Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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'Well, this is all dull and dry. But our life is somewhat monotonous
on shore, varied only by the details of incidents occurring in
school, and witnessing to the growth of the minds of my flock. They
are a very intelligent set this year, and there are many hopeful ones
among them. We have worked them hard at English, and all can read a
little; and some eight or ten really read nicely, but then they do
not understand nearly all they read without an explanation, just like
an English boy beginning his knowledge of letters with Latin (or
French, a still spoken language).

'In about a month we shall (D.V.) start to take them back; but the
vessel will be absent but a short time, as I shall keep the Solomon
Islanders with me in the Banks Archipelago for the winter, and so
avoid the necessity of the schooner running 200 or 300 miles to
leeward and having to make it up again. I have slept ashore twice in
the Banks Islands, but no other white man has done so, and that makes
our course very clear, as they have none of the injuries usually
committed by traders, &c., to revenge.

'Good-bye once more, my dearest Uncle,

'Your affectionate and grateful Nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The calmness of mind respecting his father which is here spoken of
was not perpetual, and his grief broke out at times in talks with his
young friend and companion, Mr. Dudley, as appears by this extract:--

'I remember his talking to me more than once on the subject of his
father, and especially his remarking on one occasion that his friends
were pressing him to come out there oftener, and suggesting, when he
seemed out of health and spirits, that he was not taking care of
himself; but that it was the anguish he endured, as night after night
he lay awake thinking of his father gradually sinking and craving for
him, and cheerfully resigning him, that really told upon him. I know
that I obtained then a glimpse of an affection and a depth of sorrow
such as perfectly awed me, and I do not think I have witnessed
anything like it at all, either before or since. It was then that he
seemed to enter into the full meaning of those words of our Lord, in
St. Mark x. 29-30, i.e., into all that the "leaving" there spoken of
involved.'

Yet in spite of this anxiety there was no flinching from the three
months' residence at Mota, entirely out of reach of letters. A frame
house, with planks for the floor, was prepared at Auckland to be
taken out, and a stock of wine, provisions, and medicines laid in.
The Rev. B. Y. Ashwell, a New Zealand clergyman, joined the Mission
party as a guest, with two Maori youths, one the son of a deacon;
and, besides Mr. Dudley, another pupil, Mr. Thomas Kerr, was
beginning his training for service in the Mission. Sailing on one of
the last days of April, there was a long passage to Nengone, where
the party went ashore, and found everything in trouble, the French
constantly expected, and the chiefs entreating for a missionary from
the Bishop, and no possibility of supplying them. Lifu was rendered
inaccessible by foul winds.

'Much to my sorrow,' writes Mr. Patteson, 'I could not land my two
pupil-teachers, who, of course, wished to see their friends, and who
made me more desirous to give them a run on shore, by saying at once:
"Don't think of us, it is not safe to go." But I thought of what my
feelings would be if it were the Devonshire coast, somewhere about
Sidmouth, and no landing!' However, they, as well as the three
Nengonese, Wadrokala, Harper Malo, and Martin Tahia, went on
contentedly.

'Off Mai, May 19th.--Mr. Kerr has been busy taking bearings, &c., for
the purpose of improving our MS. chart, and constructing a new one.
Commodore Loring wanted me to tell him all about Port Patteson, and
asked me if I wished a man-of-war to be sent down this winter to see
me, supposing the New Zealand troubles to be all over. I gave him
all the information he wanted, told him that I did not want a vessel
to come with the idea of any protection being required, but that a
man-of-war coming with the intention of supporting the Mission, and
giving help, and not coming to treat the natives in an off-hand
manner, might do good. I did not speak coldly; but really I fear
what mischief even a few wildish fellows might do on shore among such
people as those of the Banks Islands!

'A fore-and-aft schooner in sight! Probably some trader. May be a
schooner which I heard the French had brought for missionary
purposes. What if we find a priest or two at Port Patteson!
However, my course is clear any way: work straight on.

'May 21st.--Schooner a false alarm. We had a very interesting visit
on Saturday afternoon at Mai. We could not land till 4 P.M.; walked
at once to the village, a mile and a half inland. After some
excitement caused by our appearance, the people rushing to welcome
us, we got them to be quiet, and to sit down. I stood up, and gave
them a sermonette, then made Dudley, who speaks good Mai, say
something. Then we knelt down, and I said the second Good Friday
Collect, inserted a few petitions which you can imagine anyone would
do at such a time, then a simple prayer in their language, the Lord's
Prayer in English, and the Grace.'

