Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place 3031461215, 9783031461217

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POSTCOLONIALISM AND RELIGIONS

Unsettling Theologies Edited by Brian Fiu Kolia · Michael Mawson

Postcolonialism and Religions Series Editors

Joseph Duggan Postcolonial Networks San Francisco, CA, USA J. Jayakiran Sebastian United Lutheran Seminary Philadelphia, PA, USA

The Postcolonialism and Religions series by its very name bridges the secular with the sacred through hybrid, interstitial, and contrapuntal inquiries. The series features the scholarship of indigenous scholars working at the intersections of postcolonial theories, theologies, and religions. The editors welcome authors around the world in an effort to move beyond and interrogate a historical North American and Euro-centric postcolonial studies disciplinary dominance. The series seeks to foster subaltern voices especially from Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the liquid continent.

Brian Fiu Kolia  •  Michael Mawson Editors

Unsettling Theologies Memory, Identity, and Place

Editors Brian Fiu Kolia Malua Theological College Apia, Samoa

Michael Mawson University of Auckland/Waipapa Taumata Rau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

ISSN 2946-2312     ISSN 2946-2320 Postcolonialism and Religions ISBN 978-3-031-46120-0    ISBN 978-3-031-46121-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image artwork by Emmanuel Garibay This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgments

This project grew out of relationships. It was inspired by some of the rich theological thinking and conversations that have been happening for some time in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Pacific. This volume aims to gather up some concrete reflections about theology and theological education from our friends and colleagues. First and foremost, we thank and acknowledge all of the contributors for their mahi (work) writing and revising their chapters. Much of the thinking and writing of this project took place during the pandemic and successive lockdowns. It is a small miracle that this project even managed to come together! Thank you for your patience and perseverance with us as editors. A number of these chapters were shared as papers at the United Theological College (UTC) Research Colloquium in 2021 and 2022. The UTC Colloquium and the research community provided opportunities for deep conversation and reflection. Thank you to all those who contributed to these discussions and helped shape this project. The artist Emmanuel Garibay granted permission for use of the image of his striking painting, The Theologian, that appears on the cover. The Presbyterian Research Centre (Archives) of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand granted permission for the images that appear in Wayne Te Kaawa’s chapter. Permission for images of artworks from Vernon Ah Kee’s Unwritten series (appearing in Garry Deverell’s chapter) was granted by the Milani Gallery. Permission for the use of an image from Warwick Thornton’s Stranded (also appearing in Deverell’s chapter) was granted by Anna Schwartz Gallery. Thank you. v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Centre for Religion and Ethics and Society at Charles Sturt University provided a grant to assist with proofreading and the construction of the index. Andrew Clark-Howard has undertaken this work. Alongside his meticulous editing, Andrew has provided insightful and rich comments that have helped to sharpen many of our arguments. We appreciate our home institutions—the University of Auckland/ Waipapa Taumata Rau and Malua Theological College, Samoa—that provide supportive environments for this kind of research. We also appreciate the Maclaurin Goodfellow Trust, which supports Michael’s position at the University of Auckland. And we value the encouragement of the Principal and Faculty at Malua Theological College for Brian’s scholarship and development. Finally, we thank our beautiful families for their love and patience— Tanaria, Elichai, Ruth, Lars, and Silas. Brian Fiu Kolia December 2023

Michael Mawson

Praise for Unsettling Theologies “This collection asks incisive and unsettling questions of the Christian tradition that will challenge any Western reader. Resisting the amnesia of modernity, the authors reckon with the past to highlight certain legacies of colonialism—neither absolving nor rejecting those who have been privileged by it. With generosity and attentiveness, the authors reimagine the future for diverse communities across the South Pacific.” —Meredith Lake, Historian and Broadcaster “Unsettling Theologies by Michael Mawson and Brian Kolia is a profound and thought-provoking work that disrupts conventional theological discourse. It delves into the intricate intersections of memory, identity, and place, offering readers a fresh and innovative perspective. It also invites those in both the academy and the pew to challenge their preconceptions and engage in a deeper, more empathetic exploration of spirituality. This collection is a transformative and enlightening read.” —Nāsili Vaka’uta, Trinity Methodist Theological College, New Zealand “This vibrant chorus of voices from the Moana/Pacific, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand makes an exciting and bold contribution to theology. This book unsettles expectations and asks new questions. It is likely to become a reference point in pioneering a future agenda for creative and more inclusive theological discussion.” —David Tombs, University of Otago, New Zealand

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Brian Fiu Kolia and Michael Mawson Part I Unsettling Whiteness   9 2 Jesus  Christ, Once Was a Savage! Selective Memory, Staged Identity, and Stolen Spaces 11 Te Aroha Rountree 3 ‘The  Poor Bugger Has Suffered Enough’: Vernon Ah Kee, Warwick Thornton, and the Unmaking of a White Jesus 23 Garry Worete Deverell 4 Unsettling  Jesus Christ: Indigenous and Settler Christologies in the Aftermath of Colonisation 37 Michael Mawson 5 Unsettling  Theologies Means Unsettling Theological Institutions! 57 Naomi Wolfe

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Contents

Part II Dismantling Colonial Systems  75 6 Uncovering  the Mat: Restorative Justice for the Dawn Raids? 77 Brian Fiu Kolia 7 ‘It’s  Giving … Colonization’: Challenges to Mental Resilience for Diasporic Christian Pacific Youth 93 Therese Lautua 8 Unsettling  Providential Partnership: A Critical Examination of Robert Maunsell and George Grey’s Partnership in Māori Education109 Andrew Picard 9 Spiritualities  of Belonging and Intercultural Politics in Australia137 Mark G. Brett 10 To  Conquer and Subdue: An Ecological Reading of Wilderness in Jeremiah 17:5–8 and Beyond153 Emily Colgan Part III Un-silencing Alter-Native Theologies 173 11 Taught  to Fish but Still Starving: Unsettling Theological Hermeneutics in Oceania175 Faafetai Aiava 12 Archives:  From Places of Silence and Silencing to Places of Regeneration189 Wayne Te Kaawa

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13 B  eyond the Tautologa: Tu(akoi) from a Geopolitical Lens213 Maina Talia 14 Unsettling  Economies: A Moana Account(ing)223 Jione Havea Index239

Notes on Contributors

Faafetai  Aiava is Senior Lecturer and the Head of Department of Theology and Ethics at the Pacific Theological College, Fiji. He is also an ordained minister of the Congregational Christian Church, Samoa. Aiava is a first-generation diasporic Samoan, having been born in Samoa and raised in Aotearoa and Australia. He holds a PhD from Pacific Theological College, with his work focusing on colonization, pedagogy, contextual theology, trinitarian theology, relational theology, Pacific hermeneutics, diaspora, and migration. Mark G. Brett  is an Australian who was raised in Papua New Guinea, and who now lives on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people. He is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Whitley College, the University of Divinity, in Naarm/Melbourne. His books include Decolonizing God: The Bible in the Tides of Empire (2009), Political Trauma and Healing: Biblical Ethics for a Postcolonial World (2016), and a forthcoming work Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible: From Moses to Mabo. Emily  Colgan  is a Pākehā (white) researcher in biblical studies from Aotearoa New Zealand. She lives in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), under the shadow of Ō hinerua maunga (the mountain) where Ngāti Whātua-oŌ rākei are mana whenua (the tribal authority). She is Manukura/Principal at St John’s College/Hoani Tapu te Kaikauwhau i te Rongopai, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the author of Jeremiah: An Earth Bible Commentary (forthcoming) and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Eve (2023) and the multi-volume work, Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion (2018). xiii

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Garry  Worete  Deverell  is a trawloolway man from northern lutruwita (Tasmania), an Anglican priest, and a founding Lecturer and Research Fellow within the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Divinity, Melbourne. He is the author of The Bonds of Freedom: Vows, Sacraments and the Formation of the Christian Self (2008) and Gondwana Theology: A Trawloolway Man Reflects on Christian Faith (2018). Jione  Havea is co-parent for a polycultural daughter, native pastor (Methodist Church, Tonga), and senior research fellow with Trinity Theological College (Aotearoa New Zealand) and with the Centre for Religion, Ethics, and Society (Charles Sturt University, Australia). An activist on the ground and in meeting-­ rooms and classrooms, Havea pushes back at bullies, suckers, and shitstems, in and around sacred texts and cultures. Brian Fiu  Kolia is Lecturer in Old Testament Studies at Malua Theological College and an ordained minister of the Congregational Christian Church, Samoa. He is an Australian-born Samoan whose roots go back to the villages of Sili Savaii, Satapuala, Tufutafoe and Faleaseela. He holds a PhD from the University of Divinity and is author of the forthcoming Maota Tau Ave: Towards a Diasporic Australian-Samoan Understanding of Wisdom in Ecclesiastes (2024). More importantly, he is a husband to Tanaria and father to Elichai. Therese  Lautua  is a Tomokanga Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Auckland/ Waipapa Taumata Rau and completed her PhD in Theology at the same institution. Proudly from South Auckland, New Zealand, her cultural heritage spans across the villages of Lalolmanu, Amaile, Samusu, Poutasi in Samoa, as well as Ireland and Switzerland. Lautua loves the challenge of being a wife, mother, and serving her local Catholic parish and community. Michael  Mawson  is a Pākehā (white) theologian and the Maclaurin Goodfellow Associate Professor at the University of Auckland/ Waipapa Taumata Rau. He is also Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is the author of Christ Existing as Community: Bonhoeffer’s Ecclesiology (2018) and co-­editor of The Oxford Handbook of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2019). His current research focuses on theology and aging, decolonization, and liberation theologies.

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Andrew Picard  is a Pākehā (white) theologian who lives in Te Kawerau ā Maki rohe, Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand. He is Director of Carey Graduate School and Lecturer in Public and Systematic Theology at Carey Baptist College, Aotearoa New Zealand. He is co-editor of T&T Clark Handbook of Colin Gunton (2021) and co-editor of Theology and the Experience of Disability: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Voices Down Under (2016). Te  Aroha  Rountree  is Senior Lecturer in Māori/Moana Studies at Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research areas include Tangata Whenua theology and Tikanga Māori. She is from Ngai Tuteāuru and Ngā Puhi. Maina Talia  is a theologian and activist from Vaitupu, Tuvalu. He holds a PhD from Charles Sturt University, with his work focusing on Indigenous methodologies and climate justice. He is the former Co-chair of Global Indigenous Forum on Climate Change (GIFCC) representing the Pacific islands. Wayne Te Kaawa  is from Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Awa and Tūhoe people. He holds a PhD in Theology from Otago University and his research areas include Māori and Indigenous theology. He is Lecturer of Māori Theology at the University of Otago and a Presbyterian Minister. Naomi  Wolfe  is a trawloolway woman with Jewish German and Irish heritage. She is lecturer in history at Australian Catholic University. She is also Director of Academic Programs, NAIITS College—the first Indigenous postgraduate theological college in Australia. NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community is an international learning community of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples from around the world. Naomi has a commitment and interest in decolonizing the disciplines of theology and history.

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3

Vernon Ah Kee, Unwritten, 2017, charcoal, pastel, and acrylic on linen, 150 × 90 cm. (Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjn/Brisbane) 27 Vernon Ah Kee, Unwritten (becoming), 2012, etching on paper. (Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane)28 Warwick Thornton, image from Stranded, 2011. (Image courtesy of Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne) 32

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Brian Fiu Kolia and Michael Mawson

The cover of our book features a painting by the Filipino artist Emmanuel Garibay, The Theologian, which hangs in the dining hall of the United Theological College in Paramatta, Australia. As with many of Garibay’s paintings (see Pattenden 2023), The Theologian is disturbing and unsettling. It portrays a white, well-dressed theologian sitting comfortably on the back of a brown, Indigenous Jesus, recognisable from his crown of thorns. In contrast to the theologian, Jesus is barefoot and naked, thin, crouching, and close to the ground. What is particularly striking in this painting is that that the theologian seems entirely oblivious of the person beneath him. Smoking a pipe and peering through spectacles, he is immersed in reading a large, beautifully bound book. Unlike Jesus, who despite his heavy load still extends a hand

B. F. Kolia Malua Theological College, Apia, Samoa e-mail: [email protected] M. Mawson (*) University of Auckland/Waiapapa Taumata Rau, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_1

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outward, the theologian is hunched over, closed in on himself. The book that he is reading seems to be more important than where he is sitting. Indeed, the theologian seems unaware of the burden and violence of his activity. His context seems to have no significance for his theological musings. Garibay’s painting introduces and depicts a number of the themes which are central to this book: Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place. The painting raises questions of how we can attend to and unsettle theologians and theologies that suppress native voices, overlook the marginalised other, and colonise Indigenous bodies. In a recent report on the dynamics and impacts of white supremacy, racism, and colonisation, the Human Rights Commission of Aotearoa New Zealand provides a definition of colonisation: ‘The systematic appropriation, seizure and exploitation of Indigenous lands and natural resources by settler colonies. Colonial processes undermine and disempower Indigenous self-determination, leadership, and political structures’ (Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, 2020, 21). The report makes specific note of the role of Christianity in these colonial processes: ‘Colonisation employed Christianity and Western institutions to subjugate Indigenous spiritual beliefs and knowledge systems and dismantle first peoples’ societies, culture, social cohesion, and families’ (21). In Australia, Aotearoa, and Pasifika, Christianity has been integrally connected to colonisation. Colonisation was central to how the Christian faith arrived at this end of the world and also to its subsequent spread and development. Christianity in turn has largely accepted and operated within enclosures and boundaries set by colonialism.1 If colonisation has been aptly described as the attempt to replace one house (whare/fale) with another (Ross 2020, 23–24), Christianity has been living comfortably inside the new colonial villa. It is also significant that most theology and theological education in this part of the world makes limited reference to these connections between Christianity and colonisation. As with Garibay’s painting, most scholars choose to immerse themselves in texts or focus their attention elsewhere. Most theological scholarship that is being produced here makes

1  As the editors of another recent book put it, ‘Christian theologies came—uninvited, unwelcomed—in the arms of white European (pākehā, palangi) traders and missionaries whose drives interlocked with the missions of explorers and flagbearers (read: land-grabbers, colonizers) for their white European Crowns’ (Havea et al. 2022, 1).

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little or no mention of local contexts, histories, and struggles.2 It is instead orientated to debates and trends in European or American scholarship. The chapters of Unsettling Theologies respond to this situation. Many of the chapters attend to specific ways that Christianity has been and still is bound up with white supremacy, racism, and colonisation.3 Some of the chapters draw attention to problems and limitations of mainstream theological education and scholarship. Other chapters begin to present and perform ways in which things could be different. In all of these ways, the chapters of Unsettling Theologies aim to contribute to wider work of decolonisation (Elkington et al. 2020). If this collection as a whole aims to unsettle or contest a longstanding alliance of Christianity and colonisation, the subtitle indicates some specific sites of intervention: memory, identity, and place. First, this collection aims to recover lost memories and forgotten truths. Many of the chapters revisit the past and draw attention to neglected histories and stories. They do so in order to create new possibilities for the present. Second, Unsettling Theologies provides reflections on how theology and theological thinking intersect with identity or ways of being. How can theology and theological thinking help us to understand who we in our own communities and relationships with one another? Finally, many of the chapters seek to perform and demonstrate ways in which theology is deeply connected to place. Theological reflection is neither abstract nor universal; it emerges from local communities and peoples struggling to survive, understand themselves, and find a way forward. On this basis Unsettling Theologies includes contributions from scholars from a range of backgrounds and positionalities. The collection features constructive, creative work being undertaken by Indigenous theologians from around Australia, Aotearoa, and Pasifika. It includes scholarship by Aboriginal, Māori, Tongan, Samoan, and Tuvaluan theologians, many of whom have been recovering and drawing on Indigenous wisdoms to challenge and expand traditional understandings of Christianity. The chapters of Unsettling Theologies display innovative ways of reading biblical texts, storytelling, distinctive forms of practice and worship, and surprising ways 2  There are, of course, notable exceptions. In theological scholarship from colleges in the Pacific, there has a strong focus on developing contextual theologies. For more on Pacific contextual theologies, see Havea 2021. 3  Of course, colonisation has not been monolithic; it has morphed into different forms in different times and places. There are significant differences across the contexts that our authors engage.

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of being Christian. By providing a sampling of this rich scholarship, Unsettling Theologies invites readers to go further and deeper in engaging these voices and ideas. This collection also features work by some white theologians who are committed to the work of decolonisation. White theologians too have responsibilities for identifying and naming ways in which their commitments and beliefs have been and continue to be complicit in colonisation and racism. White theologians hold responsibilities for divesting power and rethinking their commitments in order to make room for others. Unsettling Theologies includes chapters by scholars who have been grappling with these challenges. We have organised Unsettling Theologies into three parts. The first part, ‘Unsettling Whiteness’, includes four chapters that examine ways in which European colonisation and racism have impacted theology and Christian identity. In the opening chapter, Te Aroha Rountree provides an account of ‘Jesus as savage’ over against the civilising logics and history of missionary Christianity. Rountree reflects on how Jesus as savage can support ongoing Māori struggle and resistance: ‘Jesus the savage is an ally and accomplice in calling out historical inaccuracies and theological inequities, joining ongoing resistance against colonial oppression and injustice’ (Rountree 2024, 12). In the next chapter, Garry Worete Deverell reflects on artworks by two prominent Aboriginal artists: Vernon Ah Kee and Warwick Thornton. Deverell reflects on artworks in which Ah Kee and Thornton subvert Western representations of Jesus Christ. Drawing on these reflections, he pursues a theology that emphasises life and hope, rather than suffering and victimhood: ‘Ultimately we need a God who can help us move beyond being victims into a space where we can experience liberation and justice, we need a God who can share with us a founded hope for that better future’ (Deverell 2024, 33). Michael Mawson’s chapter proposes that in the aftermath of colonisation at least two different Christologies or images of Christ are required. First, he outlines some of the creative, constructive work currently being done by Indigenous theologians, focusing on Lee Miena Skye and Wayne Te Kaawa. Second, Mawson suggests the need for a theologia crucis for white Christians, an image of Christ that can interrupt settler strategies for avoiding responsibility and ignoring Indigenous challenges. In the last chapter of this part, Naomi Wolfe reflects on some concrete ways that we might begin to decolonise theological institutions in the

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Australian context. Drawing on her extensive experience working in colleges and universities, Wolfe indicates some of the barriers that have prevented Aboriginal students from succeeding in theological education. Moreover, she identifies and suggests practical steps that institutions can take in order to begin making their spaces more accessible. The second part of this collection, ‘Dismantling Colonial Systems’, consists of five chapters that seek to dismantle colonial systems by focusing on specific historical moments and events. In Chap. 6, Brian Kolia revisits an ifoga ceremony conducted in August 2021  in which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern officially apologised for the Dawn Raids of the 1970s. In these raids, the New Zealand Government systematically scapegoated and targeted Pasifika peoples. Kolia reflects on some limitations of this recent ifoga ceremony, questioning whether it was, in fact, a genuine ifoga. In the next chapter, Therese Lautua reflects on the pressures and challenges that are faced by diasporic Pacific youth. Organising her reflections around an episode of the popular podcast The Uso Table Talk, Lautua examines ways in which Pacific churches can inhibit the flourishing and relational wellbeing of youth. In addition, she reflects on how these spaces can be decolonised and made more life-giving: ‘How can we begin this slow work of listening and building community? How can we unsettle theologies and systems based on a colonial mindset?’ (Lautua 2024, 102). In Chap. 8, Andrew Picard reflects on the entanglements of education, Christianity, and colonialism in Aotearoa by exploring one specific friendship and partnership between nineteenth-century missionary Robert Maunsell and the influential Governor George Grey. Picard draws attention to some of the distorted theological assumptions and beliefs shared by Maunsell and Grey. He shows how these assumptions helped facilitate a civilising mission and agenda over several decades that contributed to the legacy of structural educational injustice for Māori. In a wide-ranging article, Mark Brett explores implications of the notion of spiritual sovereignty in Australia in the wake of the recognition of native title in the 1992 Mabo vs. Queensland decision. Engaging a range of legal decisions and commentaries, Brett draws out differences in white and Aboriginal ways of belonging in Australia. In light of these reflections, he concludes by calling on churches to acknowledge and respond to their past failures to affirm Indigenous sovereignty: ‘In the past, the churches in Australia may not have harboured questions about the legitimacy of their land grants, but that is no longer the case … The churches have an

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opportunity to regain the proper shape and consistency that has been lost by appropriating the benefits of colonial injustices’ (Brett 2024, 149). In her chapter, Emily Colgan focuses on a dichotomy between wilderness and gardens found in biblical texts such as Jeremiah 17: 5–8. In addition, Colgan explores how this dichotomy—with its negative construal of wilderness—was appropriated by British settlers in nineteenth-century New Zealand in ways that facilitated the large-scale destruction of perceived wilderness. What could happen if we were to free wilderness from this dichotomy? ‘Free of the proverbial polarity that constrains understandings of wilderness, this land becomes the habitat of the ‫( ע ְַרעָר‬shrub) and, by extension, the dwelling place of additional, other-than-human communities’ (Colgan 2024, 167). The final part of this collection is ‘Un-silencing Alter-Native Theologies’. Here, we end in the way Tongans and Samoans end their festivities by way of taoalunga or taualuga respectively. These Pasifika terms refer to the final dance which is given to the guest(s) of honour. However—and this is the meaning we want to emphasise—these words also point to Pasifika architecture, where the tip of the roof on top of the fale (house), known as the taualuga, is the final part of the structure. The taualuga closes off the whole fale and signals the completion of building. The four chapters of this section close off the fale by recovering native voices or presenting some Indigenous styles of thinking. Faafetai Aiava, for example, explores and reflects on hermeneutics. Aiava suggests that many of standard hermeneutical approaches to biblical studies in the Pacific ‘have philosophical underpinnings that serve the colonial interests of dominant cultures’ (Aiava 2024, 175). In response, he highlights some of the more dynamic, relational ways of reading and being that have emerged from Pasifika contexts. In Chap. 12, Wayne Te Kaawa outlines a group research project that involved identifying ‘unnamed natives’ from photographs held at the archives of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. By recovering the names and identities of the people in the photographs, their descendants were able to claim history and stabilise identity. ‘For a small Māori community’, Te Kaawa reflects, ‘this project became a way of reconnecting with our ancestors and telling stories of their historical, cultural, and spiritual connections to place’ (Te Kaawa 2024, 190). In Chap. 13, Maina Talia mobilises the concept of tuakoi (neighbour) for a public theology that facilitates climate justice. For Talia, this concept of tuakoi both draws from Indigenous wisdoms of Tuvalu and makes

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ethical claims that extend beyond this horizon. As Talia puts it, this concept helps with ‘lifting the discussions that happen on the islands towards the horizon of the political and economic world beyond’ (Talia 2024, 219). Finally, Jione Havea presents a ‘māfana economics’, which privileges ‘reciprocal relations and responsibilities’ rather than ‘products and monetary values’ (Havea 2024, 228). Drawing insights from Leslie Boseto and ‘Epeli Hau‘ofa, Havea contests economic practices and systems that depend on and support colonial powers. Instead, he draws attention to innovative ways in which Pasifika peoples actively forge connections through their shared labour and exchanges. Going back to Garibay’s painting, several questions emerge: How do we find a way forward? Do we remove this white theologian from the picture? Can we flip the positions of the white theologian and the brown Christ? Do we add more bodies to the brown and Indigenous Christ, helping him carry the oblivious white theologian? We hope that these chapters will help bring to light the colonialism that marks the white theologian and unsettle his obliviousness. Indeed, we hope that these chapters can push back at any theological thinking that is placing weight on the back of the brown, Indigenous Christ. We hope that you will be enriched and troubled by these chapters and challenges. And we hope that you will join us as we continue on this journey.

References Aiava, Faafetai. 2024. Taught to Fish but Still Starving: Unsettling Theological Hermeneutics in Oceania. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 175–188. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Brett, Mark. 2024. Spiritualities of Belonging and Intercultural Politics in Australia. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 137–152. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Colgan, Emily. 2024. ‘To Conquer and Subdue’: An Ecological Reading of Wilderness in Jeremiah 17:5–8 and Beyond. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 153–172. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Deverell, Garry. 2024. ‘The Poor Bugger Has Suffered Enough’: Vernon Ah Kee, Warwick Thornton and the Unmaking of a White Jesus. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 23–34. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Elkington, Biannca, Moana Jackson, Rebecca Kiddle, Ocean Ripeka Mercier, Mike Ross, Jennie Smeaton, and Amanda Thomas. 2020. Imagining decolonisation. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Havea, Jione, Emily Colgan, and Nasili Vaka’uta, eds. 2022. Theology as threshold: Invitations from Aotearoa New Zealand. Lanham: Roman & Littlefield. Havea, Jione, ed. 2021. Theologies from the Pacific. London: Palgrave. Havea, Jione. 2024. Unsettling Economies: A Moana Account(ing). In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 213–222. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lautua, Therese. 2024. ‘It’s Giving … Colonisation’: Challenges to Mental Resilience for Diasporic Christian Pacific Youth. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 93–107. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pattenden, Rod. 2023. A postcolonial Jesus: The art of Emmanuel Garibay. In Cultural afterlives of Jesus: Jesus in global perspective 3, ed. Gregory C. Jenks, 100–115. Eugene: Cascade. Ross, Mike. 2020. The throat of Parata. In Imagining decolonisation, ed. Biannca Elkington, Moana Jackson, Rebecca Kiddle, Ocean Ripeka Mercier, Mike Ross, Jennie Smeaton, and Amanda Thomas, 21–39. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Rountree, Te Aroha. 2024. Jesus Christ, Once was a Savage. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 11–22. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Talia, Maina. 2024. Beyond the Tautologa: Tu(akoi) from a Geopolitical Lens. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 213–222. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | The Human Rights Commission of Aotearoa New Zealand. 2020. Maranga Mai! The dynamics and impacts of white supremacy, racism, and colonisation upon Tangata Whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand. November. https://admin.tikatangata.org.nz/assets/Documents/Maranga-­ Mai_Full-­Report_PDF.pdf. Te Kaawa, Wayne. 2024. Archives: From Places of Silence and Silencing to Places of Regeneration. In Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity, and Place, ed. Brian Kolia and Michael Mawson, 189–212. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

PART I

Unsettling Whiteness

CHAPTER 2

Jesus Christ, Once Was a Savage! Selective Memory, Staged Identity, and Stolen Spaces Te Aroha Rountree

The title of this chapter proclaims that Jesus Christ is one of us. Jesus Christ was once a savage. In addition, my claim is that Jesus is one of us and speaks of our reconciliation as colonised tangata whenua (people of the land). This title proclaims Jesus as a savage, someone who identifies with our collective memory as tangata whenua, who is embodied in our identity as Māori and as Christians, and who is distinguished by our theological interactions in sacred places and spaces, both physical and metaphorical. The reclamation of the term ‘savage’, therefore, is an attempt to liberate us from the negative connotations of this language and stereotype. By taking a ‘savage’ approach, this chapter aims to unsettle histories and

T. A. Rountree (*) Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_2

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troubling theologies that have contributed to the oppression and marginalization of tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand.1 Along similar lines, Miguel De La Torre, in his book The Politics of Jesús: A Hispanic Political Theology (2015), is unapologetic in rejecting the Eurocentric Jesus of Euromerican design. De La Torre reflects on the transformative work of Jesús: ‘The thick Jesús called for understands what it means to be Hispanic and thus has something important to say to the marginalized, a message that is usually indecipherable to those accustomed to their power and privilege’ (15). This chapter does not offer or develop a Māori Christology,2 but rather explores the notion of Jesus as the liberator of the oppressed by placing Jesus at the centre of Māori experience, a witness and ally in seeking justice. As De La Torre states in his own context, ‘Jesús is Hispanic because the biblical witness of God is of one who takes sides with the least among us against those who oppress them’ (15). My own proclamation, therefore, is that Jesus the savage can be identified with our tupuna (ancestors) who Pākehā missionaries and settlers often labelled as barbaric savages. In light of this history, we need a Jesus who reflects and responds to the needs of our people today. Jesus the savage knows our whakapapa (lineage), is informed by our mātauranga Māori (Māori wisdoms), practices our tikanga (customs), and speaks our reo (language). Jesus the savage responds to our struggles for whenua (land) and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). In the present context, Jesus the savage is an ally and accomplice in calling out historical inaccuracies and theological inequities, joining ongoing resistance against colonial oppression and injustice. In Jesus Christ, God may be reconciling the world to Godself. In Jesus the savage, God is reconciling Māori to God. It will be useful at the outset to define some of the key terms of this chapter. First, ‘selective memory’ refers to the telling and retelling of history and theology in ways that normalize Pākehā (white) ways of knowing and being. ‘Selective memory’ is also that which has been accepted and perpetuated as history by mainstream society, and which is still being sanitized and popularized in churches and by theological institutions. Second, ‘staged identity’ names the deliberate and intentional staging of Māori identity for Pākehā purposes in line with dominant Pākehā perceptions. Finally, ‘stolen places’ refers to the places and spaces infiltrated and 1  This approach involves a dialogue between multiple disciplines: Māori studies, history, and theological interpretations of liberation. 2  For a work of Māori Christology, see Te Kaawa (2020).

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occupied by Pākehā to serve a colonising agenda, that is, in ways that continue to perpetuate, prophesy, and propagate selective memory and staged identity.

Me Hoki Whakamuri, Kia Anga Whakamua3 The whakataukı ̄ (proverbial saying) reclaimed here suggests that moving forward involves looking back, using the past to inform our future. As Māori, we look to and learn from our past, from our ancestors and their experiences, knowledge, and wisdoms. On this basis, selective memory is counterintuitive and counterproductive; it does not allow for the fullness of this history and experience to inform our future. We cannot build a future if we are not willing to accept the truth of our memories and lived experiences under colonialism. In his 2021 Master’s thesis, ‘Colonisation through Christianity’, Ritāne Wallace observes that ‘colonisation is far from being a vague memory for Māori, as the effect of colonisation and ongoing oppression is still evident in Aotearoa; socially, politically, psychologically and religiously’ (9). Selective memory thus afflicts the coloniser but is a luxury seldom available to the colonised. Indeed, those of us who are colonised often have our memories selected for us. This manifests in histories presumed, constructed, or defined by the coloniser. Official histories of Aotearoa, for example, have largely been written by Pākehā historians and scholars, informed by their own selective memories and those of their Pākehā predecessors. As these memories are selected and narrated by Pākehā dominance and power, they become truths, unchallenged and unwavering. Selective memory or historical amnesia therefore allows for convenient and more comfortable renderings of history that serve to alleviate Pākehā privilege. These selective memories largely draw from the writings and ruminations of earlier Pākehā, including a huge corpus of missionary journals and letters. These become the primary sources for research and provide the terms of reference for histories of Aotearoa New Zealand. The words and vision of colonisation and Christianity of nineteenth-century commentators become the selective memories of our time and place. These same histories or selective memories have been manufactured into curriculums and pedagogies of government education systems. They 3

 ‘Let our future be informed by our past.’

