Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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How he read, wrote, or did anything is the marvel, with the hut
constantly crowded by men who had nothing to do but gather round, in
suffocating numbers, to stare at his pen travelling over the paper.
'They have done so a hundred times before,' he writes, actually under
the oppression, 'but anything to pass an hour lazily. It is useless
to talk about it, and one must humour them, or they will think I am
vexed with them.'

The scholars, neatly clothed, with orderly and industrious habits,
were no small contrast: 'But I miss as yet the link between them and
the resident heathen people. I trust and pray that George and others
may, ere long, supply it.

'But it is very difficult to know how to help them to change their
mode of life. Very much, even if they did accept Christianity, must
go on as before. Their daily occupations include work in the small
gardens, cooking, &c., and this need not be changed.

'Then as to clothing. I must be very careful lest they should think
that wearing clothes is Christianity. Yet certain domestic changes
are necessary, for a Christian life seems to need certain material
arrangements for decency and propriety. There ought to be partition
screens in the hut, for example, and some clothing is desirable no
doubt. A resident missionary now could do a good deal towards
showing the people why certain customs, &c., are incompatible with a
Christian life. His daily teaching would show how Christ acted and
taught, and how inconsistent such and such practices must be with the
profession of faith in Him. But regulations imposed from without I
rather dread, they produce so often an unreasoning obedience for a
little while only.

The rules for the new life should be very few and very simple, and
carefully explained. "Love to God and man," explained and
illustrated as the consequence of some elementary knowledge of God's
love to us, shown of course prominently in the giving His own Son to
us. There is no lack of power to understand simple teaching, a fair
proportion of adults take it in very fairly. I was rather surprised
on Friday evening (some sixty or seventy being present) to find that
a few men answered really rather well questions which brought out the
meaning of some of our Saviour's names.

'"The Saviour?"

'"The saving His people."

'"Not all men? And why not all men? And from what poverty,
sickness, &c., here below?"

'"From their sins."

'"What is sin?"

'"All that God has forbidden."

'"What has He forbidden? Why? Because He grudges us anything? Why
do you forbid a child to taste vangarpal ('poison'), &c. &c.?"

'"The Way," "the Mediator," "the Redeemer," "the Resurrection," "the
Atoner," "the Word." Some eight days' teaching had preceded this;
but I dare say there are ten or fifteen people here now, not our
scholars, who can really answer on these points so as to make it
clear that they understand something about the teaching involved in
these names. Of course, I had carefully worked out the best way to
accept these names and ideas in Mota; and the illustrations, &c.,
from their customs made me think that to some extent they understood
this teaching.

'Of course the personal feeling is as pleasant as can be, and I think
there is something more: a real belief that our religion and our
habits are good, and that some day they will be accepted here. A
considerable number of people are leading very respectable lives on
the whole. But I see that we must try to spend more time here.
George Sarawia is being accepted to some extent as one whom they are
to regard as a teacher. He has a fair amount of influence. But in
this little spot, among about 1,500 people, local jealousies and old
animosities are so rife, that the stranger unconnected with any one
of them has so far a better chance of being accepted by all; but then
comes, on the other hand, his perfect knowledge and our comparative
ignorance of the language and customs of the people. We want to
combine both for a while, till the native teacher and clergyman is
fully established in his true position.

'It is a curious thing that the Solomon Islanders from the south-east
part of that group should have dropped so much behind the Banks
Islanders. I knew their language before I knew the language of Mota,
they were (so to say) my favourites. But we can't as yet make any
impression upon them. The Loyalty Islanders have been suffered to
drop out; and so it is that all our leading scholars, all who set
good examples, and are made responsible for various duties, are (with
the sole exception of Soro, from Mai Island, New Hebrides) from the
Banks group. Consequently, their language is the lingua franca of
the school--not that we made it so, or wished it rather than any
other to be so; indeed Bauro is easier, and so are some others: but
so it is. It is an excellent thing, for any Melanesian soon acquires
another Melanesian language, however different the vocabulary may be.
Their ideas and thoughts and many of their customs are similar, the
mode of life is similar, and their mode of expressing themselves
similar. They think in the same way, and therefore speak in the same
way. Their mode of life is natural; ours is highly artificial. We
are the creatures of a troublesome civilisation to an extent that one
realises here. When I go ashore for five weeks, though I could carry
all my luggage, yet it must comprise a coffee-pot, sugar, biscuits, a
cork bed, some tins of preserved meat, candles, books, and my hut has
a table and a stool, and I have a cup, saucer, plate, knife, fork,
and spoon. My good friend George, who I think is on the whole better
dressed than I am, and who has adopted several of our signs of
civilisation, finds the food, cooking, and many of the ways of the
island natural and congenial, and would find them so throughout the
Pacific.