On Friday Mota was reached, and the people showed great delight when
the frame of the house was landed at the site purchased for a number
of hatchets and other goods, so that it is the absolute property of
the Mission. Saturday was spent in a visit to Port Patteson, where
the people thronged, while the water-casks were being filled, and
bamboos cut down, with entreaties that the station might be there;
and the mosquitoes thronged too--Mr. Patteson had fifty-eight bites
on one foot.

On Whit Sunday, after Holy Communion on board, the party went on
shore, and prayed for, 'I cannot say with the people of Vanua Lava.'

And on Whit Monday the house was set up 'in a most lovely spot,' says
Mr. Dudley, 'beneath the shade of a gigantic banyan tree, the trunk
and one long horizontal branch of which formed two sides of as
beautiful a picture as you would wish to look upon; the sloping bank,
with its cocoa-nut, bread-fruit, and other trees, forming the base of
the picture; and the coral beach, the deep, clear, blue tropical
ocean, with others of the Banks Islands, Valua, Matlavo, and
Uvaparapara, in the distance, forming the picture itself.'

At least a hundred natives came to help, pulling down materials from
their own houses to make the roof, and delighted to obtain a bit of
iron, or still better of broken glass, to shave with. In the
afternoon, the master of the said house, using a box for a desk,
wrote: 'Our little house will, I think, be finished to-night; anyhow
we can sleep in it, if the walls are but half ready; they are merely
bamboo canes tied together. We sleep on the floor boarded and well
raised on poles, two feet and more from the ground--beds are
superfluous here.'

Here then was the first stake of the Church's tabernacle planted in
all Melanesia!

The boards of the floor had been brought from New Zealand, the heavy
posts on which the plates were laid were cut in Vanua Lava, and the
thatch was of cocoa-nut leaves, the leaflets ingeniously bound
together, native fashion, and quite waterproof; but a mat or piece of
canvas had to be nailed within the bamboo walls to keep out the rain.

On Wednesday a short service was held, the first ever known in Mota;
and then Mr. Ashwell and Mr. Kerr embarked, leaving Mr. Patteson and
Mr. Dudley with their twelve pupils in possession. Mr. Dudley had
skill to turn their resources to advantage. Space was gained below
by making a frame, to which knapsacks, bags, &c., could be hung up,
and the floor was only occupied by the four boxes, which did the
further part of tables, desks, and chairs in turn. As to beds, was
not the whole floor before them? and, observes the Journal: 'Now I
see the advantage of having brought planks from New Zealand to make a
floor. We all had something level to lie on at night, and when you
are tired enough, a good smooth plank or a box does just as well as a
mattress.'

Fresh water was half a mile off, and had to be fetched in bamboos;
but this was a great improvement upon Lifu, where there was none at
all; and a store of it was always kept in four twenty-gallon casks,
three on the beach, and one close to the house.

The place was regularly purchased:--

'June 8th.--I have just bought for the Mission this small clearing of
half an acre, and the two acres (say) leading to the sea, with twenty
or more bread-fruits on it. There was a long talk with the people,
and some difficulty in finding out the real proprietors, but I think
we arranged matters really well at last. You would have been amused
at the solemnity with which I conducted the proceeding: making a
great show of writing down their names, and bringing each one of the
owners up in their turn to see his name put down, and making him
touch my pen as I put a cross against his name. Having spent about
an hour in enquiring whether any other person had any claim on the
land or trees, I then said, "Now this all belongs to me," and they
assented. I entered it in my books--"On behalf of the Melanesian
Mission," but they could only understand that the land belonged to
the Bishop and me, because we wanted a place where some people might
live, who should be placed by the Bishop to teach them. Of course
the proceeding has no real validity, but I think they will observe
the contract: not quite the same thing as the transfer of land in the
old country! Here about 120 men, quite naked, represented the
interests of the late owners, and Dudley and I represented the
Mission.'