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are mass-produced and automated as the histories of the people and places of Aotearoa; they effectively become gospel. Indeed, this is so much the case that when any divergence from these histories occurs there can be immediate opposition. Any suggested alternative narrative by Māori is greeted with disdain and disbelief. One recent example is the Te Takanga o te Wā and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories collaborative curriculum which was rolled out in 2023 to all schools and Kura (Māori language schools). The new curriculum has already been condemned as divisive by the right-wing Minister of Parliament Chris Baillie who stated that it ‘leaves huge gaps in our true history, including science, technology, and the women’s movement’ (Small and Kowhai 2022). The suggestion here is that mātauranga Māori cannot be true history, science, technology, or an expression of mana wahine. As those who are colonised, we do not share in the privileges provided by selective memory; our experience is couched in violence, trauma, and dispossession, which is lived and relived intergenerationally (Reid et  al. 2017). We must endure history through a Pākehā lens, as it is spoken with a Pākehā voice, and accepted as true by a Pākehā public. We cannot select our own memories, but we also cannot choose to ignore or forget history. We cannot ‘get over it!’ as politicians, white supremacists, and anti-Māori conspiracy theorists have suggested. We continue to live with colonisation not as a distant memory but as an every-day occurrence. The historiography of colonial missions to Aotearoa provides an example of selective memory. The Pākehā missionaries who came to Aotearoa have sometimes been cast as the great white saviours and Māori as the savage heathens. Pākehā missionary journals and letters indicate contradictory views about Māori. Most missionaries indicate negative judgements about Māori culture and customs, even while they simultaneously acclaimed Māori as a noble race with the intellectual capacity to be converted to Christianity. The historian Tony Ballantyne has described the intentions of the missionaries to form and remake Māori: ‘They hoped that God would eventually allow them to “root out” those aspects of Māori life that did not fit with the injunctions of the Bible; they wanted to use the power of God’s word to ultimately remake all Māori, to convert them into pious God-fearing Christians. They understood that this was to be a difficult task, a great battle against the weaknesses of the “heathen” and the power of Satan’ (2014, 3). The encounters and engagements of early missionaries and Māori were therefore fraught with miscommunication and conflict. Indeed, the

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missionaries constantly complained and lamented about Māori. For example, Samuel Marsden described tikanga Māori as the ‘obscene customs and notions of the natives’ (Ballantyne 2014, 3). Similarly, Richard Taylor described Māori as ‘savage and debased’, while still being a ‘noble race, bold in battle, shrewd in council, skilful in execution’ (1868, 3–4). In our contemporary context, we reclaim these negative labels of ‘savage’ or ‘native’ in order to speak truth to power and dispel the selective memory that continues to marginalize us as Māori. Official histories often attribute the increased conversion of Māori after 1830 to more established settlements, improvements in mission practices, and seminary-trained missionaries. The efforts of Pākehā missionaries to convert Māori were also successful, however, because existing Māori religion and wisdoms were receptive to new beliefs and ideas (Kaa 2020). Moreover, the importance of literacy to Māori cannot be overstated, which again exemplifies the capacity of Māori for adaptation. The translation of the Bible into Māori not only benefited the Māori language but fostered new Māori theological interpretations and debates. The historical memory of these early encounters between Māori and missionaries have tended to convey a vision of successful mission to Māori, but not with Māori (e.g., Yates 2013). This standard history presents Māori as passive, as those to whom Christianity happened. This ignores or dismisses Māori agency and our ability to discern and reshape the relevance and validity of Christian tradition. Jesus the savage is an articulation of the capacity to be Māori followers of Christ with our theology, ecclesiology, and mātauranga Māori.

Tukua Mai he Kapunga Oneone Ki Ahau Hei Tangi mak̄ u4

Leonie Pihama provide an explanation of this whakataukı ̄: ‘As Māori we have an intimate connection to the land and as tangata whenua we see ourselves as kaitiaki of this taonga. This connection to the whenua provides us with a source of identity, spiritual nourishment, and emotional healing. Being away from home, one feels a sense of aroha and longing for the land and often feels compelled to return to fill the wairua and nourish

4

 ‘Send me a handful of soil that I may weep over it.’

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the soul. The land absorbs the tears that we may shed and can also provide healing in times of emotional turmoil’ (2019, 11–12). Staged identity is the common narrative of the coloniser that persists and permeates the mind, body, and soul of the colonised. While the identity of our people once included the richness of our language, traditions, and native wisdoms, this has been deliberately and intentionally reconstructed for the comfort and sensibilities of a fragile Pākehā temperament. As Wallace observes, ‘Māori spirituality since before the arrival of Pākehā had been the foundation of Māori identity. It was through a rich oral tradition that Māori primarily were able to articulate the cosmology of Māori ways of living, a practice that stood the test of time and offered the generations a framework to live in connection to each other’ (2019, 27). Understandings and images of Māori have often been shaped and formed through media. In photography, literature, and paintings of the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for example, Pākehā intentionally constructed and presented images of Māori women in ways that eroticized them, that is, to serve the desires and fantasies of a European male audience. Madeline Sheffield has observed that ‘the ethnographic images produced by early colonial photographers pasted a veneer of “authenticity” over these images of women, producing a voyeuristic, sexualising gaze of white male desire that wished to not only possess the exotic/erotic Other but also the countries they inhabited’ (2000, 1). The images of the Cartes De Visite were often designed to preserve the allure of sexually free native women and to feed into the erotic fantasies of European men. Along similar lines, European photographers such as Arthur James Iles often captioned images of Māori women and girls to attract and captivate European men, captions such as ‘Maori girls, dark but comely’. Iles built his career off the backs of Māori women, often staging them to look demure and posing them in their natural setting of native bush or pa harakeke (flax plants). Iles manipulated the perception of Māori women through his photography, and in many ways was able to monopolize the demand for imagery of Māori women. When describing postcard media, Sheffield argued, The postcard representations of Maori women are therefore of importance in terms of understanding gendered colonial relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand. They represent part of the vast body of calculated pictorial commodifications of women in general and native women in particular. These images therefore contribute to racist and sexist attitudes which have per-

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sisted throughout the twentieth century, and which continue to challenge Maori women, Pacific Island women, in fact all women – today. (2000, 1)

The early images of Māori women and girls served to immortalize the ‘come hither’ magnetism of the ‘dusky maiden’. This glamourizing of Māori women was largely to satisfy the appetites of a European male audience. In a similar way, Māori women were also sometimes presented in the image of the quintessential wahine Pākehā, that is, the reserved, well-­ mannered missionary wife. This is evident in the work of missionary wife, Marianne Williams, the wife of Church Missionary Society missionary Henry Williams. Marianne Williams is often described by historians as a pioneering educator of Māori children and adults. She also had an impact on the staged identity of wahine and kōtiro Māori5; their bodies were to be transformed to mirror the likeness of the missionary wife, with short hair and modest clothing. It appears that in domesticating Māori girls and women, Williams sought to refine them in line with the sensibilities of European women. Nonetheless, as Kathryn Rountree writes, ‘While striving to re-make “her” Māori “girls” in English women’s image and to draw them into the spiritual fold of Christianity, she paradoxically worked hard to maintain the social boundaries between missionaries and Māori, which Māori women learnt to cross with increasing adeptness as they moved between the European and Māori worlds’ (2000, 49). Despite the intention to remake Māori women and stamp out any remnants of the savage life in body, mind, and soul, Māori women proved adept at negotiating and disrupting this intention. The staged identity of Māori men is evident in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century portraiture of celebrity artists of the day, such as Charles Goldie and Godfried Lindauer. The staged identities of many who appear in these portraits are defined by the artists who often framed the identity for a European audience. The fierce and domineering image of a fearless warrior with mataora (full-face moko), for example, served the narrative of a noble savage, whereas the dignified posing of an elder statesman reframed the image and identity for the unsuspecting Pākehā settler. In the early twentieth century, Goldie began to focus on the images of Māori elders with tā moko (tattoo), referred to by his biographer Roger Blackley as the ‘noble relics of a noble race’ (1996). Similarly, although 5

 That is, Māori women and girls.

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Lindauer ‘painted some of his Māori subjects from life, he relied primarily on photographs, so that his representations of Māori were usually produced at several removes from their subject. Although he captured a sense of likeness in many of his Māori portraits, the history he represented is very much a European construct – a romanticized depiction of an allegedly dying race’ (Bell 1993). The staging of Māori identity throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was intended to provide commentary on the Pākehā encounter and provide a record of the soon to be extinguished Māori. The staged identity of Māori from the early twentieth century onwards can only be described as irresponsible, neglectful journalism, and as blatant racism. From print media to film and television, images and headlines reflecting anti-Māori sentiments had become increasingly frequent. Constant negative media representations of Māori continue to have a detrimental impact on our identity. Indeed, the advent of the internet and social media have only amplified the staging of Māori identity and the popularizing of harmful and damaging stereotypes. We are challenged to consider the implications of this staged identity in light of our theology and our faith. Jesus the savage, as liberator, enables and empowers Māori to reclaim our identity in our reconciliation with one another and with God. We are reminded that we are made in God’s image, and that our identity is not manufactured or manipulated by our human relationships but rather it is solidified in our covenantal relationship with God.

Hokia Ki ō Maunga Kia Purea Ai Koe e ngā Hau a Tawh ̄ irimat̄ ea6

Pihama explains this whakataukı ̄ as follows: ‘In times when we are troubled or in turmoil we are encouraged to return home to our ancestral mountains, lands and waters, which nourish and provide us with spiritual and emotional strength. This whakataukı ̄ recognises the intimate connections we have to place and the way in which our wellbeing is drawn from the land’ (2019, 29–30). The obvious places and spaces that are important to the theological progress of Māori or tangata whenua theologies include churches and theological institutions. However, the primary places and spaces are 6

 ‘Return to your mountains so that you can be cleansed by the winds of Tāwhirimātea.’

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actually marae and papa kāinga, where our theology is often reflected in the practices of the tangihanga (funeral rites) and other ritual practices. As we return to these places and spaces of spiritual strength, we reflect on where we began, and how our encounters with one another have impacted and changed us. As Ballantyne suggests, Encountering strangers has frequently called into question the power of the ‘old’ gods and their earthly representatives (from shaman to priests). This doubt created space for new gods, for new religious authorities, and for new visions of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Gods and their powers were the subject of crucial cross-cultural battles over meaning and frequently these struggles gave rise to particularly significant forms of innovation, as translation, appropriation, and reinterpretation produced new and unexpected forms of practice and belief. (2014, 1–2)

Accordingly, the final part of this chapter considers the conscious and unconscious pillaging of spaces and places where Māori theology should be thriving, were it not for Pākehā patriarchal invasion and intrusion. Stolen places are our spaces and places appropriated from our tūpuna, embezzled by colonialism, and pilfered by churches and theological institutions. This is to say, spaces and places like the marae and the papa kāinga, where Māori theology should take precedence, are beginning to be infiltrated by Pākehā colonial rhetoric disguised as Christian faith and teachings. What has occurred recently in these spaces is often influenced by do-gooder Pākehā within churches, who look to encourage Māori to be Christian, but still a particular kind of Christian, the kind prescribed by Pākehā. We have often witnessed in these spaces our tikanga and mātauranga Māori being used to ingratiate Pākehā as manuhiri and to be welcoming to the point of reducing our native wisdoms to obscurity. The sacred spaces and places in which our theology is embedded, valued, and exercised are being invaded by dominant Pākehā theology. This is in reference to those rare conferences, colloquiums, and wānanga that are established expressly as spaces of Māori theological expression and exploration, which are often overcome and overwhelmed not just by Pākehā theological thoughts and ideas, but by Pākehā themselves. These places and spaces are always open to Pākehā attendance and participation, but inevitably they tend to take over and dominate every part of the space. Unless organizers and facilitators expressly demand that they relinquish space, it is hijacked and stolen.

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The dominance of space by Pākehā is sometimes unconscious, but nonetheless unhelpful. In the past year, I have participated in multiple online theological conferences, usually providing the indigenous, wahine theological perspective. I have been faced with the same comment time and time again: ‘Tell us, what can we as the Pākehā church do to address issues of injustice and racism?’ My response is always the same: ‘It is not for the colonised to alleviate the coloniser. It is not for the colonised to instruct the coloniser to seek justice or redemption. You cannot ask indigenous, native peoples to address colonialism for you.’ We should not be asked to offer instruction for how to better recognize and address the privilege or advantage afforded to Pākehā because of colonisation. Pākehā themselves must do this work! Pākehā have been often intrigued by and curious about Māori theological thought, expression, and space. This is in part because Māori theology has rarely been given public attention (and has only in recent times been sought after for publication). Theological institutions in Aotearoa have only recently begun opening themselves to the history and role of the church in colonialism. Indeed, most theological institutions continue to operate within the confines of a colonial agenda, meaning that they are dominated by Pākehā ways of being and understandings of the world and God. Mainline churches in Aotearoa continue to struggle with our bicultural, Tiriti (Treaty) based history and to grapple with their obligations and responsibilities. The churches in Aotearoa have a particular responsibility given the significant influence of missionaries in the formulation and signing of He Wakaputanga o Nu Tireni (Declaration of Independence) in 1835, and te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) in 1840. The suppression of Māori memory and theology is implicit in both churches and theological institutions. This suppression happens whenever Māori theological expressions and interpretations are ignored or dismissed. Māori theology is also suppressed when churches and colleges provide limited time, space, and resources to support this kaupapa. Indeed, if Māori theology even appears in the curriculum, it is usually an example of a wider postcolonial or liberation theology (and thus still organized and determined by colonial systems). Until recently, in the Weteriana (Methodist) context, for example, Māori theology had limited influence. Historically, Trinity Methodist Theological College had no association with He Wakaputanga and limited

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engagement with Te Tiriti in its curriculum (see Salmon 1989). The Tumuaki (Head of Te Taha Māori) might be invited to give an hour lecture into a course entitled ‘Living our Faith’. But there was no dedicated curriculum focused on Māori practical or contextual theology. The small handful of Māori students who were sent to study at Trinity College often felt alienated in a Pākehā dominated environment that failed to provide space for Māori theologies and expressions of faith. In these stolen places, a process of decolonisation and reclamation is underway. Theological institutions and churches are being revitalized by the introduction of diverse and more culturally appropriate theological forms and practices. Jesus the savage allows Māori to liberate themselves, rather than being liberated by the coloniser or colonial systems. Māori are reclaiming and reframing the very spaces where we have been marginalized. And if we were to look beyond the institutionalized church and theological colleges—to marae and the papa kāinga—then there are other spaces where Māori theology is being considered and debated. We need to foster these spaces where our eclectic Māori theologies can be shared and critically debated, outside of colonial forms of dominance and power. As Māori, we can welcome people into the physical and metaphorical marae ātea.7 The marae ātea is a space for discussion and debate, and thus an ideal space for Māori theology and faith to be remembered, reclaimed, and constructed. As we undertake this task of reclamation, we challenge our allies as tangata Tiriti to be intentional in seeking justice through the decolonising of our history and theology. We challenge ourselves to live out our covenantal relationships in seeking hohou rongo (reconciliation) with one another and with God. As we collude and collaborate to restore our memory, unveil our identity, and reclaim our natural places, we are in effect restoring an imbalance and decentralizing colonial power. While we might share the huarahi (pathway) to transformation, we as Tangata Whenua must take the lead in reclamation and reconciliation for ourselves and for the generations who have gone before and who will come after.

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 That is, the marae or open space in front of a wharenui (meeting house).

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References Ballantyne, Tony. 2014. Entanglements of empire: Missionary, Māori and the question of the Dody. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Bell, Leonard. 1993. Lindauer, Gottfried. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2112/lindauer-­gottfried. Blackley, Roger. 1996. Goldie, Charles Fredrick. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/ en/biographies/3g14/goldie-­charles-­fredrick. De La Torre, Miguel. 2015. The politics of Jesús: A Hispanic political theology. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Kaa, Hirini. 2020. Te Hāhi Mihinare: The Māori Anglican church. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Te Kaawa, Wayne. 2020. Re-visioning Christology through a Maō ri Lens. PhD dissertation. University of Otago. Pihama, Leonie, Hineitimoana Greensill, Hōri Manuirirangi, and Naomi Simmonds. 2019. He Kare ā roto: A selection of Whakataukı ̄ related to Māori emotions. Hamilton: Te Kotahi Research Institute. Reid, John, Matthew Rout, Te Marie Tau, Cherryl Smith. 2017. The colonising environment: An Aetiology of the Trauma of Settler Colonisation and Land Alientation on Ngāi Tahu Whānau. Research Report, University of Canterbury. www.canterbury.ac.nz/media/documents/ngai-­tahu-­research-­centre/The-­ Colonising-­Environment%2D%2D-­PDF-­final.pdf. Rountree, Kathryn. 2000. Re-making the Maori female body: Marianne Williams’s Mission in the bay of islands. The Journal of Pacific History 35: 49–66. Salmon, John. 1989. Our methodist bicultural journey: Some history, theology, and resources/Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa. Auckland: Bicultural Committee of the Methodist Church of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Sheffield, Madeline. 2000. Film – Images of the indigene: The exotic other in the South Pacific. Deepsouth 6. https://www.otago.ac.nz/deepsouth/1000/ filmsheffieldone.html. Small, Zane and Te Rina Kowhai. 2022. NZ History in schools content revealed: Students to learn ‘struggle for land,’ ‘origin and meaning of name Aotearoa’. Newshub, March 17. Taylor, Richard. 1868. The past and present of New Zealand: With its prospects for the future. London: William Macintosh. Wallace, Rı ̄tane. 2021. Kotahi ano ̄ te tupuna o te tangata Ma ̄ori, ko Ranginui e tui ho nei, ko Papatuānuku e takoto nei: Colonisation through Christianity. MA Thesis, University of Waikato. Yates, Timothy. 2013. The conversion of the Maori: Years of religious and social change, 1814–1842. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

CHAPTER 3

‘The Poor Bugger Has Suffered Enough’: Vernon Ah Kee, Warwick Thornton, and the Unmaking of a White Jesus Garry Worete Deverell

It has become customary to locate oneself in a socio-ethnic way when beginning an essay of this kind. When I try to locate myself, I experience a kind of racialised ‘imposter syndrome’, which I am reliably informed afflicts many academics, especially those who have come from families or socio-economic contexts that are regarded as ‘low status’ by the dominant culture. Research by Walter and Cohen bears this out (2007). Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern in which individuals doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments and have a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as ‘impostors’ (Langford and Clance 1993). The voice of my own inner critic is a voice that I internalised from the higher-status folks in my hometown, who regarded those of us from either welfare-dependent or Aboriginal families as ‘a waste of space, money and

G. W. Deverell (*) University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_3

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good air’. Because my family was both welfare-dependent and Aboriginal, I grew up hearing this kind of thing all the time.1 And it has stuck in the form of a nasty inner voice which rings in my ears every single time I try to do something that my hometown would have regarded as inappropriate to my station: like finishing school, getting a job, articulating a reasoned opinion, or writing a chapter. I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy and spiritual direction to ensure that I am able to do this work, but that nagging voice never entirely goes away. Nonetheless, Western psychology cannot tell the whole story of how it is that an Aboriginal man can present himself and his work in the ways I do: hesitant, fragile and nervous, but also confident in my capacity to make sense of things, to weave the threads of a thousand experiences together into a coherent and meaningful narrative. For there is an altogether more comprehensive script in play here, a script that I will refer to simply as ‘colonisation’. If you read the historians they will tell you that colonisation is the process whereby a militarily powerful people who desire the territories and/or wealth of another people simply take it all by force, pushing the Indigenous inhabitants of those territories to the social and economic margins of the invader’s new society. That is certainly what happened here on Aboriginal country. But colonisation is not only about the annexation of country and the marginalisation of Indigenous peoples in a territorial and socio-economic sense. It is also about the colonisation of hearts, minds, and imaginations. It is about the slow erosion of everything in us that derives its life from what Aboriginal people call ‘country’: landscapes and waterways filled with the presence of ancestor-creators who tell us who we are, to whom we belong, and what we are to do with our lives. Ultimately, and most devastatingly, colonisation seeks to supplant this identity and sensibility with another: with the mindset, heart, and values of the invader. Now, the fact that I write and identify myself as a trawloolway man of north-east trouwerner (Tasmania) is testament to the fact that the genocidal intent of the colonisers to destroy and replace our Indigenous being has ultimately failed. But that does not mean than I am not a colonised person. To be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people in this invaded land means, simultaneously and paradoxically, that we are both colonised 1  Aileen Moreton Robinson says: ‘Race matters in the lives of all peoples; for some it confers unearned privileges, and for others it is the mark of inferiority … For Indigenous people, white possession is not unmarked, unnamed or invisible; it is hypervisible’ (2015, xiii).

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and survivors of colonisation. It means that we are like the person who, under the relentless pressure of torture, eventually gives themselves over to the torturer’s will simply because it will stop the pain. Yet, even at the moment of defeat—at that moment of possession and surrender—something is held back, something imperceptible, something that the torturer simply does not have the knowledge to recognise; a region of the self, as it were, that remains forever opaque to even the most skilled of the artisans of pain (Kearney 2001). Elsewhere I have compared that region of the self to a tiny seed that lies dormant beneath a tiny crack in the pavement (Deverell 2021). The pavement is the colonial imagination and the crack in its fabric an opportunity for even the tiniest remnants of Indigenous spirit to grow and flourish. What all of this indicates, then, is that being Indigenous in this continent is really complex. In many ways we are like our colonisers. Most of us now have paler skin than our forebears and wear the attire of the invader. For the sake of our survival, we go to school, we learn English, we imbibe the coloniser’s rules, religions and social conventions; we eat the coloniser’s foods, and consume his entertainment. We do so because we have absorbed the coloniser’s mind. We hope that if we become like him, we shall be recognised as his equal and therefore be rewarded with a slice of the gubba’s gracious bounty.2 In other ways, however, we are unlike our colonisers. Our imitation is just that little bit errant, that little bit out-of-step or off-cue. Our English, for example, is just that little bit different than ‘Australian’ English. It is littered with the remnants of our own languages and cosmologies; it preserves both a fear of our masters and a seditious mockery of the very notion of mastery. For even while we imbibe the rules, religions and the social conventions of the invader, we cannot help but bend them a little. Or a lot. Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes it occurs unconsciously. And when we eat the coloniser’s food and consume their modes of entertainment, there is always just a hint of resistance to the way in which these things are most usually presented or interpreted. By the power of our primal connection to country, we make these foreign notions, symbols and artifacts our own. We mark them with our dangerous difference. We 2  ‘Gubba’ is an Aboriginal corruption of the English term ‘Governor.’ Originally it referred to the white people who ran the church missions into which the Indigenous survivors of the frontier conflicts were herded. Today it is used of colonists in general, but especially those who have power over us because of social or economic circumstances.

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bend them to ends unintended by the coloniser. All of which, regardless of any specific intention or lack of it, marks us out as different, often dangerously so. And that apparently dangerous difference, however small or imperceptible in its presentation to the conscious analysis of colonial society, is nevertheless enough to guarantee that we will never have access to the circle of belonging that is modern Australia. We are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Though we belong to this country and its waterways and sky, we can never belong to Australian society. The colonist knows it, and we know it. Deep in our bones, we know it. This is where and how we are: colonised, yet survivors of colonisation. This is where we must begin when we seek to give an account of ourselves to whomever is listening. With all of this in mind, I now turn to Vernon Ah Kee and Warwick Thornton. Their artwork testifies in clear and luminous ways to the very phenomena I have been describing. At one level of analysis, it is obvious that Ah Kee and Thornton have adopted both the methods and the subjects of the coloniser: they draw in charcoal, take photographs and produce films. At another level, however, they are doing so in order to reframe, corrupt and problematise both the colonial gaze and two of its favourite Australian subjects: the ‘Aborigine’ and the crucified Christ. Let’s spend some time considering each artist in turn.

Vernon Ah Kee: Aboriginality, Christ and Unwritten Humanity Vernon Ah Kee is a Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji, and Gugu Yimithirr man who grew up in Innisfail and Cairns, far north Queensland. Many of his elders, aunts and uncles, grew up on Bwgcolman, an Aboriginal Reserve on what is more widely known as ‘Palm Island’. Many of his cousins still live there. Palm Island was one of the places where survivors of the frontier wars and church missions on the mainland were forcibly taken in 1918. Ah Kee is a very well-known and multiple-award winning artist who holds a doctorate in Fine Arts from the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2). In a series of charcoal drawings that Ah Kee started to produce around 15 years ago, collectively known as the ‘Unwritten’ series, the artist sought to represent the faces and forms of people he knows, many of them

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Fig. 3.1  Vernon Ah Kee, Unwritten, 2017, charcoal, pastel, and acrylic on linen, 150 × 90 cm. (Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjn/Brisbane)

relatives.3 In an interview with Elizabeth Mead (2021), Ah Kee says this about these images: All the [unwritten] portraits start from the idea that you have these formless faces on human bodies, but with no features. These are Aboriginal people, 3  The images may be viewed at the Art Gallery of NSW (https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov. au/collection/works/160.2011/) and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (https:// learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/artworks/unwritten-i-ii-iii/).

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Fig. 3.2  Vernon Ah Kee, Unwritten (becoming), 2012, etching on paper. (Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/ Brisbane)

just ordinary people like me, like my family, like my friends. But the way that I’m portraying them in the drawings is how white people see us, how the country sees us. So it’s this idea that we have no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no discernible features at all. So we are dumb, in that we can’t see, can’t speak, can’t hear, and we’re held static, benign, silent and bound. So the very early ones had lines going across the face. They looked like they were emerging, but being held back, tied back, and pushed back into the surface. So they’re always becoming human, but never being allowed to be fully human, never reaching that point. The only aspects of humanity in the features are Western. So in some of them I will emphasise a brow or the nose or cheekbones, to demonstrate this aspect of the Western ideal. Like what’s h ­ appened

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with Christ. Underneath is a fully realised human, representing a fully realised people.

As Ah Kee continues: See I was born three months before the referendum in 1967, and so for the first three months of my life I was a non-person. I was property of the state. The history of Aboriginal people in this country, Australia, has been a history of always becoming human. We were written out of the Constitution when it was first written. There’s the doctrine of terra nullius, which wrote us out of existence. So that’s why these drawings are unwritten.

In a later video interview for the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Ah Kee makes some additional observations about the connection between Aboriginality and Christ: The drawings in the GOMA collection are the first ones to show features, but they are generically Western features. I think they are also quite tortured … they have a sense of suffering, the way you have the Christ on the Cross image, which is suffering. The angle of the face in those drawings references the idea, especially in Catholicism. And the features of those faces are generically Western; there is a universality to them, but only in a western sense. They are essentially portraits of ordinary Aborigines. Like me, like you. There’s nothing remarkable about them at all. The subjects of those portraits are meant to be ordinary people, ordinary Aborigines. It’s just that the way they appear is how this country sees us, how this country perceives us. It’s either how the country perceives us or desires us to be … The Aborigine only gains acceptance in the eyes of this country, in the eyes of the national narrative when we exhibit Western behaviours or Western ideals in the way we present ourselves visually or in our behaviour or in the way we speak and what we do … That’s the whole point of assimilation. Anything outside of that is uncomfortable. (Ah Kee 2017)

I want to make just three brief observations about what Ah Kee has drawn, and what he has said about those drawings. First, it is clear that Ah Kee discerns a connection between his own portraits of mob, of Aboriginal people, and Western portraits of Christ. Both, he says, tend towards the human—a full expression of ordinary, visceral, humanity—but they never entirely arrive at their humanity. They are stunted in their becoming by the Western or European gaze, which will not grant them their humanity.

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Or, at least, not the fullness of their humanity. In that sense, the humanity of Aboriginal people and the humanity of Christ are united in being ‘unwritten’ or ‘unfinished’, and it is the colonial gaze that makes this so. Second, Ah Kee wants to locate the underdeveloped nature of these humanities in the experience of suffering at the hands of empire. Christ is tortured by the Roman Empire and its Judean collaborators because of his proclamation of the reign of God. Aboriginal people suffer because we cannot, or will not, allow ourselves to be assimilated to Western notions of who we are or how we are to behave. We retain an allegiance to our country, dwelling-place of our creator-ancestors and Old People, in spite of everything that would tear us away from that. A third and final point. Somewhat paradoxically, Ah Kee manages to transmit these subversive meanings through a deliberate assimilation of his drawings to Western forms. One might even say that it is precisely because the drawings give so much ground to the classical Western idea of the human face that they also serve to highlight its relativity. The forms are classically Western, yet they are unfinished, unformed, unwritten. Perhaps Ah Kee is turning the Western gaze back on itself. Perhaps he is saying that colonial humanity is actually less-than-finally human because it cannot summon the moral courage to accept the humanity of Indigenes. Perhaps, then, Ah Kee is embracing the logic of the parable, which embraces the familiar in order to make it less familiar, to subvert a dominant and mythically colonising meaning through an unexpected twist? Through this clever parabolising, Ah Kee simultaneously raises an ‘Amen’ of recognition from the hearts of Indigenous people, whilst also summoning a furrow of concern or, at least, bewilderment to the brow of the coloniser. Aboriginal people see our suffering represented, our repression. Colonisers are, perhaps, confronted with their inhumanity, the incompleteness of their wisdom or ethical performance. For the theologically literate observer, there is something here about both the violence done to Christ and the violence done to his anawim, his ‘little ones’ (Matt 10:42; 18:14). Ah Kee is perhaps offering a critique of the white Christ, the one who adorns our churches and places of worship, the one who seems at once too regal and too glaringly European on his cross to fully comprehend or encompass the sufferings of Indigenous people. Perhaps the divinity of this Christ is not yet human enough to be truly and comprehensively divine, to fill all things by his suffering, including the last and the least, and therefore to reconcile all things to their true purpose and dignity within the divine mystery (Col 1:15–20; cf. 1 Cor 1:26–31).

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Warwick Thornton: Aboriginality, Christ, and Country Warwick Thornton is a Kaytetye man born and raised on Arrente country in Alice Springs. At age six, he did a drawing of Christ on the cross, beneath which he wrote: ‘When I grow up, I want to be like Jesus’ (Taylor 2011). At 13 years of age, Thornton was sent to school in Australia’s only monastic town, New Norcia, in Western Australia, where he received a Catholic education in the Benedictine tradition. In 1997 Thornton graduated from Sydney’s Australian Film and Television School as a cinematographer. He has gone on to script and direct the award-winning films Samson & Delilah (2009) and Sweet Country (2017), among many others (Fig. 3.3). The specific works that I want to discuss are a set of images and looped video-installations known collectively as ‘Stranded’. They were apparently inspired by the young Thornton’s drawing of Christ on the cross (Taylor 2011). They depict Thornton himself in a ‘Jesus pose’ on a fluorescent cross suspended above various landscapes. In a wide-ranging interview given to Hettie Perkins (2014) for her documentary series ‘Heart + Soul’, Thornton said the following about this sequence of images: There is a bible [here]. This mountain-range is a bible and it’s very powerful … the pool of water underneath [the cross] is just as powerful as any cross. It’s a giver of life because it’s water … it has a song, it has a story, it has everything that the bible or Christianity has … It’s the pool of water at the bottom that is much more powerful as far as I’m concerned.

