Native Pastors

Question of Their Value

TIMES are changing, so maybe I shall have to acknowledge myself wrong ” writes Mr. F. T. Goedicke, of Haapai, Tonga. “But I never could see the value of Polynesian teachers (Samoans Tongans and Fijians) placed by the European missionaries in the primitive Melanesian villages. The primitives will not give to the Polynesians the respect they give to the Europeans. When I was in New Britain in 1885 (57 years ago!), the unregenerate cannibals of those parts killed and ate a number of their Poly nesian ‘teachers,’ after they were intro duced to that region by Rev. George Brown.

“On one occasion, seated on a nearby trader’s verandah, I saw a Fijian ‘teacher’ —a very big fellow—come along to his little church, and beat his lali. No one obeyed the call to service. The Fijian, looking very stern, took a spear and went out along the beach. He met a native— one of the most well-behaved and in offensive in the tribe. He asked the native to come to church. The native refused. So the big Fijian seized the fellow and headed him towards the church; and then, with an occasional prod from his spear at the man’s back side, he kept him going. When the con gregation was inside, the preacher got into his pulpit and began to sing a hymn.

Whereupon the native got up and bolted through the door; and although the preacher gave chase, his congregation got safely away, and he sadly closed his church.

“Missionary effort of the old days was surrounded by many such absurdities; yet, nevertheless, as the years passed, some thing was achieved. To-day, where once we had cannibals, we now have clerks and radio operators and native medical practitioners.

“I never liked native teachers, but I suppose I may not dogmatise.”