'May 2lst.--The morning and evening school here is very nice. I
doubt if I am simple enough in my teaching. I think I teach too much
at a time; there is so much to be taught, and I am so impatient, I
don't go slowly enough, though I do travel over the same ground very
often. Some few certainly do take in a good deal.

'A very hot day, after much rain. This morning we took down our old
wooden hut, that was put up here by us six years ago. Parts of it
are useless, for in our absence the rain damaged it a good deal. I
mean to take it across to Arau, Henry Tagalana's little island, for
there, even in very wet weather, there is little fear of ague, the
soil being light and sandy. It would be a great thing to escape from
the rich soil and luxuriant vegetation in the wet months, if any one
of us spent a long time here. It was hot work, but soon over. It
only took about two and a half hours to take down, and stack all the
planks, rafters, &c. Two fellows worked well, and some others looked
on and helped now and then.

'I have had some pleasant occupation for an hour or so each day in
clearing away the bush, which in one year grows up surprisingly here.
Many lemon, citron, and orange trees that we planted some years ago.
cocoa-nut trees also, were almost, some quite overgrown, quite
hidden, and our place looked and was quite small and close; but one
or two hours for a few days, spent in clearing, have made a great
difference. I have planted out about twenty-five lemon suckers, and
as many pine-apples, for our old ones were growing everywhere in
thick clumps, and I have to thin them out.

'Yesterday was a great day; we cut down two large trees, round one of
which I had carelessly planted orange, lemon, and cocoa-nut trees, so
that we did not know how to fell it so as to avoid crushing some fine
young trees; but the tree took the matter into its own hands, for it
was hollow in the centre, and fell suddenly, so that the fellows
holding the rope could not guide it, and it fell at right angles to
the direction we had chosen, but right between all the trees, without
seriously hurting one. It quite reminds me of old tree-cutting days
at Feniton; only here I see no oaks, nor elms, nor beeches, nor firs,
only bread-fruit trees and almond trees, and many fruit-bearing
trees--oranges, &c., and guavas and custard-apples--growing up (all
being introduced by us), and the two gigantic banyan trees, north and
south of my little place. It is so very pretty!

'I don't trouble myself much about cooking. My little canteen is
capital; and I can make myself all sorts of good things, if I choose
to take the trouble, and some days I do so. I bake a little bread
now and then, and natter myself it is uncommonly good; and one four-
pound tin of Bloxland's preserved meat from Queensland has already
lasted me twelve days, and there is about half of it remaining. He
reckons each pound well soaked and cooked to be equal to three
pounds, and I think he is right. A very little of this, with a bit
of yam deliciously cooked, and brought to me each day as a present by
some one from their cooking ovens, makes a capital dinner. Then I
have some rice and sugar for breakfast, a biscuit and coffee, and a
bit of bread-fruit perhaps; and all the little delicacies are here--
salt, pepper, mustard, even to a bottle of pickles--so I am pretty
well off, I think.

'I find that the white ant, or an insect like it, is here. The
plates of our old hut are quite rotten, the outside still untouched,
all within like tinder. They call the insect vanoa; it is not found
in New Zealand, but it is a sad nuisance in Australia.

'I do not read much here this time, so much of every day is taken up
with talking to the people about me. That is all right, and I
generally can turn the talk to something that I wish them to hear, so
it is all in the way of business here. And I am glad to say that my
school, and conversations and lessons, need some careful preparation.
I have spent some time in drawing up for myself a little scheme of
teaching for people in the state of my friends here. I ought of
course to have done it long ago, and it is a poor thing now. I
cannot take a real pleasure in teaching, and so I do it badly. I am
always, almost always, glad when school is over, though sometimes I
get much interested myself, though not often able to interest others.

