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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 3

The Pruning of the Tree

The Pruning of the Tree

The Jerusalem community, of which I was a member, situated on the Wanganui River, has now closed down. The decision that it should close was in no way a problem for me.

The owners of the main Maori house in which we were living expressed the desire that the community should shift, and the wish of either the Maori house owners or the people at present living in the Jerusalem pa carries for me the weight of a command.

They have been our providers and benefactors. They have the right to withdraw their support whenever they see fit, without any question of complaint or contradiction from myself or other members of the guest community.

But I think I have a duty to both the disbanded community and the Maori people who have been our benefactors to clear any muddle that may at page 374 present surround the situation.

The community of which I was a member functioned for about two and a half years. At first we lived in a cottage lent to us by the Sisters of Compassion, but withdrew from this cottage by our own decision when two other houses, lent by Maori people, were ready for our use.

There is no doubt in my mind that the presence of our community, composed of different people at different times, made demands on the tolerance of the Jerusalem pa people, the local Sisters, and the farmers who live along the river. There were points of friction.

There were also areas of friendship and good communication, particularly between us and the people of the Jerusalem pa. As I have sometimes put it, water quite often splashed into our boat. But it did not hit a rock till the beginning ofSeptember this year.

Publicity in the newspapers, good or bad, has not been very helpful to us. The newspaper information was quite often distorted, and in some cases definitely erroneous.

Naturally enough the people on the river were not entirely happy to see Jerusalem become the centre of a storm of controversy. Indeed some of them may actually have taken sensational newspaper reports and various rumours spread by word of mouth as gospel truth.

The suggestion that we used drugs – that we practised promiscuity – that we were habitually workshy – that we lived by theft – this kind of suggestion is extremely difficult to disprove by argument.

Those who believed such suggestions had nearly always had little or no contact with the Jerusalem community. The ones who got to know us usually became our friends, and this was particularly true of the pa people who lived right alongside us.

When offence did arise, it came commonly from the minor faults and irresponsibility of young people. A boy might bring a gun and indulge in target practice too near the pa houses. A girl might show a lack of knowledge and respect for local Maori custom. Somebody would tie a dog up at night, and somebody else would let him loose, so that there was a danger he might chase sheep. On one occasion, till the local people complained, a few members of the community developed the habit of swimming with no clothes on in the river.

This is what I mean when I talk about water splashing into the boat. Such problems were normally resolved by discussion with the local Maori people. They were recurring problems. They did require tolerance from our hosts. I think I can say truthfully that that tolerance was always forthcoming.

The one central problem was that a large number of young people began to come to Jerusalem. It made for overcrowding in the houses. It meant that many young people were asking for lifts from trucks and cars along the river road.

page 375

I could see that there might be reason to limit the size of the community. But I was well aware that manywho camehad realproblems and were looking for peace of mind. I think the local people recognised this too.

Perhaps too much thread had to pass through the eye of one needle. But there was no other needle available, and I was personally cheered when many whose minds were disturbed on arrival became calm in the accepting group atmosphere, when drug-users ceased to feel the need for drugs, when those who had had trouble with the police showed less signs of getting into trouble, when those who were doubtful acquired a greater ability to make their own decisions, when some whose sexual pattern in the towns had been disturbed either became celibate at Jerusalem or settled down with one partner.

This last event can of course be a matter of moral dispute. But I think it is unrealistic in our troubled times to demand that the entire population, believing or unbelieving, should practise Christian monogamy, and actually unjust to assume that anything short of Christian monogamy, blessed by the priest or minister and recorded by the registrar, is a sign and source of moral evil.

Perhaps there are many more marriages than the Church or State has ever recognised. I have seen fidelity, tenderness and responsibility, in de facto unions in the Jerusalem community, and I never felt I had the right to break them up. I have also seen couples get formally married from the community.

The pa people showed great forbearance and friendship in dealing with this problem of overcrowding that came from my open door policy, and in particular with the problem of untidiness in the houses that inevitably accompanied it. They intervened on many occasions to help us get organised in keeping the houses clean and tidy and in keeping the land that surrounds the houses free of rubbish. In this way, as in many other ways, their intervention and criticism was invariably neighbourly and constructive.

Recently a member of a family who had just returned to the pa after many years of absence decided that it was her mission to renovate the pa and restore Maoritanga in the area, and that in order to do this effectively, it would be necessary for our community to be shifted. I had myself the greatest sympathy with Mrs Rangiwhetu’s objectives, though I felt she had been unduly influenced by sensational newspaper publicity regarding the community.

I told her that I would accept the verdict of the owners of the house and the tribal marae committee. In the event the chief owner of the house made a public statement that we were at liberty to remain in residence, and the other people in the Jerusalem pa less formally gave us their support, while emphasising that we would have to do our best to keep the land and houses tidy. Mrs Rangiwhetu personally made her peace with me.

More recently I was told that there would be a meeting of certain local farmers in Wanganui, and that I was invited to attend it. By a mistake in page 376 times, I arrived at the meeting after it was over. I had a friendly conversation with the house owners, and they told me that while the community would have to disband, principally because it had grown too large in number, I was to count myself free to live in the house with members of my family. I thanked them for their support and friendship and accepted this verdict.

It did strike me forcibly that while the local pa people had extended their friendship and tolerance to members of the community, both Maori and pakeha, it was principally the local pakeha farmers and a minority of other pakehas, some of them members of my own Church, who had found our presence at Jerusalem intolerable and felt it necessary to have us ejected.

It made my own situation much easier to cope with. I will go back to live at Jerusalem, since my heart is at peace among the local people and I would hope eventually for the privilege of being buried there.

But in future if a Catholic pakeha student (one of the fifty per cent who are ceasing in this generation to be members of my Church) were to approach me for counsel, I could say – ‘Go to Father X. He may be able to lead you back to God.

‘Many did recover their faith at Jerusalem, when there was a community here. But Father X was one of those who set the axe to the tree. I think he has taken over the responsibility of guiding you.’

And if a pakeha parent were to approach me, whose son had begun to use drugs freely or whose daughter was making her way to the mental hospital, I could say:

‘Look, pakehas may visit my house, but not to stay. My wife is Maori and my children are Maori. I am living quietly in a house in a Maori pa. Too many pakehas think that I may mislead their children. In effect they have forbidden me to try to look after them when they get in trouble.

‘The problem is off my shoulders. You have the policemen and the doctors to cope with the problems of your adult children. I can’t look after them.

‘Unless they feel I am not worthy of it, I will devote myself in future to dealing with the problems of the adult children of the Maori people, whom I regard always as my relatives.

‘I did try to look after the adult children of the pakeha, when they were in trouble, but there were too many of them, and the local pakehas found their presence intolerable, though the Maoris had patience with them. I’m sorry, you’ll have to go to somebody else.’

In that way I think I will be able to live in peace at Jerusalem. But when I am in the towns I will fight on behalf of both Maori and pakeha, against a culture that loves money and prestige more than it loves its own children, and hates them when it sees them in unfamiliar clothes, and crucifies them daily in its institutions.

And if these adult children wish to make other communities where they share their goods and speak the truth and have mercy on one another’s failings page 377 I will not withhold my friendship from them. But I will tell them they cannot stay with me at Jerusalem.

The tree is pruned back to the stump. If it grows again it will be in family, not in a special Jerusalem community.

But I sincerely hope that the pruners of the tree have good alternative plans for dealing with the problems of their adult children.

1971 (658)