

It may be argued: If the innovations and changes brought about by mission aries were opposed to the customs and inclinations of the people, how was it that they succeeded in establishing themselves so completely and, moreover, gained such a substantial following?

The explanation, I think, lies in two factors.

The new teachings readily took seed in the fertile soil of Polynesian men tality. It was easy to substitute one supernatural belief for another in a people whose inner lives were passed on the threshold of an unseen, mysterious world, tenanted by ghostly and alarm ing beings and which was reflected in an elaborate succession of fears and taboos. In this connection it is interest ing to compare the pro rata success of missionary work in lands such as India and China, where the intelligence ratios are high and there already existed lofty ethical and religious con ceptions, with countries with a more primitive culture. The figures will be found instructive.

Secondly, and perhaps of greater significance, was the fact that the new religion offered to all, irrespective of class, positions formerly held exclusively by members of the priestly and ruling castes. In this way it assured itself of the support of the majority. Look ing back, one cannot but admire the policy which disputed and 6ne by one defeated the ancient forms of tribal and family authority, setting up in their place a church aristocracy which carried with it a graded scale of civil power.

From this it was a simple matter to fuse the social and religious life of the people into a homogeneous whole, in which it was virtually impossible to separate or distinguish the one from the other.

APART from its purely ecclesiastical side, mission work has always been concentrated on education, and it is here that its effect can best be judged.

Many Islands administrations have left this entire field to the missionary bodies within their territories-—a sen sible enough arrangement where other methods were too costly or otherwise impracticable. Missionaries in general, and the Catholic Fathers in particular, are adept at teaching. Their ability is not called into question, but rather to what extent their instruction coincides with the obligations which we, standing in loco parentis to a native race, have incurred.

In the past, and even to a certain extent to-day on the remoter atolls, there has been too great an insistence on the religious sentiments, too large a prominence given them in the curri culum. The outer needs of the man have been sacrificed to his problematical inner ones. For people coming fresh from a primitive type of culture to the elaborate mechanism of modern life, there is so much to learn that every moment of educational time should be directed towards assimilation of essen tial knowledge, and it is a moot point whether word-perfect familiarity with

the Old Testament constitutes a useful acquisition in these eminently practical days.

In Rakahanga (Cook Group), the London Missionary Society undertakes, in return for an annual Government subsidy of £5OO, to supply native teachers in the schools. (The subsidy also covers four other small islands.) And in Rakahanga at least two days in the week are devoted exclusively to Biblical reading alone. The teacher, in cidentally, receives a salary of £2O per annum. During the fourteen months which I speijt on the atoll, he was also pastor of the local church, but his in come from this work had been in ar rears for several years.

Instruction on these lines, accom panied as it is by considerable sectarian bitterness, ill accords with the meaning of the resolution passed by the com bined Educational Authorities of Island Groups at Wellington in January, 1935, and which reads:— “Nothing shall be taught that is not serviceable to the natives in their pre sent social state, or is not likely to be serviceable in the near future.”

One irreparable loss, and one for which missionaries must take their share of the blame, is the gradual dis appearance of the old native lore and craftsmanship. Tribal and family know ledge of a kind common enough a generation ago, is now all too rare.

Gone also is that pride of race and

person which was once so marked a trait of the Polynesian, its place taken by a subservient and, one often feels,

hypocritical gratitude for recognition.

ON the smaller islands, considerable influence is exerted by the native pastor. I have listened to a good many sermons preached by native pastors, and I have yet to hear one directed against current or local evils, against lying, stealing, scandal-mongering or covets ousness. Texts and contexts were almost invariably chosen from the chonological or genealogical tables of the Old Testament.

Their knowledge is a matter of words only, without the faintest conception of the country, the circumstances of the time or the people about whom they speak. The result is a kind of clever word-quibbling which, since there are often two and even three different de nominations active in one small com munity, is frequently carried into every day affairs.

Unpalatable as it may be in some quarters, the truth is that to 90 per

cent, of the natives religion represents nothing more than social cement, useful for holding together the two ends of their week, and capable of much plas tic adjustment in between.

TT has been said that before the ar rival of the missionary, life for primitive people was one long succes sion of taboos and superstitious fears.

That may have been so, but it would be hard to find other and more appro priate terms for some of the inter dictions and restraints placed on indivi dual liberty to-day.

The adherents of one sect which has a moderate following in most of the Groups are forbidden to eat pork or turtle flesh—incidentally, the only two “meats”, besides fowls, available on an atoll. Crabs, crayfish, prawns and eels are also taboo, as are tea and tobacco.

And, to complete this gloomy circle, games and dancing in any form are sternly discouraged. What exactly these unfortunates are expected to find in the way of light entertainment or serious nourishment has always been a mystery to me.

In certain islands, a Curfew Order deprives the inhabitants of the pleasure of their lovely moonlight nights, and in others a law which makes of “co habitation” a criminal offence, reduces the relationship between the younger people to a furtive, shame-faced af fair of nocturnal visits by the police, and appearances of both parties in Court. Yet, in these same islands, the illegitimacy rate averages 23 per cent, of the births!

BUT perhaps the worst charge which can be made against organised religion in the Islands is the innocu lation of these gentle, care-free people with the fear of death and its concomi tant, a sense of sin. That neither for merly existed is clear from the follow ing passage in Cook’s “Third Voyage of Discovery”, dealing with the Tahi tians:— “I never saw them, in any misfor tune, labour under the appearance of anxiety after the critical moment was past. Neither does care ever seem to wrinkle their brow. On the contrary, even the approach of death does not appear to alter their usual vivacity.”

If the same latitude is to be granted to missionary work, as it has been in the past, it should be under a definite guarantee that it will be used to pro mote more constructive and useful Quali ties than hitherto, and that it will be applied with tolerance and humanism.

By the latter, I mean the ability to look directly at life.

The Polynesian is far too fine a crea ture to be endowed with an unnecessary mental squint.

Miss I. McArthur, of the Government Secretary’s Department, Papua, is at present in Australia on three months’ furlough.

Mr. E. W. Pearce, of the Methodist Mission at Mulaguna, New Britain, ar rived in Australia by the December “Neptuna”. His wife recently died in Sydney.