Vision and Reality inPacificReligion EDITED BY PHYLLIS HERDA, MICHAEL REILLY AND DAVID HILLIARD Pandanus Online Publications, found at the Pandanus Books web site, presents additional material relating to this book. www.pandanusbooks.com.au Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF NIEL GUNSON EDITED BY PHYLLIS HERDA, MICHAEL REILLY AND DAVID HILLIARD MACMILLAN BROWN CENTRE FOR PACIFIC STUDIES University of Canterbury NEW ZEALAND and PANDANUS BOOKS Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Cover: Missionary church at Huahine, South Sea Islands. Rex Nan Kivell Collection. nla.pic-an3936190. By permission of the National Library of Australia. © Phyllis Herda, Michael Reilly and David Hilliard 2005 This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Typeset in Goudy and printed by CanPrint Communications. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Vision and reality in Pacific religion. Includes index. ISBN 1 74076 119 7. 1. Oceania — Religion — History. 2. Oceania — Civilization. I. Herda, Phyllis. II. Reilly, Michael P. J. (Michael Patrick Joseph). III. Hilliard, David, 1941– . IV. Australian National University. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. 200.995 Editorial inquiries please contact Pandanus Books on 02 6125 4910 www.pandanusbooks.com.au Published by Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8020 New Zealand and Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Index compiled by Suzanne Ridley, Australian Writers Services Pandanus Books are distributed by UNIREPS, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052 Telephone 02 9664 0999 Fax 02 9664 5420 In honour of Niel Gunson Contents Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion: An Introduction 1 Michael Reilly and Phyllis Herda Narratives of Gender and Pre-eminence: 19 The Hikule‘o Myths of Tonga Phyllis Herda The Gift of the Gods: The Sacred Chief, Priest 42 and Supernatural Symbols in Traditional Samoa Kieran Schmidt Tupa‘ia: The Trials and Tribulations of a Polynesian Priest 66 Hank Driessen God in Samoa and The Introduction of Catholicism 87 Andrew Hamilton ‘Te ‘Orama a Numangatini’ (‘The Dream of Numangatini’) 106 and the Reception of Christianity on Mangaia Michael Reilly ‘Through a Glass Darkly’: Ownership of Fijian Methodism, 132 1850–80 Andrew Thornley A Church in Papua or a Papuan Church?: Conservatism and 154 Resistance to Indigenous Leadership in a Melanesian Mission Ross Mackay ‘Where Tides Meet’: The Missionary Career of 175 Constance (Paul) Fairhall in Papua Diane Langmore The God of the Melanesian Mission 195 David Hilliard The Anglicans in New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands 216 David Wetherell ‘Unto the Islands of the Sea’: The Erratic Beginnings 243 of Mormon Missions in Polynesia, 1844–1900 Norman Douglas The Bahá’í Faith in the Pacific 266 Graham Hassall Doing Theology in the New Pacific 287 KambatiUriam Contributors 312 Index 315 Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion An Introduction Michael Reilly and Phyllis Herda he following essays explore the religious history of the Pacific TIslands, from Melanesia and the northern tip of Australia in the west, to Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and the Society Islands in the east. Diverse regionally, this collection is also premised on the integration of the many gods or spiritual beings indigenous to the islands and the diverse visions or understandings of foreign gods, such as Christianity’s Jehovah, which have developed as a result of contact with missionary religions in the past couple of centuries. The spiritual beings who have long dwelt in the lands of Oceania and the newer visions of the foreign deities have experienced relations that at times have been subject to forms of contestation as well as partial collaboration. The result has been, as Vilsoni Hereniko points out, the creation of today’s ‘traditional’ Pacific Islands societies.1 Starting with indigenous deities, this collection explores the contact with the Christian Godhead, as well as other outside religions, and the establishment of the local variant forms of Christianity which grew up throughout the many islands of the Pacific. Defining religion in a way that meaningfully encompasses 2 Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion all these instantiations is difficult. In the magisterial The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer was very aware of this problem and advised any writer to fix on a meaning and proceed thereafter to hold to it consistently.2 The most common definitions describe religion as a ‘set of beliefs and practices’ or a ‘particular system of faith and worship’.3 Such beliefs or faith are concerned with the human effort to form and maintain, through worshipful practices, a ‘right relationship’ with various ‘superhuman entities’ or ‘spiritual beings’, who require ‘propitiation or conciliation’ in order to obtain their favour. Needless to say, those humans who sustain this relationship themselves obtain power and authority within the society they serve.4 If religion exists at the heart of every human culture, this is especially the case in the Pacific Islands. The people of the Pacific have been described as ‘deeply religious’, with most Islanders actively following a faith. The importance of religion and its institutions in the Pacific is marked further by the extent of their deep involvement in all parts of island society, including services such as education and medicine.5 All the writers of these essays are joined through the content matter of their historical subject and they are also linked by various intellectual affiliations, which have been important in the formulation of their research and writing. All the contributors have at some stage in their careers spent time as doctoral students at the well-recognised centre for Pacific historical scholarship, The Australian National University. While the academic structure within which they were students has changed according to the varying political and funding imperatives foisted on academia by Australian Federal Ministers, there has been a greater degree of intellectual coherence with regard to their formation as scholars. Pacific historians, whether from the metropolis or the islands themselves, have stressed an understanding of historical processes as they were experienced within the many islands of Oceania. As part of this engagement with local places and peoples, Pacific historians An Introduction 3 stress the practice of fieldwork.6 The islands such a historian writes about are not simply abstract locations inscribed in a document or on a map but become very real places, which are filled with personal experiences. Within such lived moments, Pacific historians situate their thinking and writing about the larger themes of historical process. This emphasis on a personal experience of the Pacific has deep roots within the discipline of Pacific History. According to Niel Gunson, J. W. Davidson, who held the foundation chair of Pacific History at The Australian National University, always emphasised the importance of experience gained through ‘participant history’.7 In that sense, Pacific historians have been far ahead of their colleagues in countries such as New Zealand, where writing about Maori or Pacific Islanders, even in the academic subject of Maori Studies, has never carried such a similar emphasis on what amounted to a form of anthropological fieldwork. As a result of this emphasis, some Pacific History scholars have ended up spending a substantial part of their thesis time in particular islands. The Australian National University campus frequently became no more than a writing space in the final stages of the doctoral thesis. Pacific historians were formulating an interdisciplinary practice long before many other scholars had even contemplated such a notion.8 If the scholars contributing to this collection on Pacific religious history are joined institutionally and by their academic practice, they also share a common PhD supervisor, Niel Gunson, who for many exemplifies the best in Pacific History scholarhip. It is Niel and his work that we collectively honour in this volume. Before introducing the essay topics in this collection, it is appropriate to reflect on the scholarly contributions of Niel, crucial as they have been to the intellectual formation of all the contributors. The work of ‘Niel’s students’, to adopt a common nickname for this group, suggests the diversity of their supervisor’s own interests in the Pacific and beyond. The breadth of Niel’s knowledge and 4 Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion interests are well captured in his authoritative work about the Protestant Pacific Islands missions, Messengers of Grace,9 which describes the social backgrounds, theologies and actitivies of the missionaries as well as the people and cultures of the Pacific whom they had come to convert. His profound and seemingly limitless knowledge of the finer points of Protestant theology constantly combines with a deep interest in genealogy and indigenous history. A long engagement with indigenous Pacific Islands history, especially in Polynesia, has enabled Niel to go beyond the usual confines of a European-oriented