The days were thus laid out--Morning school in the village, first
with the regular scholars, then with any one who liked to come in;
and then, when the weather permitted, a visit to some village,
sometimes walking all round, a circuit of ten miles, but generally
each of the two taking a separate village, talking to the people,
teaching them from cards, and encouraging interrogatories. Mr.
Patteson always had such an attraction for them that they would
throng round him eagerly wherever he went.

The Mota people had a certain faith of their own; they believed in a
supreme god called Ikpat, who had many brothers, one of whom was
something like Loki, in the Northern mythology, always tricking him.
Ikpat had disappeared in a ship, taking the best of everything with
him. It was also believed that the spirits of the dead survived and
ranged about at night, maddening all who chanced to meet them; and,
like many other darkly coloured people, the Motans had begun by
supposing their white visitors to be the ghosts of their deceased
friends come to revisit them.

There were a good many other superstitions besides; and a ceremony
connected with one of them was going on the second week of the
residence at Mota--apparently a sort of freemasonry, into which all
boys of a certain age were to be initiated.

The Journal says:--

'There is some strange superstitious ceremony going on at this
village. A space had been enclosed by a high hedge, and some
eighteen or nineteen youths are spending a month or more inside the
fence, in a house where they lie wrapped up in mats, abundantly
supplied with food by the people, who, from time to time, assemble to
sing or perform divers rites. I had a good deal of trouble with the
father of our second year's pupil Tagalana, who insisted upon sending
his son thither. I warned him against the consequences of hindering
his son, who wished to follow Christ. He yielded, because he was
evidently afraid of me, but not convinced, as I have no right to
expect he should be.

'The next morning comes an old fellow, and plants a red-flowering
branch in our small clearing, whereupon our Mota boys go away, not
wishing to go, but not daring to stay. No people came near us, but
by-and-by comes the man who had planted it, with whom I had much
talk, which ended in his pulling up and throwing away the branch, and
in the return of our boys.

'In the evening many people came, to whom I spoke very plainly about
the necessity of abandoning these customs if they were in earnest in
saying they wished to embrace the Word of God. On Sunday they gave
up their singing at the enclosure, or only attempted it in a very
small way.

'June 6th.--I am just returned from a village a mile and a half off,
called Tasmate, where one of their religious ceremonies took place
this morning. The village contains upwards of twenty houses, built
at the edge of the bush, which consists here almost exclusively of
fruit-bearing trees--cocoa-nut trees, bananas, bread-fruit, and large
almond trefts are everywhere the most conspicuous. The sea view
looking south is very beautiful.

'I walked thither alone, having heard that a feast was to be held
there. As I came close to the spot, I heard the hum of many voices,
and the dull, booming sound of the native drum, which is nothing but
a large hollow tree, of circular shape, struck by wooden mallets.
Some few people ran off as I appeared, but many of them had seen me
before. The women, about thirty in number, were sitting on the
ground together, in front of one of the houses, which enclosed an
open air circular space; in front of another house were many children
and young people. In the long narrow house which forms the general
cooking and lounging room of the men of each village, and the
sleeping room of the bachelors, were many people preparing large
messes of grated yam and cocoa-nut in flat wooden dishes. At the
long oblong-shaped drum sat the performers, two young men, each with
two short sticks to perform the kettledrum part of the business, and
an older man in the centre, whose art consisted in bringing out deep,
hollow tones from his wooden instrument. Around them stood some
thirty men, two of whom I noticed especially, decked out with red
leaves, and feathers in their hair. Near this party, and close to
the long, narrow house in the end of which I stood, was a newly
raised platform of earth, supported on stones. On the corner stone
were laid six or eight pigs' jaws, with the large curling tusks left
in them. This was a sacred stone. In front of the platform were
three poles, covered with flowers, red leaves, &c.

'For about an hour and a half the men at or around the drum kept up
an almost incessant shouting, screaming and whistling, moving their
legs and arms in time, not with any wild gesticulations, but
occasionally with some little violence, the drum all the time being
struck incessantly. About the middle of the ceremony, an old, tall,
thin man, with a red handkerchief, our gift at some time, round his
waist, began ambling round the space in the middle of the houses,
carrying a boar's skull in his hand. This performance he repeated
three times. Then a man jumped up upon the platform, and, moving
quickly about on it and gesticulating wildly, delivered a short
speech, after which the drum was beat louder than ever; then came
another speech from the same man; and then the rain evidently
hastening matters to a conclusion to the whole thing, without any
ceremony of consecrating the stone, as I had expected.