Commenting on one particular moment in the ‘Stranded’ video installation, when the cowboy on the cross is seen to yawn, Thornton says: Well, look, the poor bloke’s been stuck up there for, what, 2000 odd years. And those Christians won’t let him down, poor bugger; they’re the mob keeping him up there. Can’t you just bring him down and he can sit on the chair with us, rather than him being up there? Time to pull him down and he can sit in the pews with us. (Perkins 2014)

This second comment is particularly striking. Most Western christologies that emerged in the wake of the Nazi holocaust rightly made a big deal out of the idea that God is a suffering God, and that the cross of Christ is an eternal sign in human history that God is on the side of the victims,

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Fig. 3.3  Warwick Thornton, image from Stranded, 2011. (Image courtesy of Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne)

everyone who is tortured or killed by an evil, colonising, empire (see Moltmann 1993). Thornton’s wry observation potentially inverts the popular wisdom of those who endlessly trot out Bonhoeffer’s aphorism, ‘Only the suffering God can help’ (1967, 361), as the answer to every question human history has ever posed. Perhaps, Thornton suggests, the suffering God cannot in fact help. Perhaps, from the point of view of victims, the idea that God is also a victim inspires not hope but sympathy: ‘Poor bugger, get him down from there.’ Indigenous people, I suggest, have no difficulty in seeing Christ as a human being who has been unjustly

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victimised, just as we have been. But we struggle to see why he must be a victim in perpetuity, hanging there on the wall of every Catholic church, telling us that we cannot hope for anything better. For us, it would indeed be better if he could get off that cross and come share in our common life which, as a point of fact, has its moments of joy and laughter as well. Victims can sympathise with Christ the victim. But ultimately we need a God who can help us move beyond being victims into a space where we can experience liberation and justice, we need a God who can share with us a founded hope for that better future. Perhaps colonisers need the crucified Christ because, as Moltmann famously argued, the cross is God’s critique of colonial empires (1993, 325–329). Indigenous people, however, need the resurrected Christ more urgently, because only a living and powerful Christ can ally with us in the struggle for a better world. For Thornton, as for a great many Indigenous peoples, Jesus’ captivity in a European frame makes him just that tad unfriendly. Ironically, if Thornton were to encounter Jesus outside of this frame, he might well find that Jesus shares many of the life-giving characteristics he rightly ascribes to country. Elsewhere I have written at length about the analogies that may be drawn between the Christ of Scripture and the ‘Christ’ of country, that is, the living presence in country of our creator-ancestors, who call out to us with ‘words’ that have the power to reinvigorate and reorient our flagging spirits (Deverell 2018). For now, however, my point is simply that the Christ of country is the first Christ for Indigenous people. For us, country stands in the place of Christ more adequately even than Scripture. Country teaches us how to live with joy and to sustain such life for the generations to come. Country sacrifices itself for us. It provides food for our bodies through animals and plants that die in order that we may live. We give thanks for this sacrifice in dance and in ritual, honouring the ancestor-creators who so give of themselves for our good. Country also teaches us to sacrifice ourselves, to imitate country by putting to death everything in us which would prioritise selfish ambition over the needs of the tribe, or over our responsibility to care for country so that it can continue, for a thousand generations to come, to sustain our lives. In this sense, country makes a covenant with us, a covenant which defines us as people who have responsibilities. Country addresses us and we respond. Country looks out for us and we look out for it. Country teaches us to care for one another, just as country cares for us. And so we do, knowing that the whole is knit together in love and can only continue to be itself by

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a mutual submission to one another and to country that mirrors the life of the Trinity. I could go on, but I won’t. All these things are embedded in Thornton’s images, even though he himself may not draw these connections.

Conclusion As a colonised people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders wear many straitjackets. But we are quite good at taking what is intended for evil and making it into something good. We are good at stretching the fabric of those straitjackets and making of them shelters from the stormy blast, places of relative safety in which we may remember and celebrate all the good that we receive from country. Vernon Ah Kee reaches out to create a space for our humanity as Indigenous people by calling into question the humanity of the oppressor. Warwick Thornton creates images which critique the white Jesus whilst simultaneously creating resonances between Christ and country. As a theologian, I seek to speak and explicate an affirming word by simply attending, as best I can do, to the voices of the prophets—both Indigenous and biblical—who are imbued with the spirit of the creator.

References Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1967. Letters and papers from prison. London: SCM Press. Deverell, Garry Worete. 2018. Gondwana theology: A trawloolway man reflects on Christian faith. Preston: Morning Star Publishing. ———. 2021. Why thinking Indigenously is important for Australian theology’ Eureka Street. https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/why-­thinking-­ indigenously-­is-­important-­for-­australian-­theology. Accessed 19 May 2021. Kearney, Richard. 2001. The god who may be: A hermeneutics of religion, 2001. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Langford, Joe, and Pauline Rose Clance. 1993. The impostor phenomenon: Recent research findings regarding dynamics, personality and family patterns and their implications for treatment. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 30: 495–501. Mead, Elizabeth. 2021. Interview with Vernon Ah Kee. https://mona.net.au/ blog/2012/08/interview-­with-­vernon-­ah-­kee. Accessed 29 Mar 2021. Moltmann, Jürgen. 1993. The crucified god: The cross of christ as the foundation & criticism of christian theology. Trans. Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

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Perkins, Hetti. 2014. Art + soul: Beauty and cruelty. Hibiscus Films: Everleigh, NSW. Robinson, Aileen Moreton. 2015. The white possessive: Property, power, and indigenous sovereignty, 2015. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Taylor, Andrew. 2011. The shock of the old. Sydney Morning Herald. August 28. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-­and-­design/the-­shock-­of-­the-­ old-­20110827-­1jfav.html. Vernon Ah Kee discusses ‘Unwritten’ series. 2017. Queenland art gallery and gallery of modern art. https://youtu.be/ZIyim0D4OXQ. Accessed 29 Mar 2021. Walton, Gregory M., and Geoffrey Cohen. 2007. A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92: 82–96.

CHAPTER 4

Unsettling Jesus Christ: Indigenous and Settler Christologies in the Aftermath of Colonisation Michael Mawson

As the central symbol of Christianity the cross invokes the complex, interwoven history of Christianity and settler colonialism in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. By establishing a European presence in these places, nineteenth-century missionaries paved the way for subsequent waves of colonisation and settlement. By learning and transcribing local languages, they began drawing Indigenous peoples into European networks and economic systems (Jennings 2010). Even more directly, early

M. Mawson (*) University of Auckland/Waiapapa Taumata Rau, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_4

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missionaries understood and promoted European culture and values as integral to being Christian.1 Reflecting on the arrival of Christianity in Australia, Aboriginal theologian Anne Pattel-Gray (Bidjara/Kari Kari) has observed that ‘the European so-called Christians… brought a Christ that dispossessed, enslaved and killed, a Christ full of hatred and fear, a Christ of racism’ (1998, 123). In The Great White Flood: Racism in Australia (1998), Pattel-Gray provides a detailed account of race and racism in Australian churches and society. She gives close attention to how white Christians have continually been unwilling to ‘enter into dialogue’ with Aboriginal people about religion (131). Instead, ‘colonizing Christians felt they knew what was best for us and as a result treated us horrifically’ (131). For Pattel-Gray, this means that the Christ of the missionaries and white churches is not the true Christ: ‘the colonist Christians did not bring the Christ of the Bible.’2 The Māori legal scholar Ani Mikaere (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou) has offered some reflections on Christianity and colonisation in the context of Aotearoa. Drawing on the diary entries and sermons of early missionaries, she suggests that ‘conversion to Christianity was … a corequisite to colonisation’ (Mikaere 2011, 218). In particular, Mikaere observes that ‘with the arrival of the missionaries there began a concerted campaign of attack on Māori belief systems’ (218). As with Australia, missionaries and early settlers in Aoteaora simply assumed the superiority of their own culture and beliefs.3 And on this basis they sought to destroy and replace tikanga Māori and Māori cosmologies. In her work, Mikaere thus traces the impact of this ‘concerted campaign’ against Māori (e.g., she explores how the patriarchal beliefs of the missionaries undermined traditional gender roles in Māori society). Given the negative impact of Christianity, Mikaere recommends that Māori today should simply reject it outright: ‘The time for jettisoning Christian contaminations of karakia Māori, along

1  As Melanie Kampen (2014) has noted in her work on the north American context, the result is that ‘for Native peoples, becoming Christian … has also meant becoming white. That is, the theological beliefs, cultural habits, and political movements that characterized American colonialism are inseparable.’ 2   Along similar lines, the Aboriginal leader Charles Harris claimed that ‘Western Christianity, through Western theology and the church, has never presented to the Indigenous nations of the world the true God of the Bible, or the true Christ of the New Testament’ (1996, 70). 3  This was simply a given for the missionaries in both places.

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with Christianity itself, as part of the journey to reclaim our freedom and independence is long overdue’ (2016, 56).4 Pattel-Gray, Mikaere, and many others have drawn attention to the deep entanglements of Christianity with colonisation. Far from being good news, the arrival of Christianity in this part of the world heralded the exploitation of Indigenous peoples, the seizing of lands, and the decimation of cultures (see Maddison 2014). This makes Christianity as such difficult to separate from its historical and ongoing impact on Indigenous peoples.5 And Christianity is bound up with settler colonialism in ways that go beyond the motives and actions of individual missionaries or particular communities. With this in the background, my interest in this chapter is in how Christians can acknowledge and begin to respond to this situation. What does theology need to look given Christianity’s historical and ongoing complicity? Is it possible to find or follow a Christ who is other than this one who arrived with the missionaries and still haunts settler churches?6 My proposal is that at least two different Christologies or understandings of Christ are needed in the aftermath of colonisation,7 reflecting two standpoints or experiences. In the first section of this chapter, I outline the work of two Indigenous theologians who have contested inherited theological categories and constructed new images of Christ. In the second section, I propose some challenges and a possible direction for a contextual Christology for white Christians. For those of us who are white, I suggest the need for a theologia crucis that can interrupt and break apart some of our strategies for avoiding responsibility and ignoring Indigenous challenges.

4  Mikarere, of course, is not alone in proposing this course. See, for example: Melbourne (2005) and Walker (2016). 5  This brings to mind Lauren Winner’s (2018) descriptions of a kind of ‘characteristic damage’ or deformation that is intrinsic to certain Christian practices: ‘Things become deformed by sin in ways that are proper to the thing being deformed, and when those deformations have consequences, you cannot separate the consequences from the deformed thing, because it belongs to the thing potentially to have those very consequences’ (16). In other words, it is not sufficient simply to distinguish between Christianity as such and its impact in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. 6  And of course, even in exploring these possibilities it should remain an open question whether the better response is, in fact, that of Mikaere. 7  What I am proposing is in line with Upolu Vaai’s (2019) ‘de-onefication’ of Christian theology.

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Indigenous Christologies and a Turn to Context In response to Christianity’s entanglements with colonialism, a number of Aboriginal and Māori theologians have been reflecting on Jesus Christ in ways that break with Western theological categories and logics.8 Broadly speaking, these scholars have sought to reimagine Christology in light of their own experiences and cultural contexts, to understand Jesus in ways that are closer to the ground. This of course reflects a much longer history of Indigenous peoples adopting and adapting Christianity for their own purposes (see Kaa 2020). My aim in this section is simply to attend to and learn from the work of two such theologians. Lee Miena Skye’s Womanist Christology Lee Miena Skye is a Palawa woman from lutruwita (Tasmania), who positions herself as an Aboriginal Womanist theologian. In Kerygmatics of the New Millennium: A Study of Aboriginal Women’s Christology (2007), she develops and presents a Christology grounded in the experiences of Aboriginal women. In line with African American and other Womanist theologians,9 she attends to how Aboriginal women have experienced oppression in the ‘tri-dimensional’ form of ‘racism, classism and sexism’ (50). Skye begins by noting the ‘paradox’ at the very heart of Aboriginal Christianity: the fact that Christ came to Aboriginal peoples through the missionaries and colonialism. This means that the Christology of many Aboriginal women is one ‘infused with the “imperialist/classist/sexist/ racist” consciousness of the white culture’ (2). The Christology and understanding of salvation brought by white missionaries supported and remains entangled in colonial histories of imperialism and genocide.10 For Skye, this means that any Christology that hopes to be able to bring 8  While I limit my discussion to the work of Lee Miena Skye and Wayne te Kaawa, other important scholarship on Christology by Indigenous theologians in this region includes: Rountree (2021); Talia (2021); and Callaghan (2011). Also see the chapters by Garry Deverell and Te Aroha Rountree in this volume. 9  In particular, Skye undertakes a lengthy and appreciative engagement with Jacquelyn Grant (1989). 10  As Skye writes, ‘The intention of the white missionaries was to pursue the “heathens” and “save” them in “the name of Christ.” The reality is they brought to Aboriginal people a Christology that destroyed them more than it saved; eventually bringing about spiritual, cultural and physical genocide’ (xiv).

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redemption and healing for Aboriginal women will need to look very different. As part of her research, Skye conducted a series of semi-structured, ethnographic interviews with Christian Aboriginal women from throughout Australia. As well as asking these participants about their tribal backgrounds and experiences of racism, she enquired about their understandings and experiences of Christ.11 In these interviews, Skye is particularly interested in how many of these women combine their understandings of Christ with Aboriginal cultural values and identity. From the responses, Skye concludes there are two very different Christologies held by Aboriginal women: one which remains aligned with ‘white Christian fundamentalism’ and the ‘legacy of colonialism’, and another which is more thoroughly informed by Aboriginal cultural contexts. In Kerygmatics, she thus sets out to reflect on and further develop this second Christology. What she finds distinctive and compelling about this Christology, as compared with white feminist and other Womanist Christologies, is the Sitze im Leben of cultural/spiritual identity and the sacredness of the land.12 Developing these two themes, Skye adopts what she calls a ‘Creation/ Identity methodology’.13 This methodology involves attending to the deep connections in Aboriginal theology between Christ and God as creator: ‘the identity [of Christ] with the Source of Creation seems to be a strong theme in Aboriginality’ (42). Indeed, Skye notes that for many of the women she interviewed, ‘Christ and God seemed one-and-the-same’ (42). Christ is experienced and discovered in nature, and is often closely identified with the sacredness of land.14 One of the central conclusions of Skye’s work, therefore, is that this theme can help repair the dualism between spirit and nature at the heart of Western culture. In addition, Skye’s Creation/Identity methodology focuses on the deep and intimate relationship of many Aboriginal women with Christ. 11  Skye also explores whether Aboriginal women would be comfortable seeing God as a ‘she.’ Due to the focus on Christology of my chapter, however, I do not attend to this important aspect of her project. 12  To be clear, Skye also notes and reflects on differences between an Aboriginal Womanist Christology and Womanist Christologies from America, Asia, and Latin America. This is the focus of the third chapter of her book (48–76). 13  For this methodology, Skye is drawing on Pattel-Gray (2000). 14  On this identification, see the summary of some key Aboriginal theologians by Vassius Adrhatas (2005).

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For example, Skye notes how many Aboriginal women locate Christ as a spiritual ancestor.15 By locating Christ as an ancestor, they are able to recognise and relate to Christ directly, bypassing ‘doctrine and the traditional symbols of Christ’ (75). Christ becomes enculturated into Aboriginal spirituality, and thereby liberated from colonialism and the white church. Skye directly positions her Aboriginal Womanist Christology against inherited Western theological categories and doctrines. From her dual emphasis on creation and identity, she raises questions about the understandings of atonement in Western Christologies. Drawing on Matthew Fox, she suggests that such ‘fall/redemption ideologies’ need to be ‘eliminated from social consciousness’ (90). A ‘fall/redemption theology’, she states, ‘is a theology of the oppressor’ (90). This is because such ideologies deny the agency of the oppressed and opportunities for them to ‘liberate themselves’. Accordingly, Skye insists that ‘the importance of Australian Aboriginal women doing contextual Christology, forming their own theological narratives, cannot be overstated’ (91). Like other Womanist theologians, Skye is ultimately interested in a Christology that can support agency and provide resources for resistance in the midst of ongoing realities of oppression. Indeed, she maintains that ‘Creation/Identity methodology for doing Christology will not only help Australian Aboriginal Christian women find more liberation and wholeness, it also in turn will contribute to the liberation and wholeness of others, even the oppressors’ (98).16 In other words, for Skye, redemption is to be found only by enculturating Christ into local contexts and spiritualities, not in the kinds of Christologies and claims found in colonial, traditional Christianity and theology. Wayne Te Kaawa’s Māori Christology In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori theologian Wayne Te Kaawa (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Awa, and Tuhoe) has recently provided a detailed reflection on Christology, which has some broad resonances with Skye’s work.17 In a doctoral dissertation from the University of Otago,

 On this point Skye again draws on the work of Anne Pattel-Gray.  On this point see also Rebecca Kiddle (2020). 17  For a rich engagement with Te Kaawa’s work, see also Benjamin Ong (2021). 15 16

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‘Re-visioning Christology through a Māori lens’,18 Te Kaawa uses ‘mātauranga Māori’19 to take ‘a fresh look at what is known about Jesus Christ’ (2020, 2). Like Skye, Te Kaawa positions his project as an exercise in contextual theology. Noting that all theology is contextual, he insists that ‘a Māori lens’ may ‘help us to see things [about Christ] that have been overlooked or obscured when looking through the lenses of the dominant Western culture’ (17). Even more strongly, he insists that attending to this context may sometimes require imagining Christ ‘outside the norms of orthodox theologies that prefer to find Jesus solely and safely embedded in scripture, tradition and reason’ (13). Te Kaawa develops his Christology by similarly drawing on concrete ‘places of conversation and reflection [about Christ] … in wharenui on marae, on the ātea associated with marae, in hui (meetings) and wānanga (schools of learning), while out fishing, hunting and gathering food and herbal remedies, or on protest marches and land occupations’ (2). In addition, Te Kaawa spends a chapter surveying the existing scholarship on Christology by Māori academics. From these places of conversation and this scholarship, he draws out two interwoven themes for a re-visioned Christology: whakapapa (genealogy) and the tripartite relationship between God, people, and land. In Chapters 4 and 5 of his dissertation, Te Kaawa draws on Māori understandings of whakapapa to undertake a close analysis of the genealogies found in Matthew and Luke. In Māori contexts, the practice and recitation of whakapapa involves finding and forging connection: ‘Whakapapa records, preserves, transmits and maps relationships between people and the world that they live in physically and spiritually’ (76). Using a whakapapa methodology, Te Kaawa analyses these gospel genealogies as foundational for who Christ is. Beginning with Matthew’s gospel, he observes that the broad aim of this genealogy (Matt 1:1–17) is to establish Jesus’ royal pedigree and ancestry. Yet Te Kaawa notes the surprising and subversive presence and inclusion of three foreign women: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. In Te Kaawa’s reading, the inclusion of these women connects Jesus to indigeneity and land. The presence of these Canaanite women (as am ha’aretz or people 18  Te Kaawa outlines his own whakapapa and social location in the second chapter of ‘Re-visioning Christology’ (21–33). 19  That is, Māori knowledge or philosophy in a broad sense. See Hirini Moko Mead (2022).

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of the land) ‘indigenises Jesus’ and ‘makes him a person of the land’, thereby disrupting a stable or distinctive Israelite or Jewish identity (113). Furthermore, Te Kaawa draws out the significance of these women for the ongoing struggles of Indigenous peoples today: ‘Keeping them at the centre of the genealogy ensures that the struggles of Indigenous people worldwide become the hereditary mission of justice for the followers of Jesus’ (128–129).20 In his engagement with Luke’s genealogy (Luke 2:23–38), Te Kaawa extends this whakapapa analysis. He notes that by including Adam in Jesus’ genealogy, Luke connects him with all humanity and the earth (Adamah): ‘The inclusion of Adam … widens the scope of understanding the genealogy to include the events in the Garden of Eden narrative’ (9).21 Furthermore, by including Abraham in Jesus’ genealogy, Luke invokes God’s covenant with Abraham. This covenant recognises the deep and interwoven relationships between God, people, and land. In his genealogy and wider gospel, therefore, Luke presents Jesus as the fulfilment of this covenant and restoration of these relationships. In a further chapter, Te Kaawa focuses directly on the significance of land for Christology. Land as whenua is integral to bringing forth and sustaining life.22 Jesus’ genealogy thus anticipates how ‘the geography [of the Bible] is more than a passive backdrop to narratives but has its own distinctive voice in supporting the claim by Jesus to be the Christ’ (243). Identity and geography are interwoven into both the biblical narratives and Māori whakapapa. Accordingly, as Te Kaawa elaborates, ‘Mountains, fields, deserts and the wilderness are places where certain aspects of the identity of Jesus are revealed, his values taught and where people are healed and nourished physically and spiritually’ (244). Nonetheless, for all that this move of invoking the covenant and connecting Christology to land offers, Te Kaawa suggests that it may not be enough: ‘What is missing [from restoration]… are the original people of the land who inhabited the same piece of land before they were 20  As Benjamin Ong astutely observes, in this way ‘Jesus’ whakapapa also becomes a call to justice, a call to address the historical and present struggle and oppression of indigenous people’ (2021, 84). 21  As Te Kaawa note that the inclusion of Adam in Jesus’ genealogy means that ‘Jesus then has a double mission to bring redemption and salvation to both Adam and Adamah’ (143). 22  The Māori word ‘whenua’ means both land and placenta. It thus has a sense of the place that nourishes or sustains life, as well as being that which connects one to whanau (family) and whakapapa (lineage).

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dispossessed by the Israelites’ (151). In other words, a restoration of relationality by itself need not acknowledge the history of Israelite conquest and settlement. Re-visioning Christology through a Māori lens—one informed by Māori experiences of dispossession—therefore, requires acknowledging and attending to those people who had been displaced by the Israelites and their covenant.23 In his final chapter, Te Kaawa suggests that acknowledging this history and these people seems to be a struggle for Jesus himself. He explores this claim through a rich reading of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman (Matt. 15: 21–28).24 By comparing the woman to a dog, Jesus displayed his racist and colonial mindset (even in spite of his own Canaanite ancestors). The woman’s response forced Jesus ‘to confront some uncomfortable truths about land, ethnicity, identity and status’ (169). As Te Kaawa reflects, the woman’s response also has profound implications for ongoing work in Christology: After the Canaanite woman receives what she requested, there is no thank you moment at the end of the narrative. There is no record of her becoming a follower of Jesus or of her telling others or of presenting her healed daughter to the Pharisees to verify the healing. She simply disappears and is never heard from again. (239)

Ultimately, Te Kaawa’s re-visioned Christology proposes bringing the perspective and realities of this unnamed, absent woman to the centre. In summary, Skye’s and Te Kaawa’s reflections on Christ indicate some of the ways in which Indigenous theologians have been grappling with Christianity’s troubled history and impact in Australia and Aotearoa. By developing understandings of Jesus Christ in terms of their specific cultural contexts, they challenge and disrupt a presumed universality of Western theological categories. Drawing on Indigenous experiences and knowledge, they construct different language and images for understanding who Jesus Christ is. They give sustained attention to realities of colonisation (in and beyond biblical texts), ancestry or whakapapa, and the interwoven relationships between God, people, and place.

23  In identifying the Canaanites as indigneious, Te Kaawa makes reference to an important article by Robert Allen Warrior (2005). 24  For a rich reflection on this encounter, see Mitzi Smith (2018).

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White Christologies and a Turn to the Cross Skye and Te Kawaa indicate an Indigenous response to the entanglements of Christianity with colonialism. In the second half of this chapter, I outline some of the challenges and a possible direction for a Christology for white Christians that responds to these entanglements.25 What understandings and images of Jesus Christ are needed for those of us who are the spiritual descendants of missionaries and beneficiaries of settlers? What kind of a Christology can facilitate a recognition of the impact of Christianity on Indigenous peoples and cultures? White and Christian Strategies for Avoiding Realities of Colonisation ‘Uneasy, unsettled, uncomfortable: these are the words often used to describe the psychosocial dimensions of nations that inherit the discursive and material entanglements of settler colonialism’ (Smith 2011, 111). Although Jo Smith (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) is describing white settler nations and identities broadly, this holds true for white Christianity and theology. Whether acknowledged or not, Christianity in Australia and Aotearoa is haunted by its historical and ongoing complicity in racism and dispossession. In response to this uncomfortable, uneasy situation, white settlers and their descendants have sought to ‘make themselves at home’ by forging more stable identities (Bell 2016, 1174). Rather than staying in the discomfort of being colonisers from elsewhere, we have sought to become the people of Australia and New Zealand. In Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities (2014), Avril Bell outlines some of the strategies that settlers and their descendants have employed for this purpose: ‘Rather than accept responsibility for their dispossession and genocide, settlers told themselves stories of the inevitability of the process, casting themselves as innocent inheritors of indigenous patrimony rather than guilty 25  In this section, I use language of ‘white Christians’ or ‘white settlers’ to refer to whiteness as both a structure and way of being in the world. This is not limited to people who are phenotypically white, nor to those who are directly descended from missionaries and settlers. As Willie Jennings aptly puts it, ‘to speak of whiteness is not to speak of particular people but of people caught up in a deformed building project aimed at bringing the world to its full maturity’ (2018, 28). Jennings explores the ways in which whiteness became infused with Christian salvation or faith.

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perpetrators’ (33). As Bell has elsewhere written, ‘the desire for indigenization [i.e., to become the people of these places] is also a desire for redemption from the status of coloniser, a desire to be “born again” as natives absolved of the legacy of colonialism’ (2016, 1174). This avoidance of responsibly and desire for redemption broadly underlies the practice of theology in Australia and Aotearoa. Instead of attending to local history and challenges, most white theologians and biblical scholars simply focus on European and, more recently, American trends and debates.26 In a recent article, John Flett (2022) undertook a statistical analysis of three major Australasian theology journals: Pacifica, Colloquium and Australian Biblical Review. With a dataset of 1529 articles published between 1951 and 2020, Flett finds that only 29 articles (1.89% of the total) mention or engage with Indigenous issues in any way whatsoever. In addition, Flett notes that in the very few instances where Indigenous authors have been included in these journals, their challenges went entirely unanswered. He reflects: ‘this may be due, in part, to an experience of “western guilt” which feels unprepared and unable to speak, but which precisely in that silence perpetuates colonial sentiments’ (43). This silence about colonisation is apparent in white cultural images of Jesus closer to the ground. In New Zealand Jesus: Social and Religious Transformations of an Image (2011), Geoffrey Troughton has traced popular and pietistic images of Jesus among white New Zealanders from 1890 to 1940. In particular, Troughton examines ways in which Jesus was appealed to for critiquing church hierarchies, in social activism, and for religious education. He even explores attempts to promote a ‘manly Jesus’ in order to make Christianity more palatable for young men. Reflecting on all these various images, Troughton suggests that ‘in New Zealand, Jesus represented a simpler, adaptable and optimistic form of religion’ (235). In line with the Social Gospel Movement and other international trends, this New Zealand Jesus was bound up with attempts to make Christianity positive and attractive. As one reviewer of Troughton’s book notes, the ‘New Zealand Jesus is really a colonial settler Jesus, a Jesus looking home to Britain and across to North America’ (Grimshaw 2013, 205). This is similarly the case for popular images of Jesus in Australia during this period. In a rich 2019 article, ‘A Pretty Decent Sort of Bloke: Towards the Quest for an Australian Jesus’, Jason Goroncy has  traced images of 26  In cases where white theology in Australia and New Zealand has been more locally orientated, this has often been in the service of narrowly denominational identities and needs.

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Jesus that emerged from Australian labour movements and twentieth century art. Goroncy notes that even while theologians were ‘uninterested in pursuing the questions of what an Australian Jesus might be like’, activists and artists were taking up this challenge. They located Jesus among the people, often portraying him as ‘a fellow struggler’, a ‘champion of the underdog’, or even a ‘good-humoured larrikin’ (1–3). These cultural images again proved useful for contesting ecclesial hierarchies and political authority. Yet, as Goroncy suggests, these white activists and artists largely neglected realities of colonisation.27 What is the significance of these cultural images of Jesus for a contextual Christology for white Christians? For Skye and Te Kaawa, turning to contextual and cultural images provides a means of re-visioning Christ and separating Christology from colonisation. For those of us who are white, however, our cultural contexts and historical images are insufficent: they are bound up with past attempts to look elsewhere or avoid responsibility. This means that our cultural images and understandings of Christ have less to offer. If we are to begin to break the silence and take responsibility, we will need a very different kind of Christology. We will need images and understanding of Christ that can help us to sit in the uncomfortable, haunted reality of being colonisers. The Interruption of a Theologia Crucis With this in mind, I want to propose one particular image that might be useful for developing such a Christology: Christ on the cross. There is a long history of this disturbing image interrupting established patterns of Christian theology and identity (see Banner 2016). Reflecting on the cross has, at least at times, allowed Christians to see themselves differently and to imagine new possibilities. One example of this kind of theology is Martin Luther’s theologia crucis. In his early writings, Luther emphasized the difference between our own assumptions and what God discloses in Christ. Luther draws heavily upon Paul’s apocalyptic language and imagery from 1 Corinthians: ‘We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block [σκάνδαλον] to Jews and

27  At the end of his article, Goroncy discusses the work of Aboriginal artists and theologians, who more directly address and engage issues of colonisation.

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foolishness to Gentiles.’28 For Luther and Paul, the cross is a ‘stumbling block’ or ‘scandal’ in that it challenges and interrupts what we think we know. As one commentator writes, ‘Paul [in 1 Corinthians] enacts… a critical hermeneutics that seeks to deconstruct false assumptions even as it performatively enacts a new reality for his readers to consider’ (Malcolm 2021, 442). This deconstruction forms the heart of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation (1518), which is organised around a distinction between two grammars or dispositions: ‘A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls a thing what it actually is (theologia crucis quod res est)’ (Luther 1999, 53). On the one hand, Luther’s ‘theology of glory’ diagnoses our attempts to understand and negotiate God and reality on the basis of our own assumptions or knowledge.29 Luther also identifies this as a kind of triumphalism, a theology that pursues and prioritises only what appears to be good. As John Douglas Hall updates Luther, ‘the theology of glory offers a full package of Positive Spiritual Reinforcement—for those whose economic and other material sorts of reinforcements are already in place’ (2006). On the other hand, Luther’s ‘theology of the cross’ describes how we are interrupted and redirected by Christ’s disturbing, unexpected death.30 As Vitor Westhelle reflects, this means ‘theologia crucis is about speaking a risky, dissonant word, a word that cannot be cashed into the system, that does not fit the economy, the rules of this earthly house’ (2019, 287). This theology is risky in that there are no guarantees of how it will turn out. From the standpoint of the cross, there is no clear knowledge of resurrection. On Good Friday, there is no certainty about Easter Sunday.31 For Luther, this theologia crucis presses us to attend to reality as it is. This is because attending to Christ on the cross means acknowledging God’s presence in suffering and struggle. That God is present in this place 28  As Paul continues, ‘God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong’ (1 Cor 1:23–25). 29  Fundamentally, for Luther, this grammar or theology of glory is marked by a self-­ confidence or even hubris. 30  For Luther, attending to the cross thus allows for seeing and experiencing things differently. As he continues in thesis 21 of the Disputation: ‘he who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore, he prefers glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil’ (‘53). 31  For those of us who are white, it can be tempting to move quickly to resurrection and hope, that is, to pass over and avoid difficult realities.

