Advent of Missionaries

In 1823, three native missionaries from Tahiti with the wives of two of them were landed at Mangaia from a London Missionary Society's schooner. They received such rough treatment at the hands of the Mangaians that they all swam back to the ship's boat page 75which had waited outside the reef to see the reception. An epidemic of dysentery broke out on the island soon after the visit, and the natives attributed it to the anger of the visitors' god. Two other missionaries, Davida and Tiare, were landed at the island in the following year. The Mangaians, afraid of incurring another epidemic of dysentery, afforded them protection, built them a house, and allowed them to expound their faith to those who would listen to them.

It had so happened that in the last war the combined tribes of Ngati-tane and Ngati-manahune had defeated the existing government of Ngati-vara. The Shore-high-priest, whose sympathies were with the defeated Ngati-vara, entered politics and refused to assist in the installation of the victorious leader, Pangemiro. Pangemiro promptly deposed the Shore-high-priest from office and combined the position with that of the Inland-high-priest, held by one Numangatini. The ritual of installation could not be carried out properly, but Pangemiro functioned as Dictator. Pangemiro died three years later and, as there had been no war, the office of Dictator fell into temporary abeyance. The highest ranking chief was Numangatini, holding the offices of both Inland-high-priest and Shore-high-priest.

It was at this peculiar stage that the two Tahitian missionaries landed on Mangaia and came under the page 76protection of the dominant Ngati-tane tribe. In the course of time they made converts among the Ngati-tane, and finally the chiefs of the Ngati-tane and the Ngati-manahune accepted the new religion. The converted males marked their conversion by cutting off their long hair, and the taboos that prevented the sexes eating together and parents eating with their first-born sons were abolished. The national god house was burned to the ground, and the gods that had reposed in it were thrown in a heap before the missionaries. The coverings of bark cloth were removed and cast into the sea. By exposing the gods to the vulgar gaze, they were dishonored. The temples were desecrated by the burning of the god houses on them. Led by the native missionaries, the work of destruction went on, and even the groves of noble trees that gave shelter to the temples were felled to the ground.

The Ngati-vara, who remained in opposition, were horrified and went into mourning. Dressed in evil-smelling bark cloth that had been soaked in the mud of taro swamps, and with faces and bodies blackened with charcoal, they formed a sad procession around the island as a protest against the desertion of the gods of Mangaia.

The new religion preached brotherly love and the cessation of war. The cessation of war was agreeable page 77to the tribes in power at the time, for its acceptance meant that they would enjoy power forever, but to the defeated tribes it meant that they must give up all chance of ever regaining the government and recovering the fertile food lands they had lost. Hence the victorious Ngati-tane and Ngati-manahune readily became Christians, but the defeated Ngati-vara, by refusing to depart from the original constitution, remained "heathen." The missionaries, perhaps without fully realizing it, were political propagandists.

Matters reached a head when the Ngati-vara assembled their forces and offered battle to regain government over the island. European missionary writers have described the event as a struggle between the Christians and the "heathens," but to the anthropologist the struggle was not religious but political. The Ngati-vara were using the only cultural means available to them to change the government. Had they accepted Christianity, they would have given up the only means of effecting change. The Ngati-tane, on the other hand, had followed the course adopted by Pomare in Tahiti in hoping that the missionaries' god would be powerful enough to keep them in power. During the battle, the Tahitian missionary, Davida, remained on his knees, supplicating Jehovah to grant victory to the Ngati-tane; in a thatched hut perched page 78on a high rock, Tereavai, priest of the Ngati-vara, invoked his tribal god Te A'ia to give success to their arms. The spiritual power of Te A'ia, however, had departed with that of the other Polynesian gods, and the heathen were defeated. The Ngati-vara were offered food lands if they would accept the new religion and live in Christian villages. The terms were accepted, though for some time a large number refused to conform to the outward visible signs of an inward spiritual grace. These Christians also signalized their conversion by cutting off their long hair, and the women wore garments of white bark cloth instead of the brown color previously in fashion.