'I am reading some Hebrew nearly every day, and Lightfoot on the
Galatians, Tyler's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind,"
Dollinger's "First Ages of the Church," and "Ecce Homo." I tried
Maine's "Ancient Law," but it is too tough for the tropics, unless I
chance to feel very fresh. I generally get an hour in the evening,
if I am sleeping at home.

'May 23rd.--I suppose anyone who has lived in a dirty Irish village--
pigs, fowls, and children equally noisy and filthy, and the parents
wild, ignorant, and impulsive--may have some notion of this kind of
thing. You never get a true account, much less a true illustration
of the real thing. Did you happen to see a ridiculous engraving on
one of the S. P. Gr. sheets some years ago, supposed to be me taking
two Ambrym boys to the boat? (Footnote: No such engraving can be
found by the S. P. Gr. It was probably put forth in some other
publication.) Now it is much better not to draw at all than to draw
something which can only mislead people. If Ambrym boys really
looked like those two little fellows, and if the boat with bland-
looking white men could quietly be pulled to the beach, and if I, in
a respectable dress, could go to and from the boat and the shore, why
the third stage of Mission work has been reached already! I don't
suppose you can picture to yourselves the real state of things in
this, and in many of these islands, and therefore the great
difficulty there is in getting them out of their present social, or
unsocial, state!

'To follow Christian teaching out in detail, to carry it out from the
school into the hut, into the actual daily life of the dirty naked
women, and still dirtier though not more naked children; to get the
men really to abandon old ways from a sense of responsibility and
duty and love to God, this of course comes very slowly. I am writing
very lazily, being indeed tired with heat and mosquitos. The sun is
very hot again to-day. I have no thermometer here, but it feels as
if it ought to be 90° in the shade.

'May 25th.--George Sarawia spent yesterday here, and has just gone to
his village. He and I had a good deal of conversation. I copied out
for him the plan of teaching drawn up from books already printed in
their language. He speaks encouragingly, and is certainly recognised
as one who is intended to be the teacher here. No one is surprised
that he should be treated by me in a very different way from anyone
else, with a complete confidence and a mutual understanding of each
other. He is a thoroughly good, simple-minded fellow, and I hope, by
God's blessing, he may do much good. He told me that B---- wants to
come with me again; but I cannot take him. As we have been living
properly, and for the sake of the head school and our character in
the eyes of the people here, I cannot take him until he shows proof
of a real desire to do his duty. I am very sorry for it. I have all
the old feeling about him; and he is so quick and intelligent, but he
allows himself again and again to be overcome by temptation, hard I
dare say to withstand; but this conduct does disqualify him for being
chosen to go with us. I am leaving behind some good but dull boys,
for I can't make room as yet for them, and I must not take an ill-
conducted fellow because he is quick and clever. He has some sort of
influence in the place from his quickness, and from his having
acquired a good deal of riches while with us. He says nothing,
according to Sarawia, for or against our teaching. Meanwhile, he
lives much like a somewhat civilised native. Poor fellow! I sent a
message to him by George that if he wished to see me, I should be
very willing to have a talk with him.

'Yesterday we made some sago. A tree is cut down in its proper stage
of growth, just when it begins to flower. The pith is pulled and
torn into shreds and fibres, then the juice is squeezed out so as to
allow it to run or drip into some vessel, while water is poured on
the pith by some one assisting the performer. The grounds (as say of
coffee) remain at the bottom when the water is poured off, and an
hour of such a sun as we had yesterday dries and hardens the sago.
It is then fit for use. I suppose that it took an hour and a half to
prepare about a slop-basin full of the dried hard sago. I have not
used it vet. We brought tapioca here some years ago, and they used
it in the same way, and they had abundance of arrow-root. On Monday
I will make some, if all is well. Any fellow is willing to help for
a few beads or fish-hooks, and they do all the heavy work, the
fetching water, &c.