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requires acknowledging disturbing, difficult aspects of reality. As Hall (2006) observes, this kind of theology ‘is not able to shut its eyes to all the things that are wrong with the world—and with ourselves, our human selves, our Christian selves’. Rather, he continues, this theology ‘acknowledges the presence and reality of that which negates and threatens life’. Interrupting White Theology and Towards Relationality What does this image of Christ on the cross offer for a Christology for white Christians in the aftermath of colonisation? For those of us who are white, the cross as stumbling block can help to interrupt our false narratives and strategies for avoiding responsibility. Like the Stolpersteine in Berlin, this image causes us to stop short and critically reflect on our assumptions and ways of being.32 The cross can ‘make the familiar strange, the hierarchies and values of society—so often deemed natural—unacceptable’ (Craigo-Snell 2016, 11). By rendering our assumptions strange and our white ways of being unnatural, a theologia crucis opens the way for something different. Related to this, the image of the cross can help with diagnosing and resisting a pursuit of positive, optimistic forms of Christianity (as evident, e.g., in Troughton’s survey). The cross can help white Christians to be critical of continual attempts to make Jesus or Christianity attractive. The abrupt end of Jesus’ ministry and meaningless of his death brings such attempts into question. Furthermore, relinquishing this pursuit and attending to failure can again open us up to new possibilities. As Jack Halberstam writes in The Queer Art of Failure, ‘under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world’ (2011, 3). By interrupting us and pressing us beyond positive forms of Christianity, the image of the cross can help white Christians surrender our abstractions and be more open to concrete forms of engagement and difference. By helping us to sit more lightly on our assumptions and knowledge, the cross as stumbling block helps us to listen to and learn in ways that are 32  The Stolperstein (stumbling stone) project is a memorial involving small concrete cubes with brass plates with the names of Jewish and other Nazi victims of extermination on them. The stones are set into the pavement outside the houses where victims had lived, causing tourists and others to stumble and look down as they are walking.

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much closer to the ground. Returning to Pattel-Gray, the cross as stumbling block humbles us and prepares us for actually entering ‘into dialogue’ with Indigenous peoples about religion (1998, 123).33 Put differently, the interruption of the cross prepares us for the concrete, material interruptions and challenges of scholars like Patel-Gray and Mikaere. Finally, this indicates how a theologia crucis can prepare white Christians for vulnerable, risky relationships with Indigenous peoples, that is, in ways that are no longer structured in advance or determined from above. Alison Jones reflects on this kind of relationality in This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir (2020). ‘Taking relationality seriously’, she writes, ‘throws into disarray our sincere dreams for answers and end points – and our assumption that, one day, we will wake up and all will be well. Relationships are never like that … In the end, the most important things are ineffable, unexplainable, difficult, and sometimes even contradictory’ (2020, 226). A theologia crucis can help us to surrender a pursuit of easy answers and assurances, and to instead embrace the messy, open-ended work of being in relationship. In short, my proposal is that the image of the cross can do important work for white Christians in the context of Australia and Aotearoa. This image can help to unsettle some of our idols and prepare the way for new possibilities.

Conclusion In the Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone writes that ‘the cross can heal and hurt; it can be empowering and liberating but also enslaving and oppressive. There is no one way in which the cross can be interpreted’ (2013, xix). This ambivalence of the cross holds true for Christianity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. A number of Indigenous theologians have drawn attention to how the cross has often been ‘enslaving and oppressive’ (e.g., Tinker 2008). In Australia and Aotearoa, white missionaries and Christians deployed the 33  This is Pattel-Gray’s challenge, as outlined in the introduction to my chapter. Of course, the question here is how those of us who are white can engage with and learn from Indigenous insights while avoiding a temptation to organise and interpret Indigenous realities. There is a long history of Indigenous insights being used by white academics as examples or data for pre-established categories and systems.

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cross and atonement theologies in ways that have been damaging to Indigenous peoples. The image of Christ as willing victim, for example, has often been used to try to depoliticise suffering or promote submission in the face of settler violence.34 It is perhaps not surprising, then, that neither Skye nor Te Kaawa gives much attention to the cross for their Christologies. Turning to experiences and cultural contexts, they develop understandings and images of Christ that stabilise and support Indigenous agency and identity. They develop Christologies that emphasise whakapapa or ancestry, land or place, agency, and relationality. Accordingly, their work indicates one important response to the deep entanglements of Christianity with colonialism. My claim is that a different kind of Christology is needed for white Christians after colonisation. In contrast to Indigenous Christians, those of us who are white need forms of agency and identity that are less stable and set. And we need images and understandings of Christ that can interrupt strategies of avoidance and press us into messy, complex work of relationships with Indigenous peoples. Despite the damage it has caused, the image of Christ on the cross can be useful in this context. The cross as a stumbling block  can help us to pause and evaluate some of our core assumptions, and thus to become more open to something new. To be clear, this is a narrow and targeted use of the cross: a contextual Christology for white Christians. Nonetheless, for those of us who are white, this disturbing image of Christ on the cross can be ‘liberating and empowering’; it can finally allow for our salvation to begin (Jennings 2018).

References Adrhatas, Vassius. 2005. Perceptions of land in indigenous Australian Christian texts. Studies in World Christianity 11: 200–214. Banner, Michael. 2016. The ethics of everyday life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bell, Avril. 2014. Relating indigenous and settler identities: Beyond domination. London: Palgrave Macmillian.

34  Moreover, the conviction that Christ alone brings salvation (John 14:6) encouraged missionaries to overlook and downplay negative impacts of colonisation. If eternal salvation is possible only through Christ, this gift outweighs any more negative impacts of missionary and settler presence. This exclusivist commitment prevented missionaries from attributing value to Indigenous forms of religion and knowledge.

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———. 2016. Decolonizing conviviality and ‘becoming ordinary’: Cross-cultural face-to-face encounters in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ethnic and Racial Studies 39: 1170–1186. Callaghan, Moeawa Makere. 2011. Te Karaiti in Mihingare spirituality: Women’s perspective. PhD Dissertation, University of Auckland. Cone, James H. 2013. The cross and the lynching tree. Maryknoll: Orbis. Craigo-Snell, Shannon. 2016. The empty church. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Flett, John G. 2022. Plotting an oceanic voice: A longitudinal review and analysis of regional theologising. Colloquium 54: 5–60. Goroncy, Jason. 2019. ‘A pretty decent sort of bloke’: Towards the quest for an Australian Jesus. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 75: 1–10. Grant, Jacquelyn. 1989. White women’s Christ and black women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and womanist response. Atlanta: AAR Scholars Press. Grimshaw, Michael. 2013. Review of new Zealand Jesus: Social and religious transformations of an image, 1890–1940, by Geoffrey Troughton. Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception 3: 205. Haberstam, Judith. 2011. The queer art of failure. Durham: Duke University Press. Hall, John Douglas. 2006. Theology of the cross: Challenge and opportunity for the Post-Christendom church. In Cross examinations: Readings on the meaning of the cross today, ed. Marit A. Trelstad, 252–259. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Harris, Charles. 1996. Guidelines for so-called Western civilization and Western Christianity. In Aboriginal spirituality: Past, present, future, ed. Anne Pattel-­ Gray. London: HarperCollins. Jennings, Willie James. 2010. The Christian imagination: Theology and the origins of race. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. 2018. Can white people be saved? Reflections on the relationships of mission and whiteness. In Can ‘white’ people be saved? Triangulating race, theology, and mission, ed. Love L. Sechrest, Johnny Ramrez-Johnson, and Amos Yong, 1–42. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. Jones, Alison. 2020. This Pākehā life: An unsettled memoir. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Kaa, Hirini. 2020. Te Hahi Mihinare: The Māori Anglican church. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Kampen, Melanie. 2014. Unsettling theology: Decolonizing Western interpretations of original sin. MTh Thesis, University of Waterloo and Conrad Grebel University College. Kiddle, Rebecca. 2020. Colonisation sucks for everyone. In Imagining decolonisation, ed. Biannca Elkington, Moana Jackson, Rebecca Kiddle, Ocean Ripeka Mercier, Mike Ross, Jennie Smeaton, and Amanda Thomas, 83–106. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books.

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Luther, Martin. 1999. Heidelberg disputation. In Martin Luther’s works, Vol. 31: career of the reformer I, ed. Harold J.  Grimm. Trans. Helmut T.  Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Maddison, Sarah. 2014. Missionary genocide: Moral illegitimacy and the churches in Australia. In Indigenous Australia and the unfinished business of theology, ed. Jione Havea, 31–46. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Malcolm, Lois. 2021. Apocalyptic birth pangs: The cross, corporeality, and epiphanic manifestation in apostolic practice. Studies in Christian Ethics 34: 439–454. Mead, Hirini Moko. 2022. Understanding Mātauranga Maō ri. E-Tangata, June 19. https://e-­tangata.co.nz/comment-­and-­analysis/understanding-­matauranga-­ maori/ Melbourne, Te Waaka. 2005. Māori spirituality in the new millennium. First Peoples Theology Journal 1: 21–28. Mikaere, Ani. 2011. Colonising myths – Maori realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro. Wellington: Huia Publishing. ———. 2016. Te Harinui: Civilising the Māori with school and church. In Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, research and practice, ed. Jessica Hutchings and Jenny Lee-Morgan, 48–58. Wellington: NZCER Press. Ong, Benjamin. 2021. Partner-centred Interpretation in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Hermeneutic for Pak̄ ehā in Partnership with Ma ̄ori. PhD Dissertation, University of Otago. Pattel-Gray, Anne. 1998. The great white flood: Racism in Australia. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ———. 2000. Aboriginal theology. In Dictionary of third world theology, ed. V. Fabella and R. Sugirtharajah, 1–2. Maryknoll: Orbis. Rountree, Te Aroha. 2021. Jesus does a haka boogie: Tangata whenua theology. In Theologies from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea, 47–62. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Skye, Lee Miena. 2007. Kerygmatics of the new millennium: A study of Australian aboriginal women’s Christology. Delhi: ISPCK. Smith, Jo. 2011. Aotearoa/New Zealand: An unsettled state in a sea of islands. Settler Colonial Studies 1: 111. Smith, Mitzi. 2018. Race, gender and the politics of sass: Reading mark 7: 24–30 through a womanist lens. In Womanist sass and talk back: Social (In)justice, intersectionality, and biblical interpretation, 28–35. Eugene: Cascade. Talia, Maina. 2021. ‘Kauafua fatele for Christ’s sake: A theological dance for the changing climate. In Theologies from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea, 63–77. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Te Kaawa, Wayne. 2020. Re-visioning Christology through a Māori lens. PhD Dissertation,. University of Otago. Tinker, George ‘Tink’. 2008. American Indian liberation: A theology of sovereignty. Maryknoll: Orbis.

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Troughton, Geoffrey. 2011. New Zealand Jesus: Social and religious transformations of an image, 1890–1940. Bern: Peter Lang. Vaai, Upolu Lumā. 2019. Lagimālie: Covid, De-Onefication of theologies, and eco-relational wellbeing. In Doing theology in the new Normal, ed. Jione Havea, 209–221. London: SCM. Walker, Ranginui. 2016. Reclaiming Māori education. In Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, research and practice, ed. Jessica Hutching and Jenny Lee-Morgan. Wellington: NZCER Press. Warrior, Robert Allen. 2005. Canaanites, cowboys, and Indians. Union Seminary Quarterly Review 59: 1–8. Westhelle, Vítor. 2019. God against god: Luther the theologian of the cross. In The alternative Luther: Lutheran theology from the subaltern, ed. Else Wiberg Pedersen. Minneapolis: Fortress Academic. Winner, Lauren F. 2018. The dangers of Christian practices: On wayward gifts, characteristic damage, and sin. New Haven: Yale University Press.

CHAPTER 5

Unsettling Theologies Means Unsettling Theological Institutions! Naomi Wolfe

This chapter outlines a situation that is strangling theological education and proposes some ways forward. My aim is to offer suggestions, encouragement, and challenges for scholars, students, and the wider community. My hope is that this chapter can prompt discussion and action for all of those who read it. To be clear, my suggestions in what follows should not be interpreted as the only way to decolonize and reform theological education in Australia. It is important to understand that there is a rich diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences and traditions, just as there are different experiences and traditions within Christianity. And this, of course, means that the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christians are

N. Wolfe (*) NAIITS/Australia Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_5

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even more diverse!1 There are many ways that we can and should approach the work of decolonization. This point is important given a widespread expectation of homogeneity across Indigenous Australian groups, an expectation which reduces the experiences and gifts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Reducing diversity to just a few voices or positions can be damaging for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Acknowledging Where We Are It is an established cultural and social protocol to begin by acknowledging and paying respect to the Ancestors,2 traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we are gathered, as well as greeting those who have assembled.3 This has become commonplace in wider Australian society, including in church services and Christian gatherings. It is nothing new for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to be a bedrock of cultural protocols. And this is particularly important when visiting different country or living off country. As a trawloolway woman with Jewish German and Irish heritage, I am blessed to spend time on and learn from many different Aboriginal lands. Like so many of our mob, I am diasporic; I live away from my own country as an economic refugee. I am grateful to other lands for providing hospitality (especially during and after the challenges of COVID-19). I also frequently remind myself of the gifts and sacrifices of the communities where I visit and live. Through my work as a historian and theologian—for the Australian Catholic University and NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community—I can sometimes give back to these communities. I often 1  It is sometimes forgotten that there is not one Aboriginal or one Torres Strait Islander way of being, way of knowing, or way of doing. There is a beautiful diversity across the several hundred different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities which gets lost when we forget this and attempt to collapse everything into one homogenous idea of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life. 2  Capital ‘A’ is used to demonstrate respect for Ancestors by Indigenous peoples around the world. Ancestors is not an abstract word but rather something that is relational. 3  The bones of this chapter are a paper that I was privileged to give at the United Theological College (UTC) Research Seminar in 2022. UTC resides on the lands of the Burramattagal clan of the Dharug people. I also want to acknowledge the warmth and encouragement given to me that day by Aunty Pearl McLaren Wymarra, Elder and student at UTC. I would like to thank Aunty Pearl for her steadfast faithfulness.

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acknowledge and thank the Ancestors for their love, care, and guidance. I am because we are. For some non-Indigenous peoples, however, acknowledgements of Country can provoke discomfort or even anger. While it is not entirely clear to me (and perhaps to them) why it has this effect, I suspect that it can be uncomfortable and even triggering to consider the history of land and how they came to be on it. More work needs to be done by theological institutions and churches to help non-Indigenous peoples reflect on why acknowledgements can provoke strong, negative reactions (see, e.g., McLeod 2019). Many years ago, I was encouraged when an Aboriginal Catholic Elder reminded me that the Apostle  Paul himself was someone who remembered his own story and acknowledged the stories of the communities where he worked and wrote.4 For me, this was a reminder that we can look for supportive examples in many traditions in ways that can bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds together for learning, understanding, and growth. In my work as a theologian and historian, I am deeply committed to decolonizing theological education in Australia. I also believe that decolonizing theological education can revitalize it and make it more sustainable. Among other things, this work of decolonization involves interrogating institutional structures, teaching practices, curriculum, and engagements with stakeholders and communities. My preferred approach is to pursue revitalization in a way that avoids a deficit approach. While we must certainly examine the areas of our institutions that are problematic, an asset-­ based strategy allows for a more encouraging and collaborative process. This means that the work of decolonizing is not simply about fixing or solving problems but is also a journey of learning and understanding. Those who are non-Indigenous are invited to come on this journey. While it might be unsettling at times, it will ultimately be rewarding for students, teachers, and the community.

4  See, for example, Galatians 2: 14–15, where Paul reminds Cephas that following Jesus does not require all to follow the old rules and regulations, for example, Gentiles following Jewish customs such as circumcision.

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Beginning the Journey Where do we begin the journey of decolonizing theological education? One place to begin is simply by attending to the lands on which we already live and work. Do you know the names of the local traditional owners and custodians? Do you know the history of the lands, waters, and skies of the places where you are? Importantly, do you know the shared histories of the local Indigenous peoples and your own histories (the histories of your family, institutions, and churches, and so on)? These may or may not be questions that you have previously considered. But it is a good start to locating yourself in the stories that surround you. Indeed, there is nowhere in Australia that is not Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Country, although we sometimes need reminding of this when surrounded by the bitumen and concrete of our cities. The work of decolonisation can be overwhelming, especially for Indigenous peoples who are already traversing and holding together many worlds. This means that this work cannot be done by us alone. Moreover, we rarely hold positions of power or have influence over systems, regulations, and denominations. We are not often the ones who are involved in reviewing, evaluating, planning, and reconstructing theological institutions. This is work that is primarily carried out by non-Indigenous peoples. When it comes to decolonization, different communities and peoples have different roles and responsibilities. I encourage all of us to know our location, in our own story and in shared stories. For example, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and also Indigenous peoples from elsewhere, ‘affirm the positive message of the Gospel brought by the missionaries but see the rejection of our traditional culture as unnecessary and destructive’ (Rainbow Spirit Elders 2007, 3). This is the position held by many Indigenous Christians—that we can be fully Christian and fully Indigenous, with ways of being and knowing that connect with these lands. This is a different story than that of non-Indigenous settlers who now live in Australia. We have different positionalities in this settler society. Our stories all intersect with the warp and weft of tragedies and joys. But we all have our own stories.

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Decolonization for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christians What does decolonization mean for those of us who come from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities? What is the work that we need to do as Indigenous peoples? What kind of support do we need in order to remain and return to being those who the Creator made us to be? How do we begin and continue this work, especially when it’s messy, frightening, and brings us into conflict? There are no easy answers to these questions. We see the pain, frustration, and disrespect that our Elders often experience in churches and theological colleges. Our Elders have been faithful followers of Jesus, who for decades quietly (or not so quietly) fought battles for recognition and space. Some have now returned to the Dreaming while others continue the struggle. We also see younger generations answering the call of our communities to seek out Western education, only to confront barriers and shifting goalposts. And those few who do manage to graduate have difficulties finding employment in churches or colleges. How do we find and respond to God’s call as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders in the midst of all these difficulties? Anne Pattel-Gray responds to this question by turning to the incarnation: The original Word was made flesh in the life of Jesus, in a particular time, place and context, amongst a particular people, life situation and culture, and has been recorded within Biblical Scripture for us to read today. The task of Aboriginal Christians and theologians today is to incarnate the living Word not only into our cultural life and context, but also to enable the living Word to take shape in the blood, sweat and tears of Aboriginal People. This kind of reinterpretation is a necessary process of inculturation, through which the Word of God is made relevant to Aboriginal Peoples and contexts. (2004, 15)

For Pattel-Gray, the task is to find ways of recognizing and affirming Christ’s presence among Aboriginal people. As Aboriginal people who are followers of Jesus, we need to find ways of reaffirming our Indigenous beliefs within God’s creation and love as manifested by Jesus. This is one of the reasons why I am so grateful to the NAIITS community. For the first time, this community has allowed me to be myself in

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an educational space: fully Christian and fully Aboriginal. The NAIITS Vision Statement affirms the deep compatibility of these identities: NAIITS exists to provide an Indigenous designed, developed, delivered, and governed tertiary theological educational program with a commitment to Indigenous ideologies, values, and ontologies as the principal interpretive frameworks for its programs as well as its frameworks for delivery and assessment. NAIITS’ vision is to see Indigenous women and men journey down the road of a living heart relationship with Jesus that does not require the rejection of their Creator-given social and cultural identity, nor the rejection of their own worldview as the foundation for that relationship.5

Why is this so important? As the Rainbow Spirit Elders collective has reminded us, ‘for the most part, our religions, beliefs and ceremonies were regarded as pagan, barbaric, and evil’ (2007, 9). This history laid a foundation for how the churches and their agencies have engaged with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Christianity has been deeply involved in the colonial project in this country. Along similar lines, Uncle Ray Minniecon reminds us that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were seen to be non-human and were denied the dignity of being treated as human, made in the image of God. Our children and our parents were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, family, and community. Many were treated as slaves. Our ancestral lands were stolen and desecrated. Many of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes were called Christian. (2019, 5)

These are powerful words that remind us that Christianity in Australia has a deep colonial legacy; it cannot easily divorce itself from this legacy. This also means that churches, ministries, and theological colleges are built on stolen wealth. It is an uncomfortable truth for many who would like to gloss over this history  and focus on the future relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Christians. Over many decades, Uncle Ray’s work has been to minister to Indigenous and non-Indigenous 5  NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community evolved from the formalisation of North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies and the involvement of Indigenous communities in Australia, the Philippines, South America, and Central America. Now truly international, NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community no longer uses NAIITS as an acronym.

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Christians across the country as an Aboriginal pastor. It has been this kind of tenacity and faithfulness that has allowed for Uncle Ray and other Elders to advocate for culturally specific Indigenous theological education such as NAIITS (Payne 2019). The whole purpose of NAIITS is to allow Indigenous peoples to simply be who they were created to be, not facsimiles of the dominant culture. We are created in God’s image and there is a beauty in that creation; this should give Indigenous peoples encouragement to simply be followers of Jesus within their own cultures and traditions. Aunty Evelyn Parker, a Quandamooka Elder, affirms that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Christians, there is an expression of continuity of ritual sacredness between my ancient people and our Higher Power (known by various names). This relationship is an unbroken thread that has weaved its way through the passages of time. It has been passed on for thousands of years to us here today. We are not only the ‘Children of God,’ we are also the ‘Children of the Dreaming.’ This we must remember. (Parker 2010, 391)

Elders such as Uncle Ray and Aunty Evelyn are living examples of how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can co-exist with Christianity. They are witnesses to the fact that Indigenous peoples in these lands were never divorced from the Creator. Our knowledge of and engagement with God can (and should be) as those who God made us to be: Indigenous. This was inconceivable to colonial clergy and early missionaries, and something that I suspect many people still wrestle with today. For a long time, there had been an assumption that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands were godless and barbaric (Bonyhady 1998). Against this view, Aunty Alice Kelly, a Mutthi Mutthi Elder, invites us to remember that Country is holy, a place to connect with God. Specifically, she refers to Lake Mungo, a place holy for her own people: ‘I believe that, for us, Mungo is where the spirit of wisdom lies, not only for our own people, but for all non-Aboriginal Australians to taste and see that the Lord is good’ (Wilson 1991, 2). This stands in contrast to missionary and colonial ideas about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander spiritualities. As Aunty Anne Pattel-Gray summarises, ‘What Aboriginal People have witnessed over the past centuries has been largely the transplanting of the Western Church into Aboriginal cultural climates, with its liturgy, theology; spirituality, Western

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bureaucracy, arts and even language’ (2004, 14). It is time, then, for the next centuries to be full of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander liturgies, theologies, and ministries. This is a gift that we can and should offer to all those who have made their home on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands.

Decolonization for Indigenous Peoples from Elsewhere What is the work of decolonization for Indigenous communities from elsewhere who live in Australia? What is the role and work, for example, of our Pacific or Māori brothers and sisters living on Aboriginal lands? How does the struggle for identity and place differ for these peoples who are living away from their own lands? From many gatherings, it has become clear that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have much in common with other Indigenous communities. However, there are also times when these communities can inadvertently cause problems for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. For example, there was recently controversy when Māori living in Western Sydney decided to build a marae without properly consulting local Aboriginal peoples (New Zealand Herald 2022). This incident made clear that Indigenous communities from elsewhere can sometimes fail to recognize the sovereignty of the traditional owners. While the local owners (the Dharug Ngurra people) and Māori both shared deep connections to land, this particular place was owned and cared for by Dharug people. Eventually, with better consultation, this experience became a positive example of how Indigenous communities from elsewhere can operate in ways that acknowledge and respect local mob. Indeed, for Māori this became a unifying and learning process as they sought to establish their marae in this new place. The Māori community in Western Sydney learnt to negotiate Aboriginal protocols with their own tikanga (customs) in a way that affirmed the sovereignty of the traditional owners (Dharug) and made space for their own whānau (Godfrey 2022). What this example presents, then, is an important question for all Indigenous communities from elsewhere: How can these communities maintain their own customs and identities while still recognizing the stories and Ancestors of the places where they find themselves?

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In addition, Indigenous communities from elsewhere can often help to disrupt Western and white spaces in ways  that assist and support traditional owners and custodians. Such communities can work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to disrupt the status quo. In this way, they can help us all to move beyond brown and black cladding and more superficial forms of inclusion. From the time of the First Fleet in 1787 to the present, Indigenous Australians have continually been understood by non-Indigenous missionaries and churches as needing salvation (Swain, et  al. 2003). In a time when Christian denominations across Australia are shrinking, with increasing numbers of Australians identifying as ‘no faith’ or ‘non-­Christian’, this situation has changed. Perhaps Indigenous peoples need to become the new missionaries, not in order to convert others but to share their rich knowledge and insights about God as Creator.

Decolonization for Non-indigenous Peoples In her book, The Bible in Australia, historian Meredith Lake reflects that, From the outset, the Bible was associated with the colonising projects of transporting convicts, appropriating Aboriginal land, and forming settler societies. To understand its long-term significance in Australian life, we need to consider not only the transmission of its European cultural products, but the messy realities of culture contact and the dynamics of colonial power (2020, 8–9).

This is an uncomfortable place to begin from for many non-Indigenous peoples. However, it is the lived and living reality in these lands we now call Australia. Lake’s observation provides the background and context for how non-Indigenous peoples should think about the work of decolonization. One way of responding to this challenge is to contextualize colonial history within your own backyard. How can non-Indigenous individuals and communities begin to understand their own place in these lands today? How can they learn about their own stories and the stories of their churches? How might they begin to share these stories and journey with other non-Indigenous individuals and communities? Beginning the work of decolonization by simply learning stories and engaging with these lands does not require magical tricks. Nor does it

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require immersion experiences in faraway Country. Rather, it begins with the tools and resources that are already at hand. This work might, for example, involve sharing resources or talking with colleagues and friends. It might involve reading, thinking, praying, and asking hard questions together. For those who are further along on this journey, they can encourage others to begin this work. As the Korean American theologian Erna Kim Hackett puts it, ‘go get your cousins and get to work!’ In other words, I would encourage non-Indigenous people to help each other and begin having their own conversations before reaching out to Indigenous communities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are welcoming but overburdened. Please do not try to outsource the initial work that you can and should be doing for yourselves! A Missed Opportunity A church group emailed a local Aboriginal organization asking for their recommendations for an immersion experience in the Northern Territory. They were not based in the Northern Territory and had never contacted this organization. The group had not attended any local events with Aboriginal people. However, they had money and wanted to travel for an ‘authentic’ experience. Since they were only able to travel during certain weeks of the year, they wished to know (via email) whether local mob could assist them with booking a tour or put them in direct contact with remote communities. When the initial email and subsequent approaches were politely ignored, the leader of the group made contact with me. After asking some questions, I pointed out that it was presumptuous to think that local mob should be willing to help those they did not have a relationship with. I also suggested that it was problematic for the group to be pursuing an experience and relationships elsewhere rather than locally. Why travel interstate for a whirlwind tour or experience? Finally, I suggested that emails and demands of this kind were rude! The group’s leader expressed her anger, tears, and frustration at these responses: ‘Why were we being uncooperative and failing to recognize that they just wanted to learn!’ After further conversations (and even brokering a meeting with local mob), the group eventually decided to simply ring a travel agency to arrange a trip to the Northern Territory. It is important to understand that good intentions and enthusiasm are not always enough. As the example above suggests, the church group was not really interested in entering into relationships with Aboriginal peoples,

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especially ones built upon mutual respect and responsibility. There was no effort or action to build relationships over time. It has been well researched and documented that effective engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comes from interactions where ‘there is a commitment by all parties to developing long-term sustainable relationships based on trust’ (Hunt 2013, 32).

The Big Fella Without the Crap Several weeks before my Dad’s unexpected passing we had a conversation about life, God, the church, society, and my work (what Dad would call ‘the little things’). I had recently given Dad copies of two books: Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah’s Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery (2019) and my cousin Garry Deverell’s Gondwana Theology: A Trawloolway Man Reflects on Christian Faith (2018). Dad had read them and was eager for a discussion. This interest was uncharacteristic; he had had negative experiences of church during his childhood. When he was 11  years old, his own father, a man of Jewish-German heritage, had converted to Catholicism when dying of cancer. Some people from the church and the Christian doctor had told Dad that if he prayed hard enough his father would recover. Despite his prayers (and those of his sister), my grandfather became sicker and died. Someone remarked that perhaps God would have listened had my Dad not been ‘an Aboriginal half caste with Jew blood’. These remarks and this theology had stuck with him all of his life. He would often joke that he only ever went to church for ‘hatches, matches, and dispatches’ (i.e., baptisms, weddings, and funerals)! In that final conversation, as we walked Country together, Dad reminded me that he had no particular problem with the Big Fella or brother Jesus, only with their self-appointed representatives. He said that by reading the two books and learning about the work of NAIITS, he knew that future generations would be able to know the ‘Big Fella without the crap’. It is memories like this one, and the privilege of being able to work in spaces like NAIITS, that gives me energy and strength to continue, and which allows me to tackle things such as the decolonization of our theological colleges.

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With my work, my goal is to create a wedge and open doors and windows for our Elders and communities to enter. As Aunty Denise Champion tells us, We are being presented, both First and Second Peoples, with an opportunity to follow a new path that reconciles and heals. To do that we need to be able to sing together, dance together, sit together, eat together, learn to live together in peace, and tell stories, allowing this and to speak to us and through us. Yarta Wandatha (Champion and Dewerse 2014, 60).

Our gifts from the Creator deserve to be affirmed and heard! And there is a lot of work to be done. This work is not going to be quick and easy. And we will need allies to join us in the work of decolonizing theological education. An Elder from the local group once said that he often felt like he was often treated as an Indigenous travel agent or Indigenous reviewer. Indeed, a church leader I know often talks about her five-day whirlwind trip up north, when an Indigenous community gave her a skin name. However, there seems to be no relationship between this church and local Indigenous people. It is also notable that this church has not been back to the Northern Territory or maintained relationships with the families and communities they had visited. To me it is sad that this group has missed an opportunity to connect with local Aboriginal communities who would have much to share and contribute. It is also sad that the contact they did have with an Aboriginal community ended up being transactional. This is not an approach that leads to genuine relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Christians. How do we avoid this kind of transactional approach? As I’ve suggested, we need to begin by looking at what is available locally, at what connections are possible where we already are. I would encourage people to try to connect with and learn from local mob. Invite them into your conversations and spaces and pay them properly for their work. Respect that their answer will sometimes be ‘no’ or ‘not yet’. It is also important to understand that there will be different relationships with various individuals and communities. Finally, it is important to understand the context in which these relationships will develop.

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Troublemakers and Changing Spaces There was an Aboriginal student who came from a big activist family. The student was known to ask a lot of questions in classes, some of which would put lecturers on the spot (unintentionally) and challenge them to engage with new ideas and perspectives. Labels such as ‘troublemaker’, ‘difficult’, and ‘intelligent but problematic’ were soon bandied around in faculty meetings. Following one particularly difficult encounter, in which frustrations built and exploded, the student left the class. The lecturer came to the Indigenous unit of the university in order to discuss the situation and demand answers. Staff contacted the student, who agreed to come in for a yarn about the issues. There was a resolution and truce of sorts, allowing for the student to return to class. The unit provided the lecturer with resources and offered to provide further assistance. Several weeks went by and the results for the course were issued. The student contacted the unit to see if we could assist with an appeal. The student had felt so unwelcome that when they had encountered difficulties, they felt unable to request an extension. As a consequence, they had failed the course (again). They found the extension form to be too complicated and by this point the relationship with the lecturer had broken down. The student felt unsupported and assumed that an extension would not be approved. The lecturer later commented to a staff member that he was unsurprised this ‘this Aboriginal student’ did not hand in work: ‘Your people are not very good at that sort of thing, are they?’ What could be done in response to this situation? The Indigenous unit responded by beginning to assist students with filling out their extension forms. The unit also began emailing forms to lecturers with a note of support (cc-ing the student). This approach took away the burden and shame from the students. Over several semesters, students increasingly began applying for extensions with this approach, allowing them to successfully complete more units. Several lecturers thanked Indigenous staff for their assistance. It is often small interventions that can have a significant impact. What does this story teach us? It invites us to reflect on the forms and processes that we use in our colleges. Are they working for everyone? To be clear, making positive changes is about more than adjusting forms. What kinds of voices do we have on your committees? How can Indigenous voices be heard in the classroom? How can they impact and inform wider policies and systems? How can institutions operate in ways that support

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and increase student success, not only for Indigenous students but for all students.