'In the long room afterwards I had the opportunity of saying quietly
what I had said to those about me during the ceremony: the same story
of the love of God, especially manifested in JESUS CHRIST, to turn
men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.
With what power that verse speaks to one while witnessing such an
exhibition of ignorance, or fear, or superstition as I have seen to-
day! And through it all I was constantly thinking upon the
earnestness with which these poor souls follow out a mistaken notion
of religion. Such rain as fell this morning would have kept a whole
English congregation from going to church, but they never sought
shelter nor desisted from their work in hand; and the physical effect
was really great, the perspiration streamed down their bodies, and
the learning by heart all the songs and the complicated parts of the
ceremony implied a good deal of pains. Christians do not always take
so much pains to fulfil scrupulously their duties as sometimes these
heathens do. And, indeed, their bondage is a hard one, constant
suspicion and fear whenever they think at all. Everything that is
not connected with the animal part of our nature seems to be the prey
of dark and gloomy superstitions; the spiritual part is altogether
inactive as an instrument of comfort, joy, peace and hope. You can
imagine that I prayed earnestly for these poor souls, actually
performing before me their strange mysteries, and that I spoke
earnestly and strongly afterwards.

'The argument with those who would listen was: What good comes of all
this? What has the spirit you call Ikpat ever done for you? Has he
taught you to clothe yourselves, build houses, &c.? Does he offer to
make you happy? Can you tell me what single good thing has come from
these customs? But if you ask me what good thing has come to us from
the Word of God, first you had better let me tell you what has
happened in England of old, in New Zealand, Nengone, or Lifu, then I
will tell you what the Word of God teaches;--and these with the great
outline of the Faith.'

Every village in the island had the platforms, poles, and flowers;
and the next day, at a turn in the path near a village, the Mission
party suddenly came upon four sticks planted in a row, two of them
bearing things like one-eyed masks; two others, like mitres, painted
red, black, and white. As far as could be made out, they were placed
there as a sort of defiance to the inhabitants; but Mr. Patteson took
down one, and declared his intention of buying them for fish-hooks,
to take to New Zealand, that the people might see their dark and
foolish customs!

Some effect had already been produced, the people declared that there
had been much less of fighting since the missionaries had spoken to
them eighteen months back, and they had given up some of the charms
by which they used to destroy each other; but there was still much
carrying of bows; and on the way home from this expedition, Mr.
Patteson suddenly came on six men with bows bent and arrows pointed
in his direction. He at once recognised a man from Veverao, the next
village to the station, and called out 'All right!' It proved that a
report had come of his being attacked or killed on the other side of
the island, and that they had set out to defend or avenge him.

He received his champions with reproof:--'This is the very thing I
told you not to do. It is all your foolish jealousy and suspicion of
them. There is not a man on the island who is not friendly to me!
And if they were not friendly, what business have you with your bows
and arrows? I tell you once more, if I see you take your bows again,
though you may do it as you think with a good intention towards me, I
will not stay at your village. If you want to help me, receive the
Word of God, abandon your senseless ceremonies. That will be helping
me indeed!'

'Cannot you live at peace in this little bit of an island?' was the
constant theme of these lectures; and when Wompas, his old scholar,
appeared with bow and arrows, saying, I am sent to defend you,' the
answer was, 'Don't talk such nonsense! Give me the bow!' This was
done, and Patteson was putting it across his knee to break it, when
the youth declared it was not his. 'If I see these things again, you
know what will become of them!'

The mitres and masks were gone; but the Veverao people were
desperately jealous of the next village, Auta, alleging that the
inhabitants were unfriendly, and by every means trying to keep the
guest entirely to themselves; while he resolutely forced on their
reluctant ears, 'If you are sincere in saying that you wish to know
God, you must love your brother. God will not dwell in a divided
heart, nor teach you His truth while you wilfully continue to hate
your brother!'