'I never saw anything like the pigeons in the great banyan tree close
by. They eat its berries, and I really think there are at times more
than a hundred at once in it. Had I a gun here I think I might have
brought down three or four at a shot yesterday, sitting shot of
course, but then I should shoot "for the pot." Palmer had his gun
here last year, and shot as many as he wanted at any time. The bats
at night are innumerable; they too eat the banyan berries, but
chiefly the ripening bread-fruit. The cats we brought here have
nearly cleared the place of the small rats which used to abound here;
but lizards abound in this hut, because it is not continually smoke-
dried.

'Last night I think some of the people here heard some rather new
notions, to them, about the true relation of man and woman, parent
and child, &c. They said, as they do often say, "Every word is true!
how foolish we are!" But how to get any of them to start on a new
course is the question.

'Ascension Day, May 30th.--There is a good deal of discussion going
on now among the people. I hear of it not only from our old
scholars, but from some of the men. I have been speaking day by day
more earnestly to the people; always reading here and there verses of
the Gospels or the Acts, or paraphrasing some passage so that they
may have the actual words in which the message is recorded. They
say, "This is a heavy, a weighty word," and they are talking, as they
say, night after night about it. Some few, and they elderly men,
say, "Let us talk only about our customs here." Others say, "No, no;
let us try to think out the meaning of what he said." A few come and
ask me questions, only a few, not many are in earnest, and all are
shy. Many every night meet in Robert Pantatun's house, twenty-five
or thirty, and ask him all manner of questions, and he reads a
little. They end with prayer.

'They have many strange customs and superstitious observances
peculiar to this group. They have curious clubs, confraternities
with secret rites of initiation. The candidate for admission pays
pigs and native money, and after many days' seclusion in a secret
place is, with great ceremony, recognised as a member. No woman and
none of the uninitiated may know anything of these things.

'In every village there is a Sala Goro, a place for cooking, which
only those who have "gazed at the sacred symbol" may frequent. Food
cooked there may not be eaten by one uninitiated, or by women or
children. The path to the Sala Goro is never trodden by any woman or
matanomorous ("eye closed"). When any ceremony is going on the whole
of the precincts of the Sala Goro are sacred. At no time dare any
woman eat with any man, no husband with his wife, no father with his
daughter as soon as she is no longer a child.

'Of course such a system can be used by us in two ways. I say, "You
have your method of assembling together, and you observe certain
customs in so doing; so do we, but yours is an exclusive and selfish
system: your secret societies are like our clubs, with their entrance
fees, &c. But Christ's society has its sacred rite of admission, and
other mysteries too, and it is for all who wish to belong to it. He
recognises no distinction of male or female, bond or free."

'Some of the elder men are becoming suspicious of me. I tell them
plainly that whatever there may be in their customs incompatible with
the great law of Love to God and man must come to nought. "You beat
and terrify matanomorous in order to make them give, that you may get
pigs and native money from them. Such conduct is all wrong, for if
you beat or frighten a youth or man, you certainly can't love him."

'At the same time I can't tell how far this goes. If there were a
real ceremony of an idol or prayer to it, of course it would be
comparatively easy to act in the matter; but the ceremony consists in
sticking a curious sort of mitre, pointed and worked with hair, on
the head of the candidate, and covering his body with a sort of Jack-
in-the green wicker work of leaves, &c., and they joke and laugh
about it, and attach, apparently, no religious significance to it
whatever.

'I think it has the evil which attends all secret societies, that it
tends to produce invidious distinctions and castes. An instinct
impels men to form themselves into associations; but then Christ has
satisfied that instinct legitimately in the Church.

'Christianity does meet a human instinct; as, e.g., the Lord's
Supper, whatever higher and deeper feelings it may have, has this
simple, but most significant meaning to the primitive convert, of
feasting as a child with his brethren and sisters at the Father's
Board.

'The significance of this to people living as more than half the
human beings in the world are living still, is such as we have lost
the power of conceiving; the Lord's Supper has so long had, so to
say, other meanings for many of us. Yet to be admitted a member of
God's family, and then solemnly at stated times to use this privilege
of membership, strengthening the tie, and familiarising oneself more
and more with the customs of that heavenly family, this surely is a
very great deal of what human instinct, as exhibited in almost
universal customs, requires.