Opportunities for Theological Institutions In 2009, Rev. Dr. Charles Sherlock completed the project Uncovering Theology: The Depth, Reach and Utility of Australian Theological Education. This report recommended that theological higher education providers ‘consider more fully how learning is affected by the varied Australian contexts in which teaching and ministry take place, in particular the opportunities afforded by engagement with indigenous theologians and colleges’ (115). Within the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, Wontulp-Bi-Buya College in Cairns and Nungalinya College in Darwin have already been providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with theological education. Both colleges do amazing work with little support, encouraging and teaching Indigenous students, as well as responding to the growing needs of non-Indigenous people who want cultural awareness and competency. NAIITS College has met with these colleges to explore what pathways for Indigenous students might be possible between the VET and Higher Education sectors. It should be considered whether the work of decolonization is solely the responsibility of these three Indigenous colleges. Are there ways in which non-Indigenous providers also need to contribute to the work of decolonization? At the very least, non-Indigenous institutions and colleges should be reviewing and reflecting on their current practices. Are these working for everyone or just for a few people? What changes could make colleges and education more accessible for Indigenous mob? How could colleges operate in more culturally appropriate and hospitable ways? Even relatively small changes around language and hospitality could significantly improve relationships. There is often a response, ‘But I didn’t know! Why didn’t they tell me?’ It is time for our institutions to begin taking this work more seriously. The University of Divinity recently appointed an Aboriginal Elder to its governing council for the first time: Aunty Janet Turpie-Johnstone. It has taken a long time for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be included in decision-making about theological education. There is still a long way to go! What other committees would benefit from the inclusion of Indigenous voices? How could structures better recognize and include diverse Indigenous voices, and affirm the contributions of a variety of

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Indigenous worldviews and traditions? Many of our mob have skills in community engagement and development. Others have technical skills. All of us could tell you about small things that would have made a major difference to our experience and studies. Another example of a theological college beginning to make changes is Pilgrim Theological College in Melbourne. The college developed a relationship with an Aboriginal community to dialogue about renaming their classrooms, which had originally been named after settlers who had participated in massacring Aboriginal communities (see Humphries 2022). This renaming was important in that it acknowledged this history. Just as importantly, it has helped to build relationships with Aboriginal communities and to  create a more hospitable environment for Indigenous students. How can theological colleges be more intentional about decolonizing their spaces? Ultimately, it not enough just to have more support for Indigenous students, or even to have Indigenous people on staff and in advisory positions. Colleges also need to do the deeper work of reforming their structures, processes, and policies. The small number of Aboriginal staff and faculty often become burnt out due to the workload and weight of expectations. What is needed, therefore, are deeper changes to these educational spaces that make them more hospitable. This will also require educating and training everyone around cultural awareness and competency. In addition, faculty and staff at all levels in theological colleges need to understand the barriers that Indigenous students face. ‘The story of Aboriginal exclusion and denial of access to Western education is an important factor demonstrating how past educational policies and attitudes have, and continue to, impact the progression of Aboriginal higher education today’ (Perry and Holt 2018, 346). This history continues to impact Indigenous students in theological colleges. In order to create any real change, we need to acknowledge and overcome this history. Theological institutions also need to meditate upon their particular histories and stories as they begin and continue their decolonizing journey. The wealth possessed by denominations that funds theological education has its foundation in colonial Australia and its structures. This wealth has allowed for the training of clergy and ministers over the last two centuries. Henry Reynolds once commented that ‘there is the question of what responsibility rests on the shoulders of those who inherit a troubled legacy’ (2021, 132). Our theological institutions have inherited a troubled

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legacy. Furthermore, these institutions have racist histories; they have provided few opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (and others). Pope John Paul II once proclaimed, at Blatherskite Park in 1986: ‘The Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.’ Finally, I believe that this work of decolonization can help to revitalize our colleges. Creating space for the gifts and insights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can enrich and improve theological education. We are not poor children who are in need of supervision or social workers; we have unique gifts to share as equals. As Uncle Ray Minniecon reflects, All denominations still look at Aboriginal people as a mission field … and we’re sick and tired of being a mission field, an evangelistic training ground for … all the up and coming evangelists, or some other kind of training ground. We’re just sick and tired of being a training ground. They come and get trained by us, but we get nothing out of it. All the other denominations have really … just been absent from dealing with the issues here (Minniecon and Riches 2019).

The Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time and season for everything (Eccl 3:1–8). It is the time and season for decolonizing theological education. It is time for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christians to take their places among the ranks of theologians, ministers, and academics in the denominational and institutional halls of learning.

References Address of John Paul II to the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in ‘Blatherskite Park’. 1986. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, November 29. https://www.vatican. va/content/john-­paul-­ii/en/speeches/1986/november/documents/hf_jp-­ ii_spe_19861129_aborigeni-­alice-­springs-­australia.html. Bonyhady, Tim. 1998. The colonial earth. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Champion, Denise, and Rosemary Dewerse. 2014. Yarta Wandatha. Salisbury: Denise Champion. Charles, Mark, and Soong-Chan Rah. 2019. Unsettling truths: The ongoing, dehumanizing legacy of the doctrine of discovery. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Deverell, Gary. 2018. Gondwana theology: A Trawloolway man reflects on Christian faith. Sydney: Morningstar Publications.

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Dharug Ngurra nation opposes marae in Sydney. 2022. New Zealand herald, September 14. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/dharug-­ngurra-­nation-­ opposes-­marae-­in-­sydney/GXQBSUZ6ONVLGE42F3PL6LUXBI/. Godfrey, Morgan. 2022. Sydney is no place to build a Māori meeting house – it is disrespectful to Aboriginal people. The Guardian, March 5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2022/mar/06/sydney-­is-­no-­place-­tobuild-a-­maori-meeting-­house-­it-­is-­disrespectful-­to-­aboriginal-­people. Humphries, Andrew. 2022. Indigenous link honoured with renaming. In Uniting church in Australia. Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, February 18. https:// victas.uca.org.au/indigenous-­link-­honoured/. Hunt, J. 2013. Engaging with indigenous Australia—Exploring the conditions for effective relationships with aboriginal and Torres Strait islander communities. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare/Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies. Lake, Meredith. 2020. The bible in Australia: A cultural history. Updated Edition. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. McLeod, Chris. 2019. Why Christians should encourage the use of ‘Welcome to, or Acknowledgement of, Country.’ Anglican Diocese of Adelaide. https://adelaideanglicans.com/news/why-­c hristians-­s hould-­e ncourage-­t he-­u seof-­welcome-­to-­or-­acknowledgement-­of-­country/ Minniecon, Ray. 2019. Job: An aboriginal story. Zadok Papers 238 (239): 7–12. Minniecon, Ray, and Tanya Riches. 2019. Interview with Pastor Ray Minniecon. Australasian Pentecostal Studies 20: 86–99. Parker, Evelyn. 2010. The sources and resources of our indigenous theology: An Australian aboriginal perspective. The Ecumenical Review 62 (4): 390–398. Pattel-Gray, Anne. 2004. The aboriginal process of inculturation. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 17: 13–19. Payne, Kaley. 2019. Breakthrough on teaching theology through indigenous eyes. Eternity News, April 9. https://www.eternitynews.com.au/australia/ breakthrough-­on-­teaching-­theology-­through-­indigenous-­eyes/. Perry, Lawrence, and Leanne Holt. 2018. Searching for the songlines of aboriginal education and culture within Australian higher education. The Australian Educational Researcher 45: 343–361. Rainbow Spirit Elders. 2007. Rainbow spirit theology: Towards an Australian aboriginal theology. 2nd ed. Adelaide: ATF Press. Reynolds, Henry. 2021. Truth-telling: History, sovereignty and the Uluru statement. Sydney: New South Publishing. Sherlock, Charles H. 2009. Uncovering theology: The depth, reach and utility of Australian theological education. Adelaide: ATF Press. Swain, Shurlee, Julie Evans, David Phillips, and Patricia Grimshaw. 2003. Equal subjects, unequal rights: Indigenous people in British settler colonies, 1830–1910. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Wilson, Martin. 1991. Lake Mungo. Nelen Yubu Missiological Journal 49: 3–7.

PART II

Dismantling Colonial Systems

CHAPTER 6

Uncovering the Mat: Restorative Justice for the Dawn Raids? Brian Fiu Kolia

Introduction On the 1st of August 2021, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, on behalf of the New Zealand Government, issued an apology to the Māori and Pasifika communities for the Dawn Raids of the 1970s and 1980s, in which tangata whenua (Māori) and tagata Pasifika (Pacific Islanders) were specifically targeted as part of a racist scheme to deport overstayers of Pasifika origin back to their homelands. I want to revisit the recent apology and question whether this public act was really restorative justice or merely performance. Drawing on recent theological work in the area of restorative justice, this chapter will reflect on tensions between apology and justice by exploring the ways in which public apologies can often serve to repeat and continue the logics and trauma of settler colonialism. The fabric of Pasifika communities in Auckland during the 1970s and early 1980s were ruptured by an intrusive and racist plot to target

B. F. Kolia (*) Malua Theological College, Apia, Samoa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_6

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overstayers of Pasifika heritage, started by the Norman Kirk-led Labour government in 1973 but later discontinued in 1974. However, when National’s Rob Muldoon became Prime Minister in 1975, this racist agenda was reintroduced with great effect by hunting down and deporting potential overstayers targeting, specifically, people of Pasifika descent. The sad reality behind this is that the New Zealand Government had first encouraged Pasifika immigration post World War II to support economic expansion and labour shortages through cheap labour from the 1960s. However, through blatant racism, these same migrant communities were made scapegoats in the wake of social and economic difficulties in the early 1970s by being earmarked by the Kirk and Muldoon governments as potential overstayers. Melani Anae argues that the ‘issue of overstayers was used to deflect attention away from the economic problems and government policies which caused or contributed to the recession’ (1997, 129). Only a third of overstayers were of Pasifika heritage, with overstayers of European and UK descent also comprising a third. Alarmingly, however, 86% of the overstayer prosecutions were Pasifika peoples, while European and UK-descent overstayers comprised only 5% of arrests (Beaglehole 2015). This dark period in the history of Pasifika peoples in Aotearoa still lingers on through the memories of those who lived during those times, as Anae explains, ‘For Pacific parents, grandparents and aiga [families], the traumatic, emotional dawn-raids are still very vivid memories, indeed bitter memories’ (1997, 130). This is a talanoa that revisits the events of the ifoga (an ancient and sacred Samoan ritual of seeking forgiveness and reconciliation) and the apology offered by former Prime Minister Ardern and members of her Cabinet to victims of the horrific Dawn Raids in the 1970s and 1980s. Talanoa is a Pasifika way of conversation which involves story, storytelling, and conversation as one (Havea 2014). Talanoa in Pasifika is often done sitting on the ground, a position of humility and equity. Talanoa also seeks to tala (untie) the noa (knots) in matters of conversation (Kolia 2023). Tala refers to the process of conversation and (story)telling, while the noa represents questions, riddles, ambiguities, ironies, and other complex matters that require unpacking. Here, we can imagine a Samoan fishing net (upega) that needs its knots untangled and untied for it to be used for fishing. So with this, let us talanoa. This talanoa is not a critique of Prime Minister Ardern specifically, but a space for critical reflection relating to the New Zealand Government’s performance of the ifoga. There are a number of aspects of the ifoga which

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I want to tala-noa, considering its political, cultural, and theological implications. For Samoans, the theological implications are just as important as the other two due to Samoa’s religious identity. After all, the country’s motto reads: Faavae i le Atua Samoa (Samoa is founded on God). This talanoa is conducted in the spirit of fa’aaloalo (respect).

Locating My Self I am not a direct victim of the Dawn Raids. Yet as a child of a Samoan woman who left Samoa in the 1970s and migrated to Auckland, I can almost feel those painful moments that my mother experienced during the Dawn Raids. She passed in 2021, yet up until that moment, she never really spoke of the ordeal. In fact, she chose not to, as I failed many times to extract the exact details of those horrific mornings. The look in her eyes reflected terror as she chose to remain silent on a topic that she felt needed no reminding. Anae notes that ‘[s]ince the 1973–74 dawn-raids by police on potential overstayers many new migrants, for economic reasons and family reunification, have shifted their destinations to Australia or the USA’ (1997, 129–130). I can remember my mother telling me that she left New Zealand because she wanted autonomy—she was living with her uncle and aunty in Auckland—so she decided to pack up and head over to Australia. Yet, I wonder if the pain of the early morning raids had become too much for her to bear, culminating in her move to Australia. My mother’s silence is what pains me as her son, and in this talanoa I speak as a descendant of her unspoken trauma.

The Samoan Ritual of Ifoga Ifoga comes from the word ‘ifo’, which means ‘to bow down’ or ‘to worship’. ‘Ifo’ is often used in Samoan Christian worship contexts but is also employed as a gesture of respect to royalty, elders, or matai (chiefs). The intention here is that the person in the ifo position is acting from a place of humility and fa’aaloalo (respect)1 and is giving reverence to a person, being, or deity of higher status. The dynamic in ifoga is similar, as there is 1  Intriguingly, the root word of fa’aaloalo is the word alo (face), which implies a face-to-­ face dynamic, so as to suggest that if one is respectful, one must be able to say what one wants to say to the other’s face. However, in ifoga, one is without face as they seek mercy and forgiveness from the offended party to save face! (cf. Vaai 2006).

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a space (va) between or among people, where those who are conducting ifoga are also acting out of humility and fa’aaloalo, but this time seeking penance, forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation from the offended party. In light of ifo, the offended party are deemed to be of higher status. The offering of ifoga always implies a transgression of va (space). The va in the Samoan, Pasifika, and Māori (wā) imaginations, constitutes a liminal space that does not separate beings, but links and associates them. The va therefore represents relationship, kinship and feagaiga (covenant).2 When these relationships are contravened, it means that the va has been offended. The va is broken when a profane act—such as murder, rape, or incest—has been committed by one of the parties in that space. In the event that the va has been violated through these acts, the matai (chiefs) and aiga (family) of the offending party, out of shame (mā) and respect of the va, will move to give an ifoga to the maligned aiga. Therefore, the ifoga does not constitute an individual undertaking but a collective endeavour. When the offending aiga gives the ifoga, the family or the collective traverse to the land and home of the offended aiga, sit on the ground— usually the front lawn—and cover themselves with an ie toga (fine mat). The significance of the ie toga in an ifoga has its ties with the Tongans, whereby the name ie toga literally means ‘Tongan fine mat’. Filoaialii and Knowles tell one version of its origins: The fine mats as a ‘cover of life’ find their roots in Samoan tradition. According to Samoan myth, in ancient times the King of Tonga Island suspected that his son had been killed by the daughter of King Tui Manu’a of Manu’a Island. In punishment the accused woman was sentenced by the Tongan King to be burned at the stake. As a final request, she asked that her woven mat that she had brought with her from Manu’a Island be brought to her. She wrapped herself in it. This was the first time that the people of Tonga had seen such a mat, and they believed that she was attempting to bewitch the Tongan people. In addition, they recalled that her father, King Tui Manu’a Moa Atoa, had once caused a previous Tongan king to die (although he later came back to life) by drowning through the use of the mana or magical power. As a result of the recollection, the King of Tonga freed the daughter of King Tui Manu’a and allowed her to return to Samoa. 2  The feagaiga in its basic sense articulates the covenantal relationship between brother and sister, where the brother must love their sister and act as the sister’s guardian and protector, while the sister shows care and respect for her brother.

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She believed that her escape had something to do with the mat, and she named it pulou ole ola or the ‘cover of life.’ For this reason, Samoans use fine mats when seeking forgiveness. A major objective is to ensure that the ifoga party will not be attacked by the victims of the injured person and family members. (1983, 386–387)

The ie toga therefore marks the visible representation of forgiveness (fa’amagalo) and holds great value in the ifoga, as it represents shame and guilt for the offending aiga, yet its removal is a sign of forgiveness and reconciliation, and also life (ola) for both aiga. In the next few paragraphs, I want to focus a bit more on some key elements of the ifoga, such as attendees/attendance, timing, venue and fa’amagalo (forgiveness), which I will revisit again when analysing Ardern’s ifoga. Attendees/Attendance Typically, those taking the ifoga consist of the family members of the offender, led by the tamā matua (patriarch) and tinā matua (matriarch) of the aiga. However, the number of people taking an ifoga can range from one family, ‘a family as a whole, or by the village’ (Filoialii and Knowles 1983, 384). The weight of the offence is carried by the leaders of the family as well as the guilt, shame, and remorse. This is significant from the point of view of the offender because their actions have led to their parents having to make the early morning trek to the offended aiga’s fanua and sit on the ground, which at that early hour would be wet from the dew. The parents and family members, many of whom would be elderly, would then have to bear the shame and humiliation of having to sit out in the front and be covered in the ie toga. Timing Usually, the ifoga takes place a day or a few days after the offence or, in other words, as soon as possible, after the va has been violated. The timing of the ifoga is important, as the offending aiga usually ventures out in the early hours of the morning to catch the wronged aiga before the day starts so as to avoid arriving when nobody is at home. This is critical, so as to cease the offended family from carrying out retaliation for the crime.

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Thus, taking the ifoga early would limit the opportunity for the offended family to make a decision towards vengeance. Taking the ifoga in the morning also holds a spiritual and environmental significance. As Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi explains: Protocol and convention dictate that an ifoga is made early in the morning. In Samoan religious culture the rising and the setting of the sun have spiritual significance. The morning symbolises the celebration of a new day. The rising sun stands for illumination and energising. The morning gives the image of birds singing, soft dew, flowers and plant life at its most alive. Taulaga, meaning ‘ritual offering,’ is thus in harmony with nature in celebrating a beginning. (2018, 117)

Interestingly, Efi also refers to the ifoga as a form of taulaga (‘ritual offering’) as though the family is attempting to appease a deity. This resonates with the root word for ifoga, ifo, which, as noted already, means ‘to worship’ or ‘to bow down’. Lavatai (2017) comments that ifo ‘is a symbolic act of paying respect and honour to their gods and their chiefs. For instance, when someone enters a sacred space (malae, maota), they either bow down or lower their heads to pay respect’ (113). The significance of ifoga is, therefore, a reflection of the high honour the perpetrator’s family has for the family of the transgressed. Venue As mentioned before, the ifoga must take place at the offended aiga’s fanua. For Samoans, the fanua is a vital space; all Samoans are connected to the fanua. Efi explains this connection by way of the Samoan language, as he writes: [T]he term eleele, meaning ‘earth’, and palapala, meaning ‘mud’, are also the words for blood. Fatu, meaning ‘rock’, is also the word for heart. Fanua, meaning ‘placenta’, is also the word for land. For Samoans these terms point to Papa and Eleele as the progenitors of man. The linking of man and Papa and Eleele is further referenced by the ritual burial of the pute (i.e. umbilical cord) and fanua (i.e. placenta) into the land or earth. There is more than mere symbolism in these rituals; there is spiritual continuity, a spiritual continuity that ensures harmony and respect for the environment. The ritual of burying the pute and fanua reminds us of the common birthing between the human female and mother earth. What this invites is recognition that

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the environment lives, shares pain, grows and dies in a manner and form similar to humankind. (2018, 141)

The connection with the fanua-land is such that the fanua-land is also offended and harmed by the offender, as the fanua-land ‘shares pain’ with its custodians. At the same time, the associations between fanua and the language of birth-giving, blood, and body, push us to (re)consider and re-envision the offence from an alternative perspective. In other words, the offence inflicts pain on the fanua-land—envisaged as a vulnerable mother whose body births and bears the pain of birthing. The birthing and mother associations with the fanua are thus clear. Even when a Samoan dies in Samoa, they are buried on/in their fanua. Aiga therefore is synonymous with the fanua, and this is also noted by the fact that matai (chief) titles and other significant aiga names emanate from the fanua. For example, an important name in my village of Sili, is the matai title of Faaolatane, where my line to the Faaolatane title pertains to family fanua known as Malaesuatia. Nobody can inherit the title Faaolatane, unless they have a connection to Malaesuatia through their own birth on Malaesuatia or the birth of an ancestor. Through these images and associations, we can see how aiga is tied to the land, and how the fanua is aggrieved when a family is the victim of a heinous crime. Fa’amagalo The term fa’amagalo as Lavatai delineates, ‘has always been translated as forgiveness, but its English translation does not fully capture its complexity. Faamagalo concerns with shame and disgrace (sic) and that means ‘let my shame and disgrace be buried’ (Lavatai 2017). Lavatai goes on to explain that [f]aamagalo is a two way process in which both parties involved (perpetrators and the victims) are able to show respect for one another and experience it. It has to occur and be experienced by the victims themselves, then they are able to forgive the perpetrators. There will be shared emotional experiences, the perpetrator showing empathy with the victim’s suffering, and the victim recognizing the pain of the perpetrator. Through remorse, the perpetrators identify themselves with the victims, enabling the latter to forgive and become part of a re-humanizing process. Both are bound together. To forgive someone means: victims themselves are relieved of the burden of

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anger, hatred and uncertainty evoked by the memory of the trauma, and are symbolically brought back to life. (311-312)

It is intriguing that in Lavatai’s definition, the association of fa’amagalo with fanua is apparent through the notion of shame and disgrace being ‘buried’. The ifoga is concerned with fanua as explained already and to seek fa’amagalo is to sit on the fanua. This is where fa’amagalo in reality, is not a romanticised notion but one of sincere application. Nothing could be more humbling than sitting on the ground, especially on eleele and palapala that is wet and sometimes dirty. The length of time the aiga sits on the fanua of the aggrieved family varies depending on the severity of the offense, but timing is mostly contingent on the family’s position and willingness to forgive. Filoaiali’i and Knowles note that sometimes the offended family ‘lets the ifoga party sit in the hot sun all day. In extreme cases the members do not recognize the ifoga party at all during the first day, and the group must return the next morning and continue the vigil’ (1983, 386). The ifoga only ends when the offended aiga decides to forgive the perpetrator’s aiga by removing the ie toga which covers them. Sitting on the fanua therefore is not only humbling, but humiliating and painful. Indeed, seeking fa’amagalo is humiliating and painful!

Un-covering the Ardern Ifoga Looking back at the ifoga conducted by Prime Minister Ardern and the Labour Government of the time, there are some intriguing elements that I would like to invite us to talanoa and (re)consider from a Samoan perspective. On the back of the tireless activism of the Polynesian Panthers,3 a petition was made to the New Zealand Government by social activists Benji Timu and Josiah Tualamali’i, stating that ‘the Government should apologise for the historic Dawn Raids. The Dawn Raids implemented a policy of “random checks” targeting Pacific peoples, which still have impact today” (2021). The petition argued that “In our view, an apology, alongside the other actions requested in this petition, would set up a better future for all of Aotearoa!” (2021). 3  A social justice movement that was founded and established by young Polynesians in the 1970s with its membership consisting of activists of Pasifika heritage, Māori and other ethnic minorities, in response to racism by the New Zealand government towards Pasifika peoples, tangata whenua, and other ethnic minorities, which was intensified by the Dawn Raids.

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In response to the petition which was signed by more than 7000 people, the Ardern Government decided to issue an apology along with a public ifoga (Fagaiava-Muller 2021). It is understood that the ifoga apology adopted a number of aspects of different Pasifika cultures (Strong 2021; Tokalau 2021). While it is appropriate that all Pasifika peoples are addressed in the apology, the essence behind the ancient Samoan ritual of ifoga should not be altered or modified, or else it would lose its significance, purpose, and meaning. This is understood through the Samoan saying, ‘E sui a faiga ae tumau faavae’, which translates as ‘processes change, but the foundational values remain the same’. Because the Ardern ifoga had been adapted and altered, some of those modifications had led to some foundational values being compromised. As a result of these changes, the ifoga felt like more of a celebration and less an admission of guilt and disgrace. Media outlets had sought to portray the ritual in an upbeat manner, describing it as ‘beautiful’, yet the ifoga, which is performed as public humiliation and shame, is anything but (Macpherson and Macpherson 2005). Let us revisit the elements of ifoga as outlined above noting how they were modified/distorted in this public act of ‘apology’. Un-covering the Timing The ifoga was not conducted in the early morning but rather on a Sunday afternoon at a convenient hour for the Government. In the context of the ifoga, one could argue that the more inconvenienced the perpetrator, the more meaningful the ifoga. Looking at the timing of the apology by the New Zealand Government, it is striking to note the sad irony of the Dawn Raids taking place in the very early hours as the police with their dogs sought to catch potential overstayers before they headed out to work. The ifoga, as mentioned before, seeks to reach the aiga in the early morning before they make a potential decision towards retribution. Intriguingly, the crime constitutes a dawn raid, while the ifoga represents a dawn reconciling. The question then: was the apology by Ardern a dawn reconciling? Surely not, as attendees converged at the Auckland Town Hall at 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon to hear the apology. This is a time that did not inconvenience the Government as most government business is conducted on a weekday. Indeed, Sunday is a most unfavourable time for Samoans and Pasifika peoples who are attending church, along with the many church-­ related activities that are carried out on a Sunday. Further, Sunday for many Samoans, is observed with reverence, much like the Jewish Sabbath.

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Even in diaspora lands like Aotearoa, Samoans are known to adhere to this practice. Samoans who do observe the holy day do not engage in manual labour, entertainment, or most cultural practices on a Sunday. In this sense, it is Samoan and Pasifika people—the recipients of the Ardern ifoga—who are, in fact, inconvenienced. As mentioned before, the timing was convenient for the apology-makers, whereas the ifoga usually ‘inconveniences’ the ifoga-takers. Un-covering the Attendees/Attendance Ardern and her cabinet are not exactly kin to Kirk and Muldoon and their respective governments. In fact, at the height of the Dawn Raids in the years 1974–1976, Prime Minister Ardern was not even born. While governments are succeeded by subsequent administrations, the changing cycles of government do not necessarily equate to a succession of similar ideas, policies, agendas, and ideologies. The question of whether Ardern needing to apologise might seem contentious given that she was not the Prime Minister responsible. However, the racist immigration policies persist to this day, with Samoans wanting to migrate to New Zealand restricted to a quota of a 1100 Samoans each year (Beaglehole 2015). Even more alarming is the fact that cases of similar dawn raids are still happening two years after the apology, with a Pasifika overstayer and his family being detained after a dawn raid in South Auckland. Radio New Zealand reported that the ‘man’s lawyer, Soane Foliaki, said police showed up at 5am, scaring his children and taking him into custody  – and though Immigration NZ has disputed the timing, it has admitted the early morning raid was not a one-off’ (2023). The apology was essential; someone needed to make an apology, because the va was violated. Given that the build-up to the dawn raid may have occurred on Prime Minister Ardern’s watch, it could be argued that Ardern was well-placed to give the ifoga. Intriguingly, in making the apology, Ardern, whether she was aware of it or not, had acted as aiga for Kirk and Muldoon in her ifoga. When acting as aiga, one carries the weight of shame and guilt, acknowledging that they have wronged and thus seek forgiveness. It is often the parents and elders of the perpetrator who take the ifoga, but Ardern was from a later generation.

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Un-covering the Venue The issue of land is contentious, given that the sins of the Kirk and Muldoon governments were committed on whenua/fanua belonging to tangata whenua (Māori). The land, therefore, does not belong to Pasifika people per se, so the question of where the ifoga is to be performed is not a simple matter. Where should the ifoga have been carried out? On the lands where the sins were committed? Or should the ifoga be conducted on the homelands of Pasifika, back on the fanua from which the offended parties were birthed? The Government took their ifoga to Town Hall in Auckland, Tāmaki Makaurau. It seems apparent from this choice of venue that fanua was not factored into the decision-making. One wonders whether the ifoga could have been taken to one of a host of other venues within Tāmaki Makaurau that are ‘owned’ by Pasifika people, such as the Fale o Samoa in Māngere, Auckland, or even the Malaeola Community Centre, also in Māngere, Auckland. Intriguingly, however, according to some Māori, tangata whenua are responsible to their Polynesian kin when they are in Aotearoa (Te Kaawa, interview). ‘Te Arikinui makes a special point of maintaining links with the Ariki families and royalty in Polynesia’ (Kiingitanga 2010). In this sense, the sins of the Kirk and Muldoon governments also affected tangata whenua as custodians of the whenua/fanua who may be regarded as the aiga of the offended. Un-covering Fa’amagalo Seeking fa’amagalo was simply not painful for Ardern and her government. There was no sitting on the fanua, but instead the Prime Minister was sat on a comfortable chair inside an expensive public building. There was no exposure to the sun, rain, or any other extreme weather condition, but the parties sat inside a large hall room that was airconditioned. There was no wet dew, nor was there dirty or muddy palapala and eleele. Troublingly, despite the comfort of Ardern’s sitting, she spent less than a minute under the Pulou o le ola, and when her ifoga was uncovered, it was celebrated through applause by the crowd in attendance. There was no shame or humiliation. I will deal more closely with this aspect of the ifoga later, but in terms of achieving justice, fa’amagalo is a key moment for the ifoga and I

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maintain that this juncture represented an opportunity missed for Ardern and her government. As Lavatai explained about fa’amagalo, there is participation in fa’amagalo where victim and perpetrator must feel the pain and anguish of each other’s experiences, and ifoga represented a chance for the Government to feel the adversity of early-dawn inconvenience, the pain of humiliation through sitting on the eleele and palapala in the heat or in the rain, and the uncertainty of sitting, covered under the ie toga and wondering whether the ifoga would end well, or whether it would end at all!

Uncovering the Mat: Restorative or Performative Justice? The biggest question to arise from the Ardern ifoga, is whether justice was achieved for victims of the Dawn Raids. As Geoff Broughton notes, ‘there is no consensus over the definition of restorative justice within the field’ (2009, 304). There is, however, common ground according to two principles as outlined by Daniel W. Van Ness and Gerry Johnstone: First, justice requires that we work to heal victims, offenders and communities that have been injured by crime. Second, victims, offenders and communities should have the opportunity for active involvement in the justice process as early and as fully as possible. (2006, 14)

Accordingly, the Ardern apology does appear to follow the principles behind restorative justice. Daniel Philpott explains that in political apologies, ‘An apology requires the perpetrator to admit that he performed the deed, recognize that it was wrong, display regret for having done it, communicate this regret to the victim, accept responsibility for it, and pledge not to repeat it’ (2012, 198). Ardern’s apology does seem to adhere to some of these conditions, as she admits the wrongs of the past governments in conducting the racist dawn raids and recognising its injustice. She also accepted responsibility and vowed for it not to be repeated. However, for Samoans who were watching the apology closely, the ifoga communicated a rather different notion. As the old adage says, ‘actions speak louder than words’ and for Samoans and Pasifika people, the ifoga may not have spoken a great deal of volume due to the fact that it was not carried out properly. For Samoans and Pasifika, the performance of their ancient rituals conveys the spirituality and cultural heartbeat of its people.

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The ifoga seemed to communicate a truth that was hidden behind Ardern’s verbal apology, a truth which, highlighted by the ifoga’s modified form, conveyed a lack of insight, sincerity, and care. So, did Ardern’s ifoga constitute restorative justice? As mentioned before, ancient ritual must not stray away from its foundational values, and it is evident from this discussion that the customised version distorted some of those key values. And this is where I question justice. By straying away from the fundamentals of the ifoga, justice cannot be achieved for the offended party. I consider Howard Zehr’s critique of criminal justice: ‘following a direction set by ancient Roman law, justice is defined by the processes more than the outcome. Procedure overshadows substance. Have the right processes been followed? If so, justice was done’ (1990, 78). In a similar sense, the Ardern ifoga ‘overshadows substance’ and thus becomes guilty of not constituting restorative justice but representing performative justice. In other words, it is not justice in terms of what justice must look like for Samoans in light of the ancient ritual of ifoga, but a performance that, in the end, makes the government feel good about itself. The feeling of humiliation, shame, and regret by the perpetrator and aiga, together with the whole aiga’s willingness to humble themselves on fanua that is wet from the early morning dew and from the blood of the aggrieved, are fundamental for the ifoga to achieve restorative justice.

Conclusion: Theological Implications There is an underlying theological question that can be drawn from the above discussion that resonates with Annalise Acorn’s critique of restorative justice, particularly the attempt to conflate justice and love. Acorn writes: The restorative aspiration to reconcile love and justice, its vision of cathartic encounter followed by harmonious embrace between victim and offender, even its habitual reliance on the resounding success story, can cause the nonbeliever (and sometimes even the believer) to wince with embarrassment. (2004, 78)

Similarly, I ‘wince with embarrassment’ at how the ifoga was performed and wonder whether the cultural advisors who informed Ardern of the processes of ifoga had sought to play on the heartstrings of Pasifika people

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by appealing to their Christian sensitivities. For ifoga, the notion of justice is channeled through fa’amagalo, where forgiveness and reconciliation represent the ideal outcome. Ifoga does not always end in fa’amagalo, however, but because of the influence of Christianity on Samoan society, fa’amagalo has become the expected and accepted result. It seems then that Ardern and her government may have expected forgiveness not because of the ifoga and its Samoan Indigenous notions but because of the Christian value of forgiveness that has sought to reframe the original ideas of fa’amagalo. Many of the invitees at the ifoga were members of clergy, whose presence was perhaps strategically sought to remind and emphasise to the attendees of their Christian proclivities. Here, to conclude, I propose a different theological position, one that does not simply conflate justice and love, but brings justice to the ground, to the fanua. The word ifoga promotes the ground as the action of ifo brings one to the fanua. The fanua is a place of humility and equality, but it is also a space where we would not wince with embarrassment at the aesthetics of the ifoga. Instead, we would seek to feel the pain and humiliation of sitting on the wet and dirty ground, exposing ourselves to the heat and rain of the airspace above, and feeling the uncertainty and discomfort of being covered. Seeking forgiveness and achieving justice therefore, through the lens of ifoga, is an experience of dirtied and bloodied discomfort and humiliation on the ground-fanua. Much like the dirtied and bloodied cross of Christ, who sought justice through the fanua of Golgotha, covered in the dark (Luke 23:45), exposing himself to extreme weather conditions (Matt 27:50, 54). His death, an act of public humiliation and shame, yet necessary for fa’amagalo, as Jesus utters on the cross: ‘Father, forgive [fa’amagalo] them; for they do not know what they are doing’ (Luke 23:24 NRSV).

References Acorn, Annalise. 2004. Compulsory compassion: A critique of restorative justice. Toronto: UBC Press. Anae, Melani. 1997. Towards a NZ-born Samoan identity: Some reflections on ‘labels’. Pacific Health Dialog 4: 128–137. Beaglehole, Ann. 2015. Immigration regulation: Controlling Pacific Island immigration. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. http://www.TeAra.govt. nz/en/immigration-­regulation/page-­6.

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Broughton, Geoff. 2009. Restorative justice: Opportunities for Christian engagement. International Journal of Public Theology 3: 299–318. Efi, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese. 2018. In search of meaning, nuance and metaphor in social policy. In Suesue Manogi: In search of fragrance: Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta’isi Efi and the Samoan indigenous reference, ed. M.  Tamasailau, Suaalii-Sauni, I’uogafa Tuagalu, Tofilau Nina Kirifi-Alai, and Naomi Fuamatu. Wellington: Huia. Fagaiava-Muller, Mariner. 2021. Dark days of the 1970s dawn raids are at last formally acknowledged. Radio New Zealand, August 3. https://www.rnz.co.nz/ international/pacific-­news/448372/dark-­days-­of-­the-­1970s-­dawn-­raids-­are-­at-­last-­ formally-­acknowledged. Filoaialii, Laauli A., and Lyle Knowles. 1983. The Ifoga: The Samoan practice of seeking forgiveness for criminal behaviour. Oceania 53: 386–387. Havea, Jione. 2014. Bare FeetWelcome: Redeemer Xs Moses @ Enaim. In Bible, borders, belonging(s): Engaging readings from Oceania, ed. Jione Havea, David J. Neville, and Elaine M. Wainwright. Atlanta: SBL Press. Kiingitanga. 2010. Queen Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu. YouTube, April 18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6WtbvoW33k. Kolia, Brian Fiu. 2023. The I’a Tele (Great fish) and the search for Jonah: A Fāgogo Reading of Jonah 1:17–2:10. Samoa Journal of Theology 2: 46–54. Lavatai, Sanele Faasua. 2017. The Ifoga ritual in Samoa in anthropological and in biblical perspectives. PhD dissertation. University of Hamburg. Macpherson, Cluny, and La’avasa Macpherson. 2005. The Ifoga: The exchange value of social honour in Samoa. The Journal of the Polynesian Society 114: 109–133. Ness, Daniel W. van, and Karen Heetderks Strong. 2006. Restoring justice. 3rd ed. Cincinnati: Anderson. Philpott, Daniel. 2012. Just and unjust peace: An ethic of political reconciliation. Oxford: Oxford University. Radio New Zealand. 2023. Dawn raid tactics still happening, despite government apology. May 2. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/489091/dawn-raidtactics-still-happening-despite-government-apology. Strong, Khalia. 2021. A moment 50 years in the making – the PM apologises for the Dawn Raids. Pacific Media Network, August 2. https://pacificmedianetwork.com/articles/a-­moment-­50-­years-­in-­the-­making-­the-­pm-­apologises-­ for-­the-­dawn-­raids. Timu, Benji, and Josiah Tualamali’i. 2021. Apologise for the ‘Dawn raids’ and enable education in Aotearoa about them. Petitions: New Zealand Government. https://petitions.parliament.nz/3683309b-­cddf-­4fb0-­b856-­abf562e931a1.

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Tokalau, Torika. 2021. Dawn raids apology: PM sorry for ‘hurt and distress’ of racially targeted policy. August 1. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/125849685/dawnraids-apology-pm-sorry-for-hurt-and-distress-of-racially-targeted-policy. Vaai, Upolu. 2006. Faaaloalo: A theological reinterpretation of the doctrine of the trinity from a Samoan perspective. PhD dissertation. Brisbane: Griffith University. Zehr, Howard. 1990. Changing lenses: A new focus for crime and justice. Scottdale: Herald Press.

CHAPTER 7

‘It’s Giving … Colonization’: Challenges to Mental Resilience for Diasporic Christian Pacific Youth Therese Lautua

The slang phrase ‘It’s giving…’ originated from queer communities of colour and was popularized by American television shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race (Madison 2021). ‘It’s giving…’ on its own can simply mean that you think someone or something is attractive. When a descriptive word is added, it has the sense of emanating a particular energy. ‘It’s giving … colonization’ is a phrase seen regularly in the last two years on social media accounts of Pacific youth as they seek to learn more about Pacific history and undo generational trauma from colonization. The intersection of cultural identity, mental wellbeing, and religious faith is an ongoing challenge for Pacific youth in the diaspora of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. In particular, Pacific youth increasingly express difficulty in

T. Lautua (*) University of Auckland/Waiapapa Taumata Rau, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_7

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grappling with the role that Christianity has played in colonization and how this impacts their self-identity and wellbeing. This chapter explores these themes by engaging an episode of The Uso Table Talk Podcast titled ‘Sundays to Mondays’ (2020). In this episode, four Samoan young men based in Australia discuss their experiences of the high social expectations of Pacific youth by their families and churches, the dominance of Western theology, being traumatized by aspects of their parents’ generation’s service to the church, the church’s relevance to Pacific youth, and the emphasis on a holy Jesus as opposed to a relational Jesus. In this chapter, I reflect on how Christian theology might be ‘unsettled’ and made more life-giving for diasporic Pacific youth. In particular, I demonstrate that cultural and spiritual identity and a sense of belonging are key to mental resiliency.

Setting the Context Pacific diasporic youth in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand experience unique challenges to their mental wellbeing specific to their locations. However, there are many commonalities across these experiences, and also across various Christian denominations. The term ‘Pacific’ here includes both those born in the diaspora and those who migrated to Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand from the islands. My own positionality as Samoan, Palagi (non-Samoan, Irish and Swiss), and Catholic is deeply intertwined with my research. Thus, while many of the challenges The Uso Table Talk Podcast presenters speak about are directly drawn from within their own experiences growing up in Samoan Congregational churches, in this chapter I will also address how Catholic Pacific youth face similar challenges. Furthermore, a ‘colonial mindset’ in this context means seeking to have control and dominance over people, lands or resources. Such a mindset does not allow for relationality and connection to flourish. Commenting on this, Upolu Vaai observes that ‘where there is relationship that promotes life, God is revealed. It is the Spirit that allows us to be a part of this never-ending flow in order for us to identify the revealing presence of God in the complex specificity of relationships’ (2021a, 27). The Trinity, being inherently relational within Godself and with the universe, is far from a colonial mindset that focuses on the maintenance of its own existence, rather than allowing for a free-flowing outpouring of God’s grace in the world. One of my claims in this chapter, therefore, is that the issues that

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The Uso Table Talk Podcast explore express the sentiment, ‘It’s giving … colonization.’ Many churches in the diaspora are continuing to colonize Pacific peoples by being caught in a colonial mindset, long after the missionaries first arrived in Oceania. What is the relevance of Christianity for Pacific diasporic youth, most of whom have had very different experiences than their parents? Samoan psychologist Siautu Alefaio (2007) has suggested that supporting Pacific youth in the diaspora is demanding because their individual journeys are caught between two worlds: Western secular society and the Pacific world. In addition, Pacific values of mutual respect, service, and reciprocity are more challenging to live out in the diaspora as compared with the islands. Alefaio provides the example of having to continue living with one’s family and contributing financially until one is married (as opposed to moving out of home soon after completing high school). Seuta’afili Patrick Thomsen (2020) has suggested that the loss of linguistic fluency for Samoans in the diaspora has created a new challenge. Indeed, this is frequently discussed in social media circles as a marker of whether or not you are authentically Samoan. While Thomsen is writing specifically about the Samoan diasporic experience, this is becoming a widespread challenge for all Pacific youth in the diaspora. In this context, Thomsen insists that there is no single way of being Samoan, observing that ‘we learn our cultures in relation to those around us, and if you grow up in Aotearoa, you learn who you are as a Samoan in relation to what it means to be a New Zealander, all the while navigating your own status as a marginalised Pacific person.’ Thus, whether one is based in Aotearoa, Australia or another diasporic location, what it means to understand and live out one’s cultural identity is not univocal or monolithic. In recent years, new challenges have arisen for the mental resilience of Pacific youth. Digital media—including social media and online streaming platforms for podcasts, films and music—has rapidly become an integral part of diasporic life. During the Covid-19 pandemic (and, in Samoa’s case, the 2019 measles epidemic), this reliance on social media and websites for health information caused problems, including a mistrust of vaccinations (Sefo 2022). Surveying 600 people in an online questionnaire, Tiresa Po’e (2017) has investigated why and how Samoans use social media platforms.1 Interestingly, she discovered that while Christianity is  The results of Po’e’s study were that people were likely to post publicly about the following: family news (59.56%), cultural events (41.67%), cultural opinions (38.97%), positive areas of life (37.25%), everyday activities (37.01%), their children (27.45%), religion (26.47%) emotions (20.34%), and relationships (11.52%). 1

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interwoven with Samoan culture, people were reticent to talk about religion online. Po’e suggested that this is because respondents were already having to appease and negotiate offline relationships, and were trying to avoid offending older family or community members. This makes The Uso Table Talk Podcast episode on challenges in the Church for diasporic youth lens distinctive. While the presenters repeatedly stress their love for their community and the elders who raised them and introduced them to the faith, they are willing to criticize and be open about many aspects of their experiences of Christianity. It is the ‘Sundays to Mondays’ podcast episode to which we now turn.

An Ecclesiology of the Domestic Church The podcast episode opens an avenue for dialogue about the purpose of the local church. From a Catholic point of view, this ecclesiology directs us to what is sometimes called ‘the domestic church’, that is, how faith is expressed and lived out in everyday family life. ‘Try your best to go to church’ was a phrase that the four presenters frequently heard in their families and communities. As one presenter explains, ‘you might feel empty inside at church, but you want to feel the love from your family members. You might only get the love when you come to church [they say] “oh you’re a good boy you come to church.” It’s not stepping foot in church that makes you a good person.’ The podcast presenters also perceived a lack of affection outside of Sunday attendance, especially from their parents’ generation, who had sacrificed life in the islands to attain a prosperous future for their children. This is consistent with wider research into Pacific youth in Aotearoa, where regardless of the extent to which they actually practice their faith, they still retain a level of connection to their family’s church. In a study of alcohol consumption by Pacific youth, for example, a participant reflected: ‘I’m thinking like for tomorrow, usually it’s a Sunday, and mainly the most important thing is just to not drink much coz of my mum … I have to drop her off when she has to go to church the next day … so I have to slow down, I can’t drink till three in the morning’ (Suaalii-Sauni, et al. 2012, 8). The fear of disappointing family and church members impacts the way Pacific young people behave, even when it does not directly enrich or reflect personal faith. When church communities become locked into routines of compulsory worship attendance and the responsibilities associated with serving the

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church, this can be damaging for Pacific youth. It can even be a form of re-colonization. Colonization systematically sought to control and organise a peoples’ time, thought-processes, bodies, and spaces. As Willie Jennings has described, the colonial mindset created ‘geographic enclosures’ which make ‘this way of seeing body and land’ and control over race thoroughly intertwined with how Christianity’s perception of how daily life is structured (2019, 390–391). Today, when Christian practice overemphasizes Sunday attendance, the grace of God is prevented from flowing freely in humble and genuine relationships with God and others (Vaai 2021b). As Pacific peoples, we continue to recolonise ourselves when we frame the world, our church communities and our families in terms of a God who is controllable and containable, a God who gives instruction only through bite-sized segments on a Sunday. This kind of Christianity, even when framed as a cultural and ethnic expression of faith, neither empowers young people to discern their gifts nor genuinely listens to their concerns. It fails to adequately form families and individuals to understand faith as a part of everyday life. In this context, there needs to be greater recognition in local church communities that the parish exists to support family life, rather than families simply existing to support the parish. It is less common in Catholicism to hear the idea expressed that ‘God has a mission in the world and the church is one of the means by which that mission is carried out’ (Darragh 2021, 4). More frequently, the idea is expressed that the church has a mission and purpose, which its members should carry out. The Protestant theme of the ‘People of God’ has not featured prominently in Catholic ecclesiology since the sixteenth-century Council of Trent (Rush 2018). However, the current papacy of Francis has sought to encourage a deeper focus on the reception of Vatican II (1962–1965), which significantly highlighted the baptismal call of all Christians, whether laity, ordained and religious. For example, North American theologian Neil Sloan (2019) points to the fact that Christian marriage has rarely been viewed as a ‘“religious” state of life’, in which spouses are particularly recognized for their part in the mission of God. While Vatican II affirmed the role of spousal and family relationships in the mission of God, this remained novel and ambiguous with much space left for theological development and improvement of pastoral care of lay married Catholics and their families. In addition, there are many families who have ‘irregular’ relationships—due to remarriage, secular legal divorce, or LGBTQI+ persons—and which are therefore often perceived as outliers that do not match the Church’s ideal

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(Dulle 2021). Thus while The Uso Table Talk Podcast speaks to their own context of Samoan congregational churches, it raises pertinent questions for Catholics about how the baptismal call to participate in God’s mission can be better fostered by all peoples. A greater focus on the domestic church can also support the mental resilience of Pacific youth in the diaspora in a way that unsettles theologies of control. As one of the Uso Table Talk Podcast presenters reflects, ‘The standard is so high on a Sunday. We ask our youth to put on so many masks before coming. I’ve seen so many times that Sundays look different to Mondays and I’ve been traumatized by that. Young people are so traumatized by the realities that their parents go through that they turn away from church and it’s not something they want to do.’ The presenters go on to explain that because there is such a focus on Sunday attendance, there is the expectation that young people will be obedient and successful in other areas of their lives. In smaller Pacific ethnic groups, there is sometimes the pressure, for example, to be the first Niuean to excel in a particular career pathway (Togiatama-Otto 2019). The level of expectation and pride around financial giving to the church has been outlined by numerous scholars as a substantial issue within Pacific Christianity (Macpherson and Macpherson 2011). This affects some local communities within the Catholic Church in the Pacific. One instance of this is ‘taulaga’ which is commonly understood in Samoan communities as a sacrificial monetary offering to God in a church setting. Excessive giving, however, often leads to difficulties in family life, including ‘financial hardships, loss of family homes, domestic violence, underachievement in schools, gambling and suicide’ (Pouono 2021, 170). It has also been the cause of food insecurity for Pacific communities in Australia; in the Niuean church, for example, some families simply stop attending Church because they do not feel they could contribute an adequate donation (Akbar, et al. 2022). This exacerbates the problem of not feeling as though there are spiritual leaders or a community that families can turn to for support when challenges occur, despite spirituality being intrinsic to Pacific understandings of wellbeing (Tiatia 2016). Thus, as the ‘Sundays to Mondays’ episode discusses, young Pacific people are traumatised by the effects of theologies of control that are entrenched in a colonial mindset. When faith is not seen as life-giving in the family home, it becomes habitual and at times a source of anxiety. In addition, the notion of ‘sacramentality’ is not readily understood as extending to family life; teaching and formation in this area is crucial for

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mitigating Pacific youth feeling that they need to put on a mask in order to attend church. The seven sacraments in the Catholic Church are understood as visible signs of God’s invisible grace, signs which are ‘efficacious channels of the grace of God to those who receive them with proper disposition’ (Paunga 2021). Put simply, they are intrinsic  aids to living  an enriching Christian life in all its challenges and joys. Sacraments exist for people, and thus sacramentality is a mindset in which grace is received in rituals and rites and flows into everyday life, impacting one’s relationships (Cooke 2006). In 2022, across Australia and Aotearoa, people from Catholic parishes and dioceses called for better formation in several areas of Church life.2 One particular area was the formation of lay people in understanding that their baptism is a call to participate in Christian community, to share their faith in the same way that clergy and members of religious orders do. In particular, there is insufficient formation for young adults and families. This has contributed to a failure to properly recognize that all people—whether religious, ordained or lay—are part of the mission of God. And it has also had consequences for how the Church is structured and governed; lay people, especially youth, need to be included more in leadership and decision-making. When The Uso Table Talk Podcast speaks about superficial standards of perfection focused on attendance, and about being traumatized by the requirements and expectations of their parents, it is clear why a young person may not want to further engage in faith formation.

The Impact of Colonization in Faith and Culture Another issue that the presenters of the ‘Sundays to Mondays’ podcast reflect on is abuse of power by church leaders. This contradicts Indigenous Pacific ways of being, buying into a colonial mindset of power and control. 2  Between 2021–2024 the entire Catholic Church is in the process of a Synod on Synodality, a journey where the whole People of God are encouraged to spiritually discern how communion, participation, and mission are currently experienced within Catholicism and how these might be lived out in the future (see General Secretariat of the Synod n.d.). There are four phases: the opening, the local and national, wider ‘continental’ geographic regions and the Universal stage which culminates in an international meeting in Rome. This is the first time that everyone has been directly asked to engage in an exercise of listening at the level of parishes and dioceses. At the national stage, Australia and Aotearoa submitted two responses in regards to faith formation (Te Huinga o ngā Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa 2022; Australian Catholic Bishops Conference 2022).

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As one presenter comments, ‘The Church can be so fake sometimes or the leaders are fake … In Fiji’s lyrics the first line of “Indigenous Life” is “I come from a place where the royal lineage is a dying breed. Where missionaries flood them with gospel mislead the people and take all their land with greed. Sell them to a different kind of God where their souls can be bought and forget about their history”’ (Fiji 2008). While many church communities have flourishing multicultural and multi-lingual expressions of worship, Pacific youth in the diaspora often see the church as incapable of transparently discussing the negative consequences of missionary activity in the Pacific. As indicated by The Uso Table Talk Podcast, there are ongoing issues of clericalism, as well as a lack of authentic contextual theologies, that prevent the Church and cultural communities from flourishing. Clericalism is at the root of many issues in the Catholic Church in particular; in many local parishes it can seem at times that ‘one must either uphold the notion of the special status of the ordained or deny it’ (O’Loughlin 2022, 40). In this context, the continuing sexual abuse crisis points to the sinfulness of people, but also to how the Church as a body can distort the message of the gospel in order to preserve claims of spiritual authority (Porada 2021). In both Aotearoa and Australia, recent calls for a greater emphasis on ‘accountability, transparency and openness at all levels of the Church’ resonate with The Uso Table Talk Podcast experiences of hypocrisy (Australian Catholic Bishops Conference 2022, 11). While white congregations and denominations have faced challenges in incorporating Pacific ways of being into their life and worship, the multicultural Catholic Church has similarly struggled with embracing inculturation and contextual theologies. Inculturation in the Catholic Church is defined as the dynamic relationship ‘between the Christian message and a culture or cultures’ (Editors 1996). How this is actually practiced on the ground, however, can vary. Upolu Vaai (2021b) has suggested that in Pacific Christianity and theological education there is still a preference for the Western theological tradition. Perceptively, he connects this colonial mindset to abuses of power in church communities: ‘Theology has become an upper-class product that weaponizes the powerful while at the same time endorsing a culture of conformity for little people, little practices, and little things’ (238). For Catholic communities in Australia, for example, the process of inculturation needs to be more than simply incorporating Aboriginal symbols and cultural practices into worship (Russell-Mundine and Mundine 2017). Inculturation needs to involve learning about the

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histories and cultures of those people who are present (or notably absent) in a given congregation. It also needs to involve rethinking the very basis of how faith and Church is lived and experienced as a process of listening and discernment. Pacific youth in the diaspora, then, need to see and have more opportunities to participate in these kinds of conversations in their church communities. Without this, the Church will continue to be incapable of accompanying them on their journey to understanding cultural identity in a diasporic context in the twenty-first century.

Performing a ‘Holy’ Jesus The ‘Sundays to Mondays’ podcast episode also explores how God is theologized, spoken about, and presented within worship and community life. In particular, the presenters reflect on how performing dramatized skits was a large part of their faith formation and worship: ‘I grew up in AOG [Assemblies of God] Samoan churches, loved growing up there … But one thing I remember thinking is that our people are very performance based … Picture a guy struggling with God, church, facing life struggles, you’re told “hey shhh come to church” and learn this skit and perform it for the old people who say “oh good boy now you are holy.”’ The presenters do not discredit that drama and skits are spaces through which God’s grace is able to flow. However, The Uso Table Talk Podcast felt as though the medium of skits was neither adequate for addressing the issues faced by Pacific youth, nor an effective tool for faith formation. Along similar lines, Catholic youth worker Sam Brebner (2016) has commented on youthwork in the Catholic tradition. In an ‘effort to make faith fun’, many youth groups and ministries ‘perform skits … make shirts with Jesus puns of them, hire Catholic speakers’, and utilize social media platforms (33). This focus on the medium, however, does not always include a genuine listening to the dreams, fears, and insecurities of young people. It is important to allow safe spaces for dialogue on the topics that concern young people. For those facilitating these types of conversations, it requires a certain level of knowledge and maturity. However, even if the answers to the questions that young people pose might not be immediately clear, the fact that communication lines are open inspires greater confidence in the relevance of faith. There needs to be more openness to discussing topics such as sexuality, abortion, suicide, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and Church hierarchy. In addition, when young people are not allowed to have roles and take responsibility, they are unable to

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commit to a life of active discipleship. Across Pacific Christianity, there is a tendency to understand and treat youth as the church of the future rather than the church of today. The ‘Sundays to Mondays’ episode directly explores how the presenters were taught to portray Jesus through drama and skits, and how Jesus was more generally theologized in this medium: ‘In these skits Jesus is like “do not touch me” you know? “You fool!” that’s the perception. I think low-­ key that’s where we get the perception of the gap. We, from a young age, learn about the gap from the listener to the pastor/faifeau, from the boss to the worker, any figure of authority … That relational side to Jesus needs to be spoken about more and can help bridge the gap from peoples Sunday to Monday.’ Interestingly, one presenter shared memories of playing the role of Jesus for a particular skit, in which a friend played a character who was at an emotional and physical low. The presenter said that while he personally felt like he wanted to reach out and hold his friend, playing the role of Jesus meant he had to act distant and removed, to heal his friend from afar. This discussion indicates how respect for elders and those in authority is an important and ongoing reality for Pacific young people. When Christ is understood primarily as Lord, rather than also as servant, the relationality of Jesus’ humanity is minimized. Indeed, Vaai (2021a) has argued this relational aspect of Jesus is largely forgotten in Pacific Christianity, with lordship being emphasized in its place. For Vaai, this has a direct impact on how those in church leadership engage with their congregations and on how people think they can relate to God. A relational God does not shy away from difficult discussions with young people on topics perceived as taboo by Pacific cultures, for there is no place where the grace of God cannot flow. From a mental well-being perspective, the image of Jesus and God as distant and all powerful is not always helpful (Lautua and Tiatia 2022). Rather, research in integrated psychology suggests that it is a personal and compassionate God who is more useful for those who are facing some level of mental distress (Stroope et al. 2013).

Conclusion: New Horizons Despite the numerous issues that The Uso Table Talk Podcast identifies, there is always hope that elders and young people can begin to listen to one other and create spaces for flourishing. How can we begin this slow work of listening and building community? How can we unsettle theologies and systems based on a colonial mindset? To conclude this chapter, I

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briefly reflect on the role of the Eucharist in building cultural identity and flourishing. In addressing divisions within the Corinthian community, Paul had insisted that it is the Eucharist that sustains and forms both individuals and a community that is orientated to Christ. To frame this conclusion, I also use lyrics from the popular theme song from the 2016 Disney movie Moana.3 ‘Tatou o tagata folau e vala’auina.’4 While most young Pacific peoples in the diaspora no longer have the skills to sail double-hulled canoes across oceans, the knowledge that we are descended from navigators remains important for cultural identity and mental wellbeing. In church communities, cultural practices have become warped so that a few hold power, rather than us sailing into the future together. To overcome this, we must build unity and work together across differences of generation, personality, and gifting. The idea of voyaging is about finding a way through strong currents and calm waters; it is always moving forward with purpose. ‘Te manulele e tataki e.’5 The Holy Spirit, our advocate, leads Pacific peoples into the unknown, making space for young and old people to flourish together. It is the force that propels us into real action. While we are guided by the Spirit, a popular phrase in Catholic theological circles is that the Church must ‘read the signs of the times’ (Faggioli 2016). The lyrics, ‘We read the wind and skies, we are explorers reading every sign’, reflects this idea that the Church must listen to and learn from the world around it.6 When coming to the Mass and receiving Eucharist, we bring our whole selves: our suffering and happiness, longings and hopes for the future. Receiving the Eucharist should be an opportunity to reflect on what is happening in our lives. How is God speaking to us through this foretaste of the heavenly banquet? We need kinds of faith formation that allow young people to make these connections and find meaning in the Mass. ‘We keep our island in our mind.’ This reminds young people that they do not have to forget where they have come from, nor leave behind the cultural practices that enrich liturgical worship and community life. In a multicultural church, however, we should also be wary of becoming 3  The song lyrics are a mix of Tokelauan, Samoan and English, and have been translated by one of the composers (Foa’i n.d.). 4  ‘We are voyagers.’ 5  ‘A bird in flight to take us there.’ 6  This, of course, is a central theme and emphasis of Vatican II.

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isolated ethnic communities, rather than a united people of God that celebrates difference. Even though different cultures express their Catholic faith in their own ways, the universality of the tradition can provide stability and contribute to mental wellbeing. ‘We tell the stories of our elders in a never-ending chain.’ This underscores the experience of universality. Due to the pressures of everyday life, Pacific Catholic young people in the diaspora are unaware that wherever and in whatever language you attend Mass, the prayers, readings and responses are the same. In every Mass, we receive God’s love story for the people of God. In our prayers, we join with the communion of saints, with those whom the Church urges us to ‘run with perseverance the race that is set before us’ (Heb 12:1). In our prayer, we also join with our ancestors and loved ones who went before us. As simple as it sounds, it is of vital importance that Pacific young people are continually reminded that they are not alone. An understanding of God as relational is significant for maintaining a positive state of mental wellbeing. Finally, ‘when it’s time to find home, we know the way.’ The German theologian Karl Rahner has highlighted that God should not be understood as one object among others, but as an infinite horizon (Trembath 1987). As we grow deeper in our knowledge of God, ourselves and others, the journey towards this horizon continues. Reflecting on Rahner’s theology, Daniel Donovan has observed that it presents an invitation to ‘reflect on ourselves, on our knowing and questioning, on our willing and loving, and to become aware of ourselves as beings of radical openness, as beings with a capacity for the absolute and the infinite, who, as such, are already and always in relationship with the infinite mystery we call God’ (2005, 84). Our journey to our true home is sustained by the Eucharist. As those created in the image of a relational God, our cultural heritage and faith in Christ help us to seek God and serve one another. And this in turn provides mental resilience in the face of colonization and its effects.