The St. Barnabas Day on which most of this was written was a notable
one, for it was marked by the first administration of both the
Sacraments in Mota. In the morning one English and four Nengonese
communicants knelt round their pastor; and, in the evening, after a
walk to Auta, and much of this preaching of peace and goodwill, then
a dinner, which was made festive with preserved meat and wine, there
came a message from one Ivepapeu, a leading man, whose child was
sick. It was evidently dying, and Mr. Patteson, in the midst of the
people, told them that--

'The Son of God had commanded us to teach and baptize all nations;
that they did not understand the meaning of what he was about to do,
but that the word of JESUS the Son of God was plain, and that he must
obey it; that this was not a mere form, but a real gift from heaven,
not for the body but the soul; that the child would be as likely to
die as before, but that its spirit would be taken to God, and if it
should recover, it must be set apart for God, not taken to any
heathen rites, but given to himself to be trained up as a child of
God.' The parents consented: 'Then,' he continues, 'we knelt, and in
the middle of the village, the naked group around me, the dying child
in its mother's lap, I prayed to God and Christ in their language to
bless the child according to His own promise, to receive it for His
own child, and to convey to it the fulness of the blessing of His
holy Sacrament. Then while all were silent, I poured the water on
its head, pronouncing the form of words in English, and calling the
child John, the first Christian child in the Banks Islands. Then I
knelt down again and praised God for His goodness, and prayed that
the child might live, if it were His good pleasure, and be educated
to His glory; and then I prayed for those around me and for the
people of the island, that God would reveal to them His Holy Name and
Word and Will; and so, with a few words to the parents and people,
left them, as darkness settled down on the village and the bright
stars came out overhead.'

The innocent first-fruits of Mota died three days later, and Mr.
Patteson found a great howling and wailing going on over its little
grave under a long low house. This was hushed when he came up, and
spoke of the Resurrection, and described the babe's soul dwelling in
peace in the Kingdom of the Father, where those would join it who
would believe and repent, cast away their evil practices, and be
baptized to live as children of God. Kneeling down, he prayed over
it, thanking God for having taken it to Himself, and interceding for
all around. They listened and seemed touched; no opposition was ever
offered to him, but he found that there was much fighting and
quarrelling, many of the villages at war with each other, and a great
deal too much use of the bow and arrow, though the whole race was
free from cannibalism. They seemed to want to halt between two
opinions: to keep up their orgies on the one hand, and to make much
of the white teacher on the other; and when we recollect that two
unarmed Englishmen, and twelve blacks from other islands, were
perfectly isolated in the midst of a heathen population, having
refused protection from a British man-of-war, it gives a grandeur to
the following narrative:--

'June 7th.--One of their chief men has just been with two bread-fruit
as a present. I detected him as a leader of one of their chief
ceremonies yesterday, and I have just told him plainly that I cannot
accept anything from him, neither can I suffer him to be coming to my
place while it is notorious that he is teaching the children the very
things they ought not to learn, and that he is strongly supporting
the old false system, while he professes to be listening attentively
to the Word of God. I made him take up his two bread-fruit and carry
them away; and I suppose it will be the story all over the village
that I have driven him away.

'"By-and-by we will listen to the Word of God, when we have finished
these ceremonies."

'"Yes, you hearken first to the voice of the evil spirit; you choose
him firsthand then you will care to hear about God.'"

The ceremony was to last twenty days, and only affected the lads, who
were blackened all over with soot, and apparently presented pigs to
the old priest, and were afterwards admitted to the privileges of
eating and sleeping in the separate building, which formed a kind of
club-house for the men of each village, and on which Mr. Patteson
could always reckon as both a lecture room and sleeping place.

The people kept on saying that 'by-and-by' they would make an end of
their wild ritual, and throw down their enclosures, and at the same
time they thronged to talk to him at the Mission station, and built a
shed to serve for a school at Auta.

Meantime the little estate was brought into order. A pleasant day of
landscape-gardening was devoted to clearing gaps to let in the lovely
views from the station; and a piece of ground was dug and planted
with pine-apples, vines, oranges, and cotton, also a choicer species
of banana than the indigenous one. Bread-fruit was so plentiful that
breakfast was provided by sending a boy up a tree to bring down four
or five fruits, which were laid in the ashes, and cooked at once; and
as to banana leaves 'we think nothing of cutting one down, four feet
long and twenty inches wide, of a bright pale green, just to wrap up
a cooked yam or two.'