'There are depths for those who can dive into them; but I really
think that in some of these theological questions we view the matter
solely from our state of civilisation and thought, and forget the
multitudes of uneducated, rude, unrefined people to whom all below
the simple meaning is unmeaning. May I not say to Robert Pantatun,
"Christ, you know, gave His Body and Blood for us on the Cross, He
gives them to you now, for all purposes of saving you and
strengthening your spiritual life, while you eat and drink as an
adopted child at your Father's Table"?

'It is the keeping alive the consciousness of the relation of all
children to God through Christ that is needed so much. And with
these actual sights before me, and you have them among you in the
hundreds of thousands of poor ignorant creatures, I almost wonder
that men should spend so much time in refining upon points which
never can have a practical meaning for any persons not trained to
habits of accurate thought and unusual devotion. But here I am very
likely wrong, and committing the very fault of generalizing from my
own particular position.

'June 4th.--I was greatly pleased, on Friday evening last which
George Sarawia spent here with me, to hear from him that he had been
talking with the Banks Islanders at Norfolk Island, and on board
ship, about a plan which he now proposed to me. I had indeed thought
of it, but scarcely saw my way. It is a new proof of his real
earnestness, and of his seeking the good of his people here. The
plan is this:--

'G. S. "Bishop, we have been talking together about your buying some
land here, near your present place, where we all can live together,
where we can let the people see what our mode of life is, what our
customs are, which we have learnt from you."

'J. C. P. "Capital, George, but are you all willing to give up your
living in villages among your own particular relations? "

'G. S. "Yes, we all agreed about it. You see, sir, if we live
scattered about we are not strong enough to hold our ground, and some
of the younger ones fall back into their old ways. The temptations
are great, and what can be expected of one or two boys among eighty
or ninety heathen people?"

'J. C. P. "Of course you know what I think about it. It is the very
thing I have always longed for. I did have a general school here, as
you know."

'G. S. "Yes, but things are different now. People are making
enquiries. Many young fellows want to understand our teaching, and
follow it. If we have a good large place of our own there, we can
carry on our own mode of living without interfering with other
people."

'J. G. P. "Yes, and so we can, actually in the midst of them, let
them see a Christian village, where none of the strange practices
which are inconsistent with Christianity will be allowed, and where
the comforts and advantages of our customs may be actually seen."

'G. S. "By-and-by it will be a large village, and many will wish to
live there, and not from many parts of Mota only."

'Well, I have told you, I suppose, of the fertility of this island,
and how it is far more than sufficient to supply the wants of the
people. Food is wasted on all sides. This very day I have plucked
ten large bread-fruits, and might have plucked forty now nearly ripe,
simply that the bats may not get them. I gave them away, as I can't
eat more than a third part of one at a meal.

'So I went with George on Saturday, and we chose such a beautiful
property, between Veverao and Maligo, I dare say about ten acres.
Then I spoke to the people here, explaining my wishes and motives.
To-day we have been over it with a large party, that all might be
done publicly and everybody might hear and know. The land belongs to
sixteen different owners; the cocoa-nut trees, breadfruit, almond,
and other fruit-trees are bought separately.

'They all agree; indeed, as they have abundance of space of spare
land just as good all about, and they will get a good stock of
hatchets, pigs, &c., from me, for this land, there is not much doubt
about that. But it is pleasant to hear some of them say, "No, no,
that is mine and my son's, and he is your boy. You can have that for
nothing."

'I shan't take it; it is safer to buy, but it is pleasant to see the
kind feeling.

'If it be God's will to prosper this undertaking, we should begin
next year with about fifteen of our own scholars, and a goodly number
of half-scholars, viz., those who are now our regular scholars here,
but have not been taken to New Zealand.

'Fencing, clearing, &c., could go on rapidly. Many would help, and
small payments of beads and fish-hooks can always secure a man's
services.

'I should build the houses with the material of the island, save only
windows, but adopt of course a different shape and style for them.
The idea would be to have everything native fashion, but improved, so
as to be clearly suitable for the wants of people sufficiently
civilised. All that a Christian finds helpful and expedient we ought
to have, but to adopt English notions and habits would defeat my
object. The people could not adopt them, there would be no teaching
for them. I want to be able to say: "Well, you see, there is nothing
to prevent you from having this and that, and your doing this and
that."