References Akbar, Heena, Charles J.T. Radclyffe, Daphne Santos, Maureen Mopio-Jane, and Danielle Gallegos. 2022. ‘Food is our love language’: Using Talanoa to conceptualize food security for the Māori and Pasifika diaspora in south-East Queensland, Australia. Nutrients 14: 1–20. Alefaio, Siautu. 2007. Supporting the wellbeing of Pasifika youth. In Penina uliuli: Contemporary challenges in mental health for Pacific peoples, ed. Philip

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Culbertson, Margaret Nelson Agee, and Cabrini `Ofa Makasiale, 5–15. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Brebner, Sam. 2016. Meeting them on their way. In A church in change: New Zealand Catholics take their bearings, ed. Helen Bergin and Susan Smith, 29–41. Auckland: Accent Publications. Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. 2022. Synod of Bishops: Australian synthesis. Canberra: National Centre for Pastoral Research. Cooke, Bernard. 2006. Sacraments and sacramentality. New London: Twenty-­ Third Publications. Darragh, Neil. 2021. But what is the church for? Oregon: Wipf & Stock. Donovan, Daniel. 2005. Revelation and faith. In The Cambridge companion to Karl Rahner, ed. Declan Marmion and Mary E.  Hines, 83–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dulle, Colleen. 2021. Communion for the divorced and remarried, papal critics and family life: Pope Francis’ ‘Amoris Laetitia’ at 5 years. America Magazine, April 8. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/04/08/amorislaetitia-­pope-­francis-­five-­years-­divorced-­remarried-­catholics-­240412. Faggioli, Massimo. 2016. Reading the signs of the times through a hermeneutics of recognition: Gaudium et Spes and its meaning for a learning church. Horizons 43: 332–350. Fiji. 2008. Indigenous lives. Track 2 on indigenous life. Talanoa Production  – Precise Digital, all major streaming platforms and compact disc. Foa’i, Opetaia. n.d. We know the way translation. https://www.opetaiafoai.com/ we-­know-­the-­way.html. Accessed 15 Jan 2023. General Secretariat of the Synod. n.d. What is the synod 21–24. Synod 2021–2024. https://www.synod.va/en/what-­is-­the-­synod-­21-­24/about.html. Accessed 23 Jan 2023. Jennings, Willie James. 2019. Reframing the world: Toward an actual Christian doctrine of creation. International Journal of Systematic Theology 21: 388–407. Lautua, Therese, and Jemaima Tiatia. 2022. Impacts of religious faith on the mental wellbeing of young, multiethnic Pacific women in Aotearoa. Pacific Health Dialog 21: 656–662. Macpherson, Cluny, and La’avasa Macpherson. 2011. Churches and the economy of Sāmoa. The Contemporary Pacific 23: 304–337. Madison, Caleb. 2021. ‘It’s Giving’: A Gift to Language. The Atlantic, December 7. https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2021/12/the-­g oodword-­december-­6th/620894/. O’Loughlin, Thomas. 2022. Equality as a theological principle within Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Ecclesiology 18: 35–56. Paunga, Mikaele N. 2021. Ko e Mana Fakahā ‘Otua ‘o e Fakatapu: Creation as Sacrament. In Theologies from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea, 31–46. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Po’e, Tiresa. 2017. Facebook and Fa’asamoa: Exploring the expression of the Samoan Identity online. Master’s Thesis, University of Auckland. Porada, Rajmund. 2021. The holy sinful church: Towards a more realistic Catholic ecclesiology. Ecclesiology 17: 369–389. Pouono, Terry. 2021. Taulaga in the Samoan church: Is it wise giving? In Theologies from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea, 169–180. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Rush, Ormond. 2018. Roman catholic ecclesiology from the council of Trent to Vatican II and beyond. In The oxford handbook of ecclesiology, ed. Paul Avis, 263–292. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell-Mundine, Gabrielle, and Graeme Mundine. 2017. Inculturation, assimilation, and the Catholic Church: An indigenous postcolonial intervention. In Postcolonial voices from Downunder: Indigenous matters, confronting readings, ed. Jione Havea, 17–32. Oregon: Wipf & Stock. Sefo, Caitlin Vaelenoatia Paese. 2022. The influence of misinformation on the health-related decision making of the Samoan people during the measles epidemic. Master’s Thesis, Auckland University of Technology. Sloan, Neil. 2019. The domestic church at the service of communion: Marriage and family life in catholic ecumenical dialogue. Doctoral Thesis, The Catholic University of America. Stroope, Samuel, Scott Draper, and Andrew L. Whitehead. 2013. Images of a loving god and sense of meaning in life. Social Indicators Research 111: 25–44. Suaalii-Sauni, Tamasailau, Kathleen S.  Samu, Lucy Dunbar, Justin Pulford, and Amanda Wheeler. 2012. A qualitative investigation into key cultural factors that support abstinence or responsible drinking amongst some Pacific youth living in New Zealand. Harm Reduction Journal 9: 1–12. Te Huinga o ngā Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa – Aotearoa New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference. 2022. For a Synodal church: Communion, participation, and Mission: Discernment on the document for the continental stage. Wellington: Te Huinga o ngā Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa – Aotearoa New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference. The Editors. 1996. Translation and Inculturation in the Catholic Church. Adoremus, October 15. https://adoremus.org/1996/10/translation-­andinculturation-­in-­the-­catholic-­church/. The Uso Table Talk Podcast. 2020. Sundays to Mondays. Spotify Podcast, September 2020, https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ONExGtPiWpF2oW6 Qq2ASI?si=e4dc8b893cf64c29. Thomsen, Patrick. 2020. Language, identity – and ‘real’ Samoans. E-Tangata, May 17. https://e-­tangata.co.nz/identity/language-­identity-­and-real-samoans/ Tiatia, Jemaima. 2016. Suicide postvention: support for Pacific Communities. Report for Waka Hourua  – National Suicide Prevention Programme for Māori and Pasifika Communities. Auckland: Hibiscus Research Ltd.

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Togiatama-Otto, P. 2019. Through my brown eyes: Niuean school boys’ experiences in two New Zealand secondary schools. Set: Research Information for Teachers 3: 12–18. Trembath, Kern R. 1987. Our knowledge of god according to Karl Rahner. EQ 87: 329–341. Vaai, Upolu Lumā. 2021a. A Dirtified god: A dirt theology from the Pacific dirt. In Theologies from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea, 15–30. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2021b. From Atutasi to Atulasi: Relational theologising and why Pacific Islanders think and theologize differently. In Theologies from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea, 235–249. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 8

Unsettling Providential Partnership: A Critical Examination of Robert Maunsell and George Grey’s Partnership in Māori Education Andrew Picard

A recent Human Rights Commission report into the dynamics and impacts of white supremacy, racism, and colonisation upon tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand notes that ‘Western Eurocentric education was central to the colonisation of Māori’ (2022, 71). The British colonial education system played a vital role in ‘undermining Māori self-­determination, dismantling Māori culture and society, and eroding the mental health and wellbeing of Māori’ (71). Mission schools were the earliest beginnings of the colonial education system, and Christianity played a vital role in turning the myths of white supremacy into educational policies and practices. The British government partnered with mission societies to provide industrial education that would transform Māori from heathenism and

A. Picard (*) Carey Baptist College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_8

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barbarism to the superiority of British Christianity and civilisation. ‘Colonial racism and white supremacy were the bedrock of this “civilising mission” ostensibly to uplift Māori from “barbarism to civilisation,” based on notions of European superiority and Māori inferiority’ (71). Such work ‘was never neutral or benign. It was always connected to political power and often formed part of the epistemic violence inflicted on non-­European peoples’ (Jensz 2022, 17). The entanglement of education, Christianity, and colonialism meant that colonialism was ‘an essentially pedagogic enterprise’ (Seth 2007, 2) and a particularly Christian one at that. British Christianity provided vital networks, relationships, ideologies, and justifications for the civilising mission of education within the webs of empire (Ballantyne 2012). Christianity was represented not only by missionaries and church leaders but also by politicians, policy makers, and educationalists in the colony and metropole. This chapter examines the mutually beneficial partnership between Archdeacon Robert Maunsell and Sir George Grey that enabled them, with others, to develop a system of residential industrial schools that sought to assimilate Māori into European ways of knowing and being (Walker 2016; Barrington and Beaglehole 1990). Such partnerships are unsettling, and need to be unsettled if their legacies are to be understood and addressed today. Mission societies believed in the need to establish systems of education for native children to rescue them from ignorance and train them in the knowledge of Christianity. Native schools extracted children from the polluting influence of their home environment and received them into the care of missionaries. It was hoped that under divine blessing, these children would become ‘the means of extensively diffusing civilization and Christianity’ (CMS 1814, 222). As the nineteenth century progressed, education was increasingly seen as a government responsibility at home and in the colonies (Swartz 2019). Debate existed as to whether indigenous education in the colonies was a government responsibility or whether it should be left in the hands of the missionaries. What developed was a collaboration of mission societies and government authorities to co-­ construct educational practices. These developments occurred in the wake of the evangelical revival and education was understood as a humanitarian project. However, as Rebecca Swartz (2019) notes, recognising education as a humanitarian project does not avoid the immense violence and inequality wrought by colonialism. Instead, it recognises the ambiguities of humanitarian projects, ‘where “care” and “control” always informed one another’ (22). The educational interventions that Maunsell and Grey

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enacted developed in the transnational flow of educational ideologies, policies, and practices across the webs of empire (Swartz 2019; Jensz 2022).

Maunsell and Grey Maunsell was born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish Christian family. He was educated in Classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and went on to train for mission at the Church Missionary Society (CMS) training establishment in Islington. He married Susan Pigott in 1834 and the following year they sailed from Gravesend, arriving eight months later to join the mission at Paihia (Garrett 1991). After a short period at Paihia, the Maunsells moved to Moeatoa near Waiuku to establish a mission station with the Hamlin family. Subsequently, the Maunsells took over leadership of the mission station at Maraetai Bay in Port Waikato which was supported by Ngāti Tı ̄pa and their chief Kukutai.1 The Maunsells remained in this area, moving to nearby Kohanga in 1854, until the mission station at Kohanga was broken up during the Waikato war in 1864 (Garrett 1991). Maunsell was a talented, sacrificial, hard-working, and resilient person who, with his family and co-workers, developed one of the largest mission schools in the country. He was appointed superintendent and Archdeacon for the lower Waikato, and he strove to develop a sustainable system of education on the meagre CMS budgets. At Maraetai, he initiated many missionaries in the practices of running a mission station and school, and they went on to develop schools in Waikato and beyond. Maunsell was an outstanding linguist, and, with William Williams, translated the scriptures from Hebrew into te reo Māori for which he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College.2 Maunsell played an important role in procuring the signatures of Māori chiefs at the Waikato Heads for the Treaty of Waitangi.3 1  This chapter focuses upon the relationship of Maunsell and Grey, and does not expand upon the crucial role that Kukutai and, especially, Waata Kukutai played in establishing education among Ngāti Tı ̄pa. I do not have the necessary whakapapa or mātauranga Māori to interpret their crucial leadership. For more detailed accounts, see: Ewe (2019); Kukutai et al. (2020); Bishop (1992). 2  Maunsell also wrote A Grammar of the New Zealand Language (1842) along with a translation of the Book of Common Prayer, and the beginnings of a te reo Māori dictionary which was lost in a fire. 3  The sheets Maunsell had signed were the English version of the Treaty. On Maunsell’s involvement in garnering signatures for the Treaty in Waikato, see W. C. Symonds to the Colonial Secretary, May 12, 1840 (GBPP 1841, 101–102). See also: Wiley and Maunsell (1983); Orange (2010); Fletcher (2022).

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He was a driven man, fired by a sense of God’s calling and a singular commitment to God’s cause as he saw it. Along with his many achievements, Maunsell endured much hardship, including the death of two wives, severe illnesses, fires which consumed most of their house and possessions, and threats of death during the Waikato wars. Beyond the period of this study, Maunsell went on to a long and illustrious career as Archdeacon of Waitemata and then Auckland. Governor Sir George Grey was raised in an evangelical household, and as a Christian he believed that ‘duty to the Queen and her Empire was inextricably linked with duty to God’ (Grant 2005, 2). His appointment as governor, he believed, came through divine providence, and his plans for racial amalgamation were an outworking of God’s purposes for the country. ‘You are either [God’s] ministers to give effect to His desires for the welfare of creatures or are turning traitors to that duty, to prevent His wishes for the welfare of all being carried out’ (cited in Grant 2005, 65). Grey’s reputation grew with a report he wrote outlining a scheme for colonial race relations and the governance of Indigenous Australians (Lester and Dussart 2014). The report, heavily influenced by liberal Anglican humanitarianism, was addressed to Lord John Russell, secretary of state for the colonies, who was so impressed by its contents that he sent it to all the governors of Australian colonies. In ‘Report on the Best Means of Promoting the Civilization of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Australia’ (1840), Grey argued that previous attempts to civilise Indigenous Australians had failed because they allowed them to uphold some of their barbarous customs and laws in conjunction with being brought under British law and customs. Amalgamation required that Aboriginals were taught that British laws superseded their own to prevent them remaining ‘hopelessly immersed in their present state of barbarism’ (Grey 1840). He advocated the development of institutions through which their habits and customs would be improved. Schools, whilst desirable for developing indigenous children as a skilled labour class, were too costly, so Grey proposed a scheme of regular employment as a form of pedagogical improvement. These ideas were an outflow of Grey’s humanitarian convictions, which brought together Christianity, labour, education, and civilisation in an organic unity (Grant 2005). In later years, Grey developed these ideas of amalgamation more formally through the establishment of institutions such as industrial education in partnership with colonial and missionary leaders (Lester and Dussart 2014; Salesa 2011; Grant 2005).

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Maunsell and Grey established a friendship that lasted for nearly forty years.4 This partnership was a local expression of the wider British policy for education in the colonies in which the government and mission societies co-constructed native education (Swartz 2019; Jensz 2022). Maunsell held Grey to be a far-seeing leader. At the close of Grey’s first governorship, he wrote, ‘Governor Grey has indeed been a benefactor. God has blessed us in sending such a man to this island; and most delighted shall we be if he returns to us’ (Letters, December 28, 1854). Maunsell and the scholars at his mission school published a farewell address of thanks to Grey, noting his input into their advances in civilization and the many children receiving instruction in schools ‘which owe their success to you’ (Te Karere 1853, 3). On a personal note, Maunsell held that Grey’s intervention that enabled the move of the mission station and school from Maraetai to Kohanga was ‘the most gracious interference of good providence’ (Letters, August 7, 1854). Their shared religious persuasion and interest in education forged a close relationship, which was vitally furthered when Grey returned for his second governorship.

Maunsell and Grey: Grey’s First Governorship Maunsell arrived in Aotearoa a convinced educationalist. He believed strongly in the CMS policy for the establishment of schools. In 1836, he wrote to the CMS noting that whilst they were a missionary society, there is an organic relation between Christianity, patriotism, and benevolence that unites education and missionary labour (Letters, June 4, 1836). ‘That schools are the pivots and springs of missionary success is a point established by daily experience’ (November 5, 1838). If two stations began at the same time, and one ran a school while the other undertook routine missionary duty, at the end of 20 years the one with the school would be five years in advance of the other. When he arrived at Maraetai, Maunsell wasted no time in establishing a mission school. By the end of 1839, there was an average daily attendance of 70 students, which rose to over 100 in the early 1840s (Wiley and Maunsell 1983). Whilst the goal of schools was 4  Correspondence between Maunsell and Grey began in early 1847 and continued until at least 1885. Garrett (1991) proposes that following Grey’s return to England in 1868, the two do not appear to have remained close friends. However, the correspondence in the Grey Papers (Vol 23, M31/1–8) suggest the two remained good friends, visiting, supporting, encouraging, and aiding one another well into their old age. By contrast, Judith Nathan (1973) notes the extensive correspondence between Grey and Maunsell.

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Christian formation, it was formation into the ways of British Christian ideals. In the wake of early disturbances in Rotorua and Tauranga, Maunsell asserted the need for British law. But there remained the issue of who could execute such laws. He concluded, ‘Natives by themselves are not sufficient but might be well incorporated into an English police. They are too lazy, too stupid, too selfish, too fearful of men of rank, too independent of any remuneration’ (Letters, November 5, 1838). Pedagogic strategies included forms of epistemicide that sought to supplant Māori lifeways and knowledges with British Christian ideals. Early on, Maunsell devised a strategy for replacing ‘their filthy waiata’ with subjects more edifying. The tunes he believed were ‘nothing more than a monstrous croaking varying not more than two or three notes’ which could be adapted to any form of composition. He supplanted the lyrics of waiata with passages of scripture from Moses’ song, Isaiah, and the suffering and glory of our adorable Lord, and had them copied and circulated ‘with much success’ (September 21, 1839). Maunsell’s views of Grey did not get off to an auspicious start. War had broken out between settlers and Māori in the north of the country, and Grey was brought in to quell the uprising. The conflict shifted to the south, where Grey arrested Te Rauparaha and kept him prisoner on a ship. He proclaimed martial law, and captured, tried, and hung Whareaitu (Martin Luther) at Porirua for taking up arms against the government. In Maunsell’s views, this was the heavy-handed response of an inexperienced leader, which would likely result in further conflict and reprisals. ‘The Governor has much disappointed me’ (October 27, 1846). Grey needed wise advisors like himself who could help him understand the cross-­cultural issues at stake. Maunsell’s confidence in Grey was ‘much shaken’ (October 27, 1846). He appealed to the CMS committee to influence the home government to ‘compel our Governor to be more forbearing and more just’ (October 27, 1846). In early 1847, Maunsell met Grey in person for the first time in Auckland and conversed about Grey’s views of education and the native race. Grey offered to assist Maunsell’s labour in any way he could. Following their meeting, Maunsell took the opportunity to write to Grey on the subject of education. He reminded Grey of their shared views of Māori and schooling—Māori should be regarded as wards in Chancery. They are a ‘strange mixture of the craft and spirit of the man with the improvidence and fickleness of the child’ until properly disciplined (February 1847). As guardians, the government should oversee the sale of

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Māori lands and take their cut from the proceeds. The rest should go to serving the good of the people such as building roads which benefitted those who used them and those employed to build them. But this good was not ‘most suited to their present condition,’ as Māori were not yet ready to be entrusted with managing property or money (February 1847). The real good was education, which was needed for the sake of Māori to help with managing property and money, and for the sake of the colony. Without education, nine tenths of the population would continue to be ‘wild lawless roaming warriors, disturbed themselves, and disturbing others,’ whereas with education they would be ‘induced to settle down as useful members of society fearing God and respecting lawful authority’ (February 1847). Maunsell told Grey that missionary societies were struggling to provide adequate education because of a lack of resource and labour. They had to oversee the spiritual and secular issues of an island nearly the size of Great Britain with only twenty four CMS missionaries and a budget of £10,000. Visiting so many native settlements and schools, the missionary cannot pay attention to one location, and the work cannot be entrusted to native teachers because ‘their characters are too unstable, and their knowledge too scanty to enable us to look for anything that is permanent or solid from them’ (February 1847). What was needed were residential industrial schools, and the financial resource to maintain them. ‘The only satisfactory way in which the work of education can be brought to bear on this population is through the medium of boarding schools’ (February 1847). This resonated with Grey, as well as the wider policies of the British government. At the time, Maunsell was struggling to secure the necessary funding to resource residential schooling. The CMS would only support, but not maintain, residential schools, because of their expense. But day schools, he believed, could not bring about the necessary change in Māori habits and customs that civilisation required. ‘The missionaries have brought the people into the condition of receiving instruction, but are now unable to administer it’ (February 1847). Maunsell suggested that funds accrued from land sales could be apportioned for education. He reminded Grey that it was through the influence of the missionaries that Māori voluntarily ceded their lands, and that some of the tax revenue from those lands should be set aside for mission schools. Maunsell was doubtful Grey would reply. He told the CMS, ‘The Governor has not yet sent any reply; neither is it probable from his character that he will do so’ (February 1847).

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Despite Maunsell’s doubts, Grey did reply, thanking him for his ‘very interesting letter.’ He agreed with Maunsell on the need to introduce a good and permanent system of education into New Zealand but it could only be done by ‘having a fixed and unfailing fund’ devoted to the purpose. However, such a fund was two or three years away from being available. Grey ended his letter suggesting that the subject could only be satisfactorily discussed in conversation which he hoped they could do soon (February 12, 1847). Grey’s unexpected reply prompted Maunsell to quickly write his own, telling Grey his letter would be ‘a source of much gratification to my brother missionaries’ and they would be delighted to hear Grey’s plans for Māori education (March 10, 1847). Maunsell reiterated that a ‘fixed and unfailing’ sum was crucial for its success. Whilst this fund was yet to be secured, Maunsell requested that some small grants be offered in aid of their work, such as his own attempt to establish a boarding school. Grey’s interest in developing and funding a national system of education could not have been timelier, given the CMS would not fund boarding schools. Likewise, for Grey, the relationship with Maunsell was also timely as he developed his educational ideas into policy. At this time, Grey was devising the 1847 Education Ordinance, and its success relied heavily upon the support of the missionaries. Grey invited Maunsell, along with Bishop Selwyn and Octavius Hadfield, to offer his views on a draft (Grant 2005). The Ordinance offered government funding for residential mission schools which provided religious education and industrial training conducted in the English language. Teachers were to be appointed by the manager of the school, schools were to submit to official government inspections, and the cost of the entire system must not exceed 1/20th of the revenue of the colony (NZEO 1847; see also Grant 2005). Maunsell replied to Grey noting that he held high hopes for the bill and felt it would be lasting as it is based on the principles of liberality and justice. He agreed with the principle of assisting rather than maintaining the schools, though Grey would go on to provide substantial financial and practical support for the schools. Whilst Maunsell supported the teaching of English, he noted that it may be impracticable in some of the purely native districts. Money was needed to procure agricultural implements for industrial schooling, like ploughs and flour mills, and he offered Grey his translation services for free if there were any school books needed to be translated into te reo (GL:NZ M31 (1), September 29, 1847). Maunsell’s question about compulsory instruction in English warrants further comment. Some maintain that the missionaries’ insistence that all

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instruction be in te reo Māori came from a commitment to preserve the language (e.g., Moon 2019). Maunsell certainly played a central role in establishing te reo as a written language, and this was vital to its preservation.5 However, Maunsell’s objection to teaching solely in English was practical rather than philosophical. Teaching in English was the ideal, but it was impractical in ‘districts that are purely native, and where there is little intercourse with foreigners’ (GL:NZ M31 (1), September 29, 1847). In his Hints on Schools amongst the Aboriginies of New Zealand (1849), Maunsell acknowledged that English was desired by those who came into contact with the settlers, and ‘it should be cultivated in the school, as well as an object of attraction, as of utility’ (8). When Bishop Selwyn attempted to start a normal school in Thames to teach Māori the English language, Maunsell held reservations. These reservations were about the potential expense of the school, and Māori incapability of regular study. Whilst some show an interest in regular study and proofs of strong memories, they are ‘exceedingly pitiful … their wandering and irregular mode of life, they being obliged to associate so much with their fellow countrymen, their bad previous education, and consequent bad habits … form a great obstacle’ (Letters, April 8, 1844). This suggests a more complicated account of the motivations for teaching in te reo Māori than merely missionaries fighting to preserve the language. Industrial Boarding Schools Grey’s ordinance for establishing residential industrial schooling was an extension of ideas and instructions he had been given before he arrived in Aotearoa. As Damon Salesa (2011) notes, Grey’s views for amalgamating indigenous people into colonial society as industrial workers were not new or unique. Dr. James Kay-Shuttleworth was the secretary of the council on education in Britain, and the leading educationalist of his time. In 1847, he wrote Brief Practical Suggestions for Industrial Schooling among the Coloured Races of the British Colonies for use in the West Indies in particular, as well as industrial education for the ‘coloured races’ of the British colonies in general. As a Christian, Kay-Shuttleworth believed Christianity and education were central sources for civilisation. Drawing on his medical experience among the poor in England, he designed the industrial 5  Trinity College, Dublin, awarded Maunsell and honorary doctorate in recognition of this work.

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schooling model for use among Britain’s poor and destitute orphans and illegitimate children. He was a strong believer in personal responsibility, and the need to hold people accountable for their own misfortunes. Christian civilisation for a semi-barbarous class required the development of moral and physical training so that these several forms of education mutually assist each other. Through industry and religious instruction, orphans or illegitimate children would be turned into ‘efficient and virtuous members of society’ and ‘promote the growth of a truly Christian civilization’ (Swartz 2019, 90–91). The objectives of Kay-Shuttleworth’s system for those in the colonies were to inculcate and promote the principles and influences of Christianity, accustom native children to habits of self-control and moral discipline, and spread knowledge of the English language as an agent of civilisation. Along with teaching writing and arithmetic, he hoped to make schools the means of improving the peasantry by teaching proper diets, cleanliness, ventilation, and clothing, and training them in the household economy and how to cultivate a cottage garden (1847, 57–58). Training in industry and the cottage economy should come second only to instructions in the Holy Scriptures and the duties of religious life (59). Kay-Shuttleworth’s industrial model aimed at making indigenous people comfortable labourers, or peasants, who enjoyed improved conditions through British civilising habits and Christianity. The costs of industrial education were offset by exploiting students as free labour, and equipping them for a future as working class labourers in agriculture and industry (Swartz 2019). Ranginui Walker argues that in the New Zealand context, the industrial curriculum prepared Māori ‘for a future as a labouring underclass … the British brown proletariat, below the meanest of white men’ (2016, 23). Grey arrived convinced of the wider British policy on establishing industrial boarding schools in the colonies. Upon arrival, he worked quickly to establish a fixed and unfailing fund to sustain the mission schools. He underwrote their debts, provided personnel, funding, and resources, often against public opposition.6 Maunsell acknowledged that 6  Grey supplied regular grants to Maunsell and the schools of the Lower Waikato, along with a carpenter, agricultural instructor, farm servant, tools, books, livestock, and the liquidation of debts. See, for example, his letters on October 6, 1851 and August 19, 1853. The education ordinance proposed that the heads of denominations negotiate with the governor on grants. However, Maunsell’s relationship with Grey enabled him to negotiate directly. See Maunsell to Grey (GL:NZ M31 (5); (8); (10); (11); (12)) April 27, 1849; June 13, 1850; July 9, 1851; November 14, 1851; May 28, 1852; January 10, 1853. For public debates regarding the school grants, see The New Zealander 1852a, b, October 30; November 3, 1852 and 1853 February 23; and The Daily Southern Cross 1852, November 2.

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Grey’s material support had put his school two or three years in advance of what it otherwise would have been (Letters, June 12, 1851). In turn, Grey worked in collaboration with the missionaries, utilising their networks and reputations with European and Māori leaders in the metropole and colonies to achieve his plans for racial amalgamation. Grey corresponded with Kay-Shuttleworth on education, and he read and forwarded a copy of Kay-Shuttleworth’s Brief Practical Suggestions to Maunsell, who thanked him for it and promised to adopt it in his school (GBPP 1854, October 7). In 1852, Grey wrote to Sir John Pakington, sectary of state for war and the colonies, celebrating the tranquillity and happy state of New Zealand following the ‘rebellion’ in 1846. Such tranquillity was the result of two key factors: a sufficient armed force to put down insurrection, and a large missionary body. The missionaries had advanced Christianity and civilisation and prepared the uncivilised for contact with the European race. It was through the unremitting and watchful care of the missionaries in converting, educating, and training Māori that racial difficulties had been soothed, idolatrous barbarians were won to Christianity, and trained in the knowledge of the arts of civilised life (GBPP 1854, October 8). From his experience, he believed that no efforts of the government to civilize native races, such as in South Africa, could produce a lasting effect unless it is done in harmony with missionary efforts. Of particular significance were the industrial boarding schools, which Grey believed had played a vital role in imperial pacification. The schools provided a good religious and useful, understood as industrial, education. ‘[As] it is considered that a state of half civilization is as bad as no civilization at all, the children are, in respect of food, bedding, &c., brought up in quite as comfortable a manner as the children of European peasants’ (160–161). Hints on Schools Amongst the Aborigines Following the Education Ordinance, Bishop Selwyn asked Maunsell to develop a short resource guide on the difficulties and advantages of education in Aotearoa. In 1849, Maunsell wrote his book Hints on Schools amongst the Aborigines. He gave a personal copy to Grey, and wrote a dedication to him as a ‘small testimony to the zeal and liberality with which he has always promoted the improvement and education of the aborigines of New Zealand’ (inside cover). Maunsell outlined his views that what were needed were boarding schools, as it is almost impossible to

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‘form those habits the native population so much need’ (5). School began at 6:30 am in the summer and sunrise in winter, and consisted primarily of scripture reading and examination, prayers, hymns, catechism, English lessons, geography, and arithmetic, and after lunch employment around the school. Māori, Maunsell believed, were so prone to wandering minds that what was required was ‘catechisation, catechisation, and nothing but catechisation’ (8). The first two years were given to industrial work, outdoors for boys, and domesticity for girls, with little academic instruction. His preferred employment for Māori was agriculture, as it accorded with their previous habits, did not require expensive apparatus, and elevated them above the level of ill-disposed Europeans. His male scholars could plough, drive a cart, grind at the mill, erect posts and fences, build chimneys, milk, and make butter while the females could wash, sew, sift flour, clean wheat, and make 400 pounds of bread per week. ‘You must not however suppose,’ Maunsell assured the CMS, ‘that all our time is spent in industrial employments’ (Letters, June 12, 1851). The whole school was examined on scripture at daybreak along with morning and evening school. However, there were complaints from parents that their children were being used for servitude, and, in 1860, school inspectors noted the lack of academic progress which was due to the fact that the pupils ‘have been for the most part occupied herding sheep and cattle’ (AJHR 1860a, 72). Strengthened by his growing relationship with Grey, Maunsell pressed the CMS to send teachers to support Grey’s new vision. Maunsell’s interest now was in establishing a range of Christian villages, ‘like so many oases in the desert, to gladden the eye and refresh the heart of the traveller’ (Letters, March 5, 1851). He told the CMS that, ‘the old things are fast passing away in this island, the stage of conversion from heathenism has passed. This is one [sic] education. The men, and the system, that would have done in the former, would be nearly useless in the latter’ (March 24, 1849). Emboldened by Grey’s financial support, Maunsell urged the CMS committee to embrace Grey’s plans in which the government provided a fixed fund and mission societies supplied teachers. ‘To supply this country with a body of efficient schoolmaster’s I have always felt to be the very first sound move in this work. Give us the men, and the means will be found’ (December 16, 1852). He believed that missionary children could make good assistant teachers, but their own education had suffered as their father was often away on missionary duty, and they had not had the consistent discipline of an English education. Moreover, they had spent time mixing with native

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children, who were ‘so slovenly, lazy, lounging, and gossiping in their habits, it would be almost a miracle if their own character was not very considerably impacted’ (Maunsell 1849, 13). Idleness was a grave evil, and the primary duty of a missionary, Maunsell wrote, was ‘to wage a constant war against idleness’ (14). If they persevere in this work, ‘the missionary will find his pupils contented, industrious, and obedient’ (14). Maunsell summarised the needs of a school as twofold: (1). Gather together children for instruction to train in habits of order and obedience according to scripture, and (2). Form a taste for the diet, clothing, comforts, and habits of the European. Like Kaye-Shuttleworth and Grey, he stressed that the institution was a religious institution and religion must be the basis of the system. The other class of labourers were the native teachers, who Maunsell did not advise paying wages as such stimulants may appeal to their low nature (15). A comfortable house, respectable clothing, and superior food was payment enough. They could not, however, be trusted to run the school as ‘the great bulk of the native teachers are very ignorant and unformed in their character’ (18). Even as government funding increased and school levies were introduced, Maunsell continued to underpay native teachers as cheap labour. They were willing to work for £4.00 per annum and undertake long journeys, for which they would normally expect large payments. Instead, they were willing to ‘spend a large amount of time from their families in farms for this trifling remuneration’ (Letters, May 21, 1857). Whilst Maunsell could hold optimistic views about Māori leaders, his pessimism of their character often overwhelmed his views. Whilst supporting the idea of ordaining Māori so that aging missionaries had more workers, he did not advocate an independent Māori ministry (January 19, 1857). There were up to 30 native teachers in his school, but, as Russell Bishop (1992) notes, Maunsell could not bring himself to entrust the work to them. In Maunsell’s opinion, whenever he left his station for any period, he would return to find all operations suffer a collapse and he must almost begin again (Letters, June 1, 1852; August 3, 1850). If a missionary is removed for any period of time, ‘a huge wave of ignorance overflows his district,’ matched only by the return to idleness and heathen habits (January 3, 1949). Despite the difficulties that came from a lack of resourcing, Maunsell was constrained to push forward by the belief that ‘schools are the only thing that can preserve this people from retrograding into evils not much better than heathenism’ (April 19, 1850).

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The ideals Maunsell outlined in his booklet did not always match the reality on the ground. Sacrifice, hard work, and resilience were integral to Maunsell’s understanding of missionary labour, missionary calling, and the Christian gospel. The schools regularly ran financial losses, and struggled for existence (November 5, 1838). Despite the success and growth of Maunsell’s school, with a roll ranging from 80 to 100 students, it faced ongoing shortages of food, satisfactory accommodation, educational resources, and finance. Life was meant to be slightly better than in Māori whare, but not by much. Maunsell often wrote to Grey, the CMS, and their friends requesting individual grants or aid. ‘I am without the means of procuring them common food and common clothing. Our children are obliged to sleep by threes and fours in the same blanket, and we have been obliged to descend to plain potatoes for their food, to the native oven for kitchen apparatus, and to native baskets for plates: as to clothes the greater number are not far from being in rags’ (GL:NZ M31 (3), April 27, 1849). No doubt the desperate state of the school was amplified in the hope to gain funding, but scarcity of resources was noted by independent school inspectors. Buildings, including Maunsell’s home, were makeshift, and a school inspector noted that the boy’s school room was ‘so cold and comfortless as to surprise me that either Teacher or pupils can be found to occupy it’ (AJHR 1860a, 66). These conditions were not the result of Maunsell’s negligence, who exhausted all his networks in New Zealand and at home, as well as contributing his own money and extensive efforts, to fund the work. The high level of deprivation was, however, hardly a glowing witness for advancement in civilisation through the superiority of British ways of being. Nonetheless, the lack of resource was itself seen as pedagogical: ‘scanty however as may be our resources, we must remember that poverty is no excuse for untidiness’ (Maunsell 1849, 23). Life in the mission school was corrective. Maunsell believed that Māori parents spoilt their children and neglected to discipline them. ‘The parents, you are aware, will not allow their children to require the least correction, and the little things are so little under constraint at home, that they attend school only as caprice takes’ (Letters, February 2, 1843). In Maunsell’s opinion, very few parents teach their children anything. ‘Happy if he can get rag to cover himself the little fellow unwashed, uncombed, unshorn, spends his day either in covering over the fire, or in catching birds, or employing some wild game with his male and female playfellows. The father and mother, having never experience the benefit of early education or training, cannot at all see the necessity of bringing such little things

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to either school or prayers’ (August 19, 1853). As a result, he believed the children were spoilt and exhibited far too much independence of spirit which required correction. When they were remonstrated or their affections attacked they complained to their parents who did not chastise their disobedience but stressed the difference in nature between and New Zealand child and an English child. Maunsell went to great lengths to contain children within the disciplined life of the mission station and prevent them from returning to the lax standards of home. Discipline was, in Maunsell’s mind, a problem in Māori society. Māori children were wild, and the role of education was to tame them out of Māori habits and inculcate British habits. Yet Māori were not passive recipients of British civilisation. Maunsell struggled with a high proportion of runaway children, and he devised elaborate schemes to catch them before they reached home because if they made it home, there was little chance of getting them back. Some escapees he caught on his travels through the region. When he found them, he seized them and brought them back ‘crying and struggling to school’ (December 16, 1852). One regular runaway took it upon himself to swim across the Waikato River to escape—a previously unheard-of feat that resulted in all the parents of the tribe coming and withdrawing their children from the school. Runaways sometimes took a four- or five-day journey for home, avoiding trails to confuse the pursuing teachers and avoid leaving tracks. A ten-year-old boy escaped early one morning and made it ten miles from the school without food or water. He was found overwhelmed with fatigue, ‘spitting of blood and fever’ such that he was carried back on a teacher’s shoulders (December 16, 1852). Maunsell was grateful for his native teachers who would visit their relatives and gather up children. ‘[When] once in the institution we hesitate not to use all the discipline that we may think necessary’ (August 19, 1853). As Moana Jackson (2019) noted in his evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, the roots of systemic abuse in care are found in the structures of colonisation. From Maraetai to Kohanga For all the assistance Grey gave to Maunsell, none was greater than the fast land deal he helped broker for the move to Te Kohanga. Reflecting on this, Maunsell wrote, ‘Many have been the singular providences that I have experienced in my life: but on few do I now more frequently think than on the one which brought me to Kohanga’ (Letters, August 7,

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1854). Grey was passing through the district, and spent three or four days discussing his scheme for education. He was intrigued by the mission schools, and Maunsell took the opportunity to invite him to Maraetai. Maunsell proudly showed Grey the station and all the work and expense he had put into it. In the evening, Grey, at Maunsell’s request, asked Māori for more and better land for the school and if they did not provide it, the school would need to move elsewhere (April 28, 1853). No land was forthcoming, and at this, the people of Te Kohanga offered a block of their most valuable land as a free gift. Grey told Maunsell that if he were to move there, he would pay all the expenses. Grey then stayed up until midnight discussing the boundaries and gaining their signatures to the deed of surrender. The land was surveyed and the grant given just before Grey finished his first governorship, which Maunsell understood ‘as a most gracious interference of good providence’ (August 7, 1854). Soon after the purchase of land at Te Kohanga, Grey was called to serve as governor of the Cape Colony where he transplanted the system of residential industrial education developed in New Zealand as a vital part of racial amalgamation (cf. Swartz 2019; Grant 2005; Lester and Dussart 2014). Grey’s departure was a blow to Maunsell. In Maunsell’s view, it was the shared religious persuasion of Grey and the CMS missionaries which was so vital to the co-construction of mission schools as centres for Christianity and civilisation.

Maunsell and Grey: Grey’s Second Governorship With the arrival of Thomas Gore Browne as governor, Maunsell feared that he would not enjoy the same kind of partnership with the new governor or the government, ‘composed as it is of men of such different religious persuasions’ (Letters, August 7, 1854). He feared that given half the chance, some of the parliamentarians would quickly revoke the grants given to the denominations for education. Maunsell was yet to meet Browne, but from what he observed he had neither the courage nor the benevolent comprehension for seeing the views of Sir George Grey (August 12, 1856). His fears were not realised, and the parliament solidified education funding in greater proportion for seven  years (June 24, 1858). Once Maunsell did meet with Browne, he stressed the governor avail himself of his duty as guardian to the native race to initiate a system of institutions, such as mission schools, ‘that will prepare them for

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exercising the privileges of British subjects’ (December 17, 1858; see also AJHR 1860b, 38–43). Maunsell’s concerns about Browne were entrenched by his handling of the conflict in Taranaki. Initially, Maunsell held that it was hard to judge who was in the wrong in Taranaki, but he changed his opinion after reading Sir William Martin’s pamphlet The Taranaki Question (Letters, May 9, 1860). He now held that the Taranaki conflict was the result of Browne’s lack of skills which were needed to interact with Māori and his clique with certain of the Taranaki settlers (February 28, 1861). Browne did not have the knowledge and information necessary to comprehend the situation in Taranaki and marched off to war to gain popularity with the settlers (July 29, 1861). The governor was a weak and timid do-nothing kind of man who Maunsell believed was unfit for the role. Nothing but a new governor, with healing measures, would bring peace (November 19, 1860). Browne’s failure in Taranaki contrasted with Grey’s successful management of the northern war with Ngāpuhi who since that time ‘have been our firm friends’ (February 28, 1861). What was needed, in Maunsell’s assessment, was a new Governor like Sir George Grey, whose negotiation skills would bring a solid peace within a fortnight. Later that year, Maunsell’s wishes came to fruition. Browne was removed from office, and Grey returned as governor of New Zealand for a second time. There was, Maunsell believed, an immediate improvement in the state of affairs. ‘[Grey] has fully sustained his character heretofore as a skilful manager of the aboriginal races’ (November 21, 1861). Maunsell and Grey quickly reacquainted their partnership, and extended it in the new context of war. Since his arrival, Grey had been making plans for a visit to the Waikato, the seat of the Kı ̄ngitanga—the Māori King movement. At Maunsell’s suggestion, Waata Kukutai, chief of Ngāti Tı ̄pa, extended an invitation for Grey to visit the mission station and meet with Kı ̄ngitanga leaders. It was Maunsell’s hope that this meeting would be the beginning of a new state of things in the Waikato and that through negotiations Sir George would bring a solid peace. Grey accepted the invitation, and was hosted in the Maunsell’s home at Kohanga for his important visit. The occasion was marked with much pomp and ceremony. An arch was made, flags hoisted, and the school was lined with Māori children who serenaded Grey on to the site with a rendition of ‘God save the Queen.’ In the evening, some of the leading Waikato chiefs met with Grey and enquired about his policies and plans with Maunsell acting as the

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interpreter. Discussions focused especially upon the question of land, with Waikato Māori wanting assurances from Grey about the protection of their land. Grey, on the other hand, sought assurances that the Kı ̄ngitanga would not resist by force the sale of lands. A variety of wide ranging topics were discussed, including Grey’s new institutions, and what justice required in Taranaki. Reflecting after these very early, and strategic, events, Maunsell remained a firm supporter of his old friend. ‘Sir George fully maintained his character as a judicious and firm ruler’ (December 25, 1861). Grey advised the Kı ̄ngitanga leaders that they voluntarily give compensation for the injuries they had inflicted in Taranaki. His appeal, Maunsell stressed, was not to rights or threats but to their ‘character for Christianity and civilization’ which had been so influential on their lives before the war and would be crucial to their future posterity (December 25, 1861). The meeting exceeded Maunsell’s expectations and fully attained its object which was to make known Grey’s friendly intentions in enforcing the law. The meeting ended with Kukutai, and those present, giving three cheers for the governor. Maunsell was pleased that along with the negotiations, Grey posted a large body of soldiers at Te Ia, about 40 miles from the King’s residence to show his power to strike if need. ‘This bold step in every way most lawful and indeed needful has caused great concern to the whole people but I fully expect that they will quietly submit to it’ (December 25, 1861). Grey’s interactions with the Kı ̄ngitanga was a game of chess, and Maunsell approved of his strategic manoeuvres. The Kı ̄ngitanga did not quietly acquiesce to Grey’s manoeuvres, and Maunsell bemoaned the low ebb of spiritual concerns in the Waikato, which had been replaced by an absorption with political questions and concerns (February 5, 1862). In his own district, he was pleased to report that they displayed nothing other than friendly relations with the government and were enjoying a state of profound peace. Māori along the sea coast and in his neighbourhood had accepted Grey’s institutions and had taken to calling themselves ‘Queenites’ (October 7, 1862). Maunsell had long held that education played a vital role in imperial pacification, and, in his version of Christianity, allegiance to Christ meant allegiance to British supremacy and rule. Earlier, as division between Māori and Pākehā increased in Taranaki, and the influence of the Kı ̄ngitanga increased, Maunsell felt it was his duty to have Kukutai write a letter to the Queen, which would be sent on to the government, ‘acknowledging her supremacy and at the same time stating to her the points upon which the Maori mind is sore’ (July 29, 1861). Kukutai circulated the letter among other

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Waikato iwi to sign as an acknowledgement of the Queen’s sovereignty over and against the King movement. In 1862, as Grey’s military steamers progressed further up the river, the Kı ̄ngitanga sent a party to erect a flagstaff with the King’s flag on it at Kohanga to warn the soldiers off. However, Queenite Māori refused to allow this to happen, and Maunsell delighted in their resistance to the Kı ̄ngitanga and their ‘contempt as they say for Maoriism’ (October 7, 1862). Maunsell remained loyal to Grey and did not register any critique of his actions during his second governorship. ‘In Sir G Grey we continue to have great confidence. His skill in administration, his fertility and resource is his great courage, and above all his forbearance and spirit of conciliation most markedly shown during the last 18 months seemed to promise a prompt and heavy termination of the difficulties’ (May 23, 1863). Moreover, he viewed assertions of Māori agency and independence as not only disloyalty to the Queen, but also disloyalty to Christ. As the second war in Taranaki reignited with the British occupation of the Tātaraimaka block, and tensions in the Waikato escalated, Maunsell offered an interpretation of the events to the CMS. Despite Grey’s ‘imminently conciliatory’ approach, the non-loyal Māori aggressions and intransigence were deteriorating relations. From a secular point of view, the grossly unjust events at Waitara resulted in intense Māori suspicion of the white man, and their numerical growth. Māori, according to Maunsell, feared that the immense power of Pākehā would result in their eventual slavery or extermination. Māori had seized upon an unfortunate casual remark by Grey ‘that he would not wage war with the king party, but he would “dig around” it by his institutions until it fell’ (May 23, 1863). But there was another, more theological, perspective regarding the outbreak. ‘Never did a church more need a violent shaking and humbling than the Maori church’ (May 23, 1863). It had been invaded with ‘the spirit of worldly mindedness, self will, and pride’ (May 23, 1863). Drunkenness was on the rise, their Christianity had become cold formalism. Māori now obsessed over political questions and proud vauntings in place of religious concerns. Recent events enabled them to hold ‘a low idea of English, and an exalted idea of Maori prowess. Most deeply shall we have to thank our Lord if he pleased only to chasten and humble, not to destroy, them in the coming conflict’ (May 23, 1863). There remained many elements of good in Māori, even where the spirit of war was rampant, and he hoped God’s sifting would retrieve a large measure of precious salt among them.

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Whilst Maunsell was pleased to report that those in the lower Waikato, and his school in particular, were in perfect peace, he had to revise his report within a month. To his disappointment, Waikato had now entered the war, including many in his district. On the evening of Saturday 11 July, Maunsell heard about Grey’s ultimatum for Māori in Manukau and the vicinity of Auckland to swear loyalty to the Queen, deliver up their arms, or leave. With Crown troops crossing the agreed Kı ̄ngitanga boundary of the Mangatāwhiri river the next morning, Maunsell was concerned by what these measures might mean for peace in his district. He visited Grey on the Monday to seek an explanation, and Grey showed him letters that indicated Waikato chiefs had been planning an attack on Auckland. This meeting clearly appeased Maunsell’s concerns as the next day he, together with the native minister, went, at Grey’s request, to meet with Māori who were leaving Manukau. His aim was to ‘induce them to agree to his [Grey’s] conditions and to explain his reasons. But they would yield nothing’ (July 23, 1863). The relationship between Grey and Maunsell was now such that Maunsell was willing to act as Grey’s emissary in support of his ultimatum to Kı ̄ngitanga Māori and the invasion of the Waikato. When a later CMS pamphlet held critical views of Grey’s actions, Maunsell disputed the version of events and supported Grey. ‘I believe that no excuse can be made for the conduct of the Maoris in the war and they richly deserve severe punishment…. The Maoris are as suspicious [a] race as you will find on the earth, and suspicion is now justifiable grounds for rushing into war’ (March 18, 1864). When the pamphlet argued that the reports of a conspiracy to invade Auckland were yet to be proven, Maunsell maintained that he had done his own careful independent inquiry. From testimony that was independent of the government, he found indisputable proof of a planned attack by Waikato Māori on the Auckland province before 7th July. Earlier, Maunsell had dismissed suggestions of a grand conspiracy in which Māori had planned attacks on Auckland as little more than fireside speculation (November 19, 1860). Now, he was convinced of the conspiracy and provided Grey with his evidence. In turn, Grey cited Maunsell’s letters to his superiors in London as part of the evidence that justified the invasion into the Waikato (Lyttleton Times 1864). In contemporary historiography, this evidence is highly disputed (O’Malley 2016). In 1995, the Crown acknowledged that the crossing of the Mangatāwhiri was an unjust invasion which breached the Treaty of Waitangi and its labelling of Waikato Māori as rebels was unfair. The outcomes resulted in the loss of lives and the devastation of property,

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social life, and economic development for Waikato Māori (New Zealand Government 1995). As the war intensified, Maunsell went from feeling relatively assured of his safety to his life being under threat. Initially, it appeared that Maunsell could continue with his school without reason to fear ‘as they seem to have agreed that I shall not be touched’ (Letters, July 23, 1863). Within a few months, James Armitage, Lower Waikato resident magistrate, who had worked to establish a military supply route for Queenite supplies, had been killed near the mission station, and the mission school broken up (September 25, 1863). Maunsell was outraged at Armitage’s murder, but he felt protected by Ngāti Tı ̄pa and believed it was important the loyalist Māori had a meeting point. He was warned to stay within his prescribed boundary or he would be shot (October 19, 1863). A steamer came to pick up his family, but Maunsell remained with his people as he felt compelled to return their faithfulness despite the danger (September 25, 1863). Yet, faithfulness here was understood as faithfulness and loyalty to the Crown, something Maunsell had inculcated over many years. In Maunsell’s assessment, the murders undertaken by Māori rebels ‘can find no provocation in the conduct of the settlers. As yet they have been strictly on the defensive’ (October 19, 1863). However, this overlooked the role that missionaries and British residents had played in supporting and housing British and Queenite troops. Maunsell once again offered a theological interpretation of the war. God had sent the present conflict to humble his ministers, and humble and chastise ‘this proud stiffnecked people.’ His hope was that it would bring good for them. As well as showing the better thinking among them of the vileness of their forefathers’ customs to which they cling, he hoped it would stir up the Christians among them to be more distinct and earnest. It might give a stronger passion for the (British) law and lead them away from nomadic lifestyles to live in settlements ‘where they can be reached by the minister and the schoolmaster’ (October 19, 1863). With numbers greatly diminished, Maunsell moved near the native auxiliaries and devoted himself to the troops. There was, he relayed, a much larger field opened up in the front with the soldiers, and he hoped he might be of some service ‘to this obstinate and foolish people’ (November 30, 1863). Maunsell continued his remonstrances with Kı ̄ngitanga Māori when he saw them in person, drawing from scripture to remind them of their sins (October 19, 1863). Initially, Maunsell was unable to interact with the prisoners, so he moved to minister to the troops on the frontline,

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marching with them from Meremere to Rangiriri, where he was present for the battle, and was later given access to prisoners at the Queen’s Redoubt. He took the opportunity to reprove them for their sins, endeavouring to ‘move their consciences to a sense of the many acts unworthy of Christianity of which they had been [of] late guilty’ (November 30, 1863). Yet, God was not like humans, and God’s ear and help were always ready. He felt for the ‘poor creatures,’ whose fierce pride was dented, but he believed that through this fiery trial, God was preparing them for better things (November 30, 1863). It remained his hope that the ‘rebels’ would soon yield, and he continued to hold that he could not see any act on the part of the government that he could in the least part condemn as uncalled for. ‘The people in the most unprovoked manner began the war and the least they ought now to do is to yield prompt and full submission’ (December 22, 1863). The new year brought no signs of a termination of the war, and Maunsell began to develop a more critical view of the government’s actions. He still blamed Māori for the war, but he came to view the government’s demands as extreme. Kı ̄ngitanga Māori were expected to give up their lands, arms, and those who fought against the government to be put in prison. With two days’ notice, the government had driven at least 700 Māori southward from their lands to join the rebels. Their lands were then confiscated for fighting against the Queen. Whilst some were involved in hatching conspiracies to invade Auckland, many had not. Many Māori now in arms had not invaded European territories, ‘they simply joined their friends in repelling forces from their lands’ (January 1, 1864). These, he believed, were quite different than the aggressors, who he believed were mostly Ngāti Maniapoto. Such stringent stipulations gave no incentive for non-loyal Māori to negotiate peace, and left them with few realistic options. Under these extreme measures, Maunsell believed they would prefer death or expatriation (March 18, 1864). He now felt that the demands were driven in some part by the immense benefits that Auckland reaped from the war and the government punishments.7 ‘Badly as the Maoris have acted I begin to fear that the white man will be found deserving of no less censure’ (January 2, 1864). Maunsell was careful to distinguish Grey from the actions of greedy ministers, and their constituents, who wanted to take all the lands of the rebels. Maunsell believed that Grey 7  Maunsell’s new views were influenced by a meeting with Sir William Martin and William Swainson. See Letters, January 2, 1864.

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was innocent, and was caught between meeting their demands and the need to find a just outcome according to English law. However, recent historiography, including the Waikato Raupatu Claims settlement, has established that the confiscations of land, instigated by Grey, were entirely wrongful (New Zealand Government 1995).8 The war had revealed the need for education. Maunsell and Grey had long held that education was a crucial tool for imperial pacification. During the northern wars of the 1840s, Maunsell contrasted the unsuccessful and expensive approach of softening by war with the less costly and more effective approach of softening by education. He requested the committee to try to induce the Home Government to give a portion of the funds, ‘which, if the people are not civilized, they will have to spend in war’ (Letters, July 9, 1845). With the outbreak of war in the Waikato, Maunsell believed the need was for the establishment of day schools and a law that enforced those located near them to send their children. Yet, the problem remained that Māori parents had not adequately valued or availed themselves of the schools. Their indifference to the education of their children was one of their ‘crying sins’ along with ‘abnegating all authority over them thus training them in a rampant self will, the source now of their present troubles. As a church they needed and deserved the severe chastisement they are now receiving. May God sanctify it to their good’ (January 1, 1864). By this stage in the war, the mission schools were all but broken up with few adherents. Maunsell blamed the resistance of Māori parents for the failure of the schools. They viewed the disciplinarian regimes of schools as an impediment to the spirit of manliness and independence that Māori parents valued in their children. Parents, in the presence of the child, abnegated all authority over them and warned the master not to touch their child or make them do any work in case they ran away. ‘And when it does runaway, your object is to catch it before it reaches the parent. When once under the parent’s roof the chances are ten to one that you won’t get it back. In these schools you must train to cleanliness, order, obedience, industry, as well as impart knowledge. Now imagine what a task that is with wild unbroken children, their parents backing them up in their unruly conduct’ (March 18, 1864). The government must adopt measures to 8  ‘While Grey sought to portray his stance as a principled one based on justice and moderation, it was he who (by his own admission) had devised the confiscation proposals and who eventually agreed to the wholesale confiscation of Waikato lands’ (O’Malley 2016, 705).

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make parents exercise authority over the children, ‘and not allow them to grow up self indulgent, irrepressible, ignorant Barbarians in the midst of the European settlements’ (March 18, 1864). In the wake of the failure of the schools, Maunsell changed his views on residential industrial education. Where he once believed, with Grey and British educational policy, that they were the way mission stations should be run, he was now a critic (January 19, 1857). They were too expensive to run, and the lack of willing labour created an unbearable burden upon the missionary and their family. Where he once supported the removal of children from their families, he now believed that such an approach relieved the parents of responsibility and created dependency on the government. What was needed were day schools which families paid a shilling per day for every child that attended. If a child was absent without leave, the parents should be made to pay a tax of two pennies. This money paid for one midday meal for each child (August 26, 1864). Against resistance from the parents, Maunsell had earlier instigated parental payment for education to ensure they appreciated the value of education (December 17, 1858). This accorded with Kaye Shuttleworth’s views, and the wider educational policies of the empire, that school fees were didactic (Jensz 2022). Now, however, he added the tax as punishment for those who did not avail themselves of the blessings of education. The government should place a schoolmaster in convenient locations and set aside land for a school house and a residence for the school master (Letters, August 26, 1864). In a similar vein, he wrote to the CMS noting that the time was fast approaching when they would need to restrict their labours in New Zealand to ‘merely educational operations, and those only where they are valued and sought for’ (December 22, 1864). Māori, he explained, were undergoing a great shaking, and the old days when all in the settlement attended services had passed. The numbers of Māori in congregations assumed the same proportions of non-attendance as the European communities. By 1869, Maunsell concluded that his own school had been a failure, owing chiefly to the indifference of parents (August 28, 1869). Following the Waikato war, the mission schools were empty. Before the war, there were between 700 and 800 pupils and following the war they had a total of 22 (Barrington and Beaglehole 1990). The 1867 Native School Act signalled the end of the mission school era and the uncoupling of the formal partnership between the government and mission societies in the provision of Māori education. Mission schools were the primary source of

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education in Aotearoa for fifty years, and provided the educational basis upon which subsequent developments were iterated. Any examination of the structural legacy of colonisation in education begins with the mission schools and the partnership of mission agencies and the British government.

Conclusion Mission schooling was a partnership between the British government and mission societies which embedded the myths of white supremacy into educational policies and practices. The partnership of Maunsell and Grey provides a local example of the wider colonial structuring of indigenous education. Christianity played a vital role in establishing ideological, practical, and political networks, as well as providing distorted theological justifications for the entrenchment of the myth of white British superiority. A distorted hamartiology conflated Māori ways of knowing and being with sin and proffered a distorted soteriology that conflated British ways of knowing and being as the salvific solution. Discipleship was distorted as pedagogical formation into British customs, cultures, practices, and loyalties, and a distorted understanding of the imago Dei presumed nearness to British dispositions equated to nearness to God. Unsettling theology requires critical examinations of the distorted theologies and ideologies that feigned divine authority and support for a civilising mission. Unsettling theology also requires critical examinations into the historical details of the partnerships and networks forged in the webs of Christian empire which structured the legacies of educational injustice that remain with us today.

References Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives [AJHR]. 1860a. Session I, E-08, Native Schools: Reports of Inspectors. Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives [AJHR]. 1860b. Session I, F-03, Native Schools: Reports of Inspectors. Ballantyne, Tony. 2012. Webs of empire: Locating New Zealand’s colonial past. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Barrington, J.M., and T.H.  Beaglehole. 1990. ‘A part of Pakeha society’: Europeanising the Maori child. In Making imperial mentalities: Socialisation and British imperialism, ed. J.A. Mangan, 167–169. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

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Bishop, Russell. 1992. The Waikato mission schools of Reverend Robert Maunsell: Conflict and co-operation. Access: Contemporary Issues in Education 11: 73–74. Church Missionary Society. 1814. Principle Minute Book, General Committee of the Church Missionary Society. M173-M243, M1825-M1827, Records of the Church Missionary Society, 1799–1914. Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-­2664365246. Ewe, Denise Te Tuhi. 2019. Waata Kukutai: Rangatira O Ngaati Tiipa, 1822–1867. MA dissertation. University of Waikato. Fletcher, Ned. 2022. The English text of the treaty of Waitangi. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Garrett, Helen. 1991. Te Manihera: The life and times of the pioneer missionary Robert Maunsell. Auckland: Reed Books. Grant, Susannah. 2005. God’s governor: George grey and racial amalgamation in New Zealand 1845–1853. PhD dissertation. University of Otago. Great Britain Parliamentary Papers [GBPP]. 1841. Copies or extracts of correspondence relative to New Zealand. In Continuation of the papers presented to the House of Commons, on the 14th April 1840, in pursuance of address 8th April. London: W. Clowes and Sons. Great British Parliamentary Papers [GBPP]. 1854. Further papers relative to the affairs of New Zealand. Correspondence with governor Grey. In Continuation of papers presented on the 7th August 1851, and 3rd and 14th May, 1852. London: W. Clowes and Sons. Grey, George. 1840. Report on the Best Means of Promoting the Civilization of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Australia. In Reproduced in Russell to Gipps, 25 August 1840, NSW legislative council votes and proceedings 1839–42, 1/MAV/ FN4/0867. State Library of New South Wales. https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/ tm/scholarly/tei-­TurEpit-­t1-­g1-­t1-­g1-­t2-­g1-­t12-­g1-­t2.html. Grey Letter Collection. Vol. 23, M31/1-18. New Zealand Letters, Auckland Public Library. Jackson, Moana. 2019. Brief evidence royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care. November 8. https://www.abuseincare.org.nz/assets/Uploads/ Documents/Public-­Hearings/Contextual/06-­Moana-­Jackson.pdf Jensz, Felicity. 2022. Missionaries and modernity: Education in the British empire, 1830–1910. In Studies in imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Kay-Shuttleworth, James P. 1847. Brief practical suggestions on the mode of organising and conducting day-schools of industry, model farm-schools and Normal schools, as part of a system of education for the coloured races of the British colonies. In Minutes of the committee of council on education: With appendices 1846, Volume 1, 56–71. London: W. Clowes and Sons. Kukutai, Tahu, Nepia Mahuika, Heeni Kani, Denise Ewe, and Karu Hura Kukutai. 2020. Survivance as narrative identity: Voices from Ngāti Tı ̄pa oral history project. Mai Journal: A New Zealand Journal of Indigenous Scholarship 9: 309–320.

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Lester, Alan, and Fae Dussart. 2014. Colonization and the origins of humanitarian governance: Protecting aborigines across the nineteenth-century British empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Letters, Archdeacon Robert Maunsell. (1810–1894). M173-M243, M1825-M1827, Records of the church missionary society 1799–1914. Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham. Lyttleton Times. 1864. July 19. Maunsell, Robert. 1849. Hints on schools amongst the Aboriginies of New Zealand. Auckland: St John’s College Press. Maunsel, Robert. 1842. A grammar of the New Zealand language. Auckland: J. Moore. Moon, Paul. 2019. The rise, success and dismantling of New Zealand’s Anglican-­ led Māori education system, 1814–64. Studies in Church History 55: 426–440. Nathan, Judith. 1973. An analysis of an industrial boarding school, 1847-1860: A phase in Maori education. New Zealand Journal of History 7: 47–59. New Zealand Education Ordinance. 1847. Education Act 1847 (11 Victoriae 1847 No 10). http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ea184711v1847n10224/. New Zealand Government. 1995. Waikato Raupatu claims settlement act 1995. https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1995/0058/latest/ DLM369893.html. O’Malley, Vincent. 2016. The great war for New Zealand: Waikato 1800–2000. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Orange, Claudia. 2010. The treaty of Waitangi. Ebook edition. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Salesa, Damon. 2011. Racial crossings: Race, intermarriage, and the Victorian British empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seth, Sanjay. 2007. Subject lessons: The Western education of colonial India. Durham: Duke University Press. Swartz, Rebecca. 2019. Education and empire: Children, race and humanitarianism in the British settler colonies, 1833–1880. Cambridge Imperial and Post-­ Colonial Studies London: Palgrave Macmillan. Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | The Human Rights Commission. 2022. Maranga Mai! The dynamics and impacts of white supremacy, racism, and colonisation upon Tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand. Wellington: New Zealand Human Rights Commission. Te Karere: Maori Messenger. 1853. A farewell address to governor grey. Te Karere: Maori Messenger, December, 29. The Daily Southern Cross. 1852. November 2. The New Zealander. 1852a. October 30. ———. 1852b. November 3. ———. 1853. February 23.

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Walker, Ranginui. 2016. Reclaiming Māori education. In Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, research, and practice, ed. Jessica Hutchings and Jenny Lee-Morgan, 19–38. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Practice. Wiley, Henry E.R.L., and Herbert Maunsell. 1983. Robert Maunsell LL.D, a New Zealand Pioneer: His life and times. Dunedin: A. H. & A. W. Reed.

CHAPTER 9

Spiritualities of Belonging and Intercultural Politics in Australia Mark G. Brett

The High Court of Australia unsettled our colonial history in 1992 when it discovered the existence of native title for the very first time. The story is familiar in some respects, and yet, the undercurrents of the legal history remain unknown in many quarters, and the implications of Mabo v. Queensland continue to be debated. As far as the plaintiffs were concerned, the validity of their claim to the Murray Islands was never in doubt; the continuity of law and custom in relation to the land remained intact, also when they embraced the arrival of Christianity in 1871. Preservation of ancestral land tenure was sanctioned in the Torres Strait not only by Prov 22:28—‘Do not move an everlasting boundary stone, set

An earlier version of this chapter was presented to the Australian Academy of Humanities symposium on ‘Citizenship, Diaspora and Belonging,’ Ballarat, November 17, 2022.

M. G. Brett (*) University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_9

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up by your ancestors’—but also by its parallel in the book of Deuteronomy (cf. McManus 2022; Paulson and Brett 2016). Some sceptical commentators may be tempted to see Indigenous legal systems and the embrace of Christianity as contradictory (e.g., Kelly 2014). There appears to be no end to the examples of scriptural warrants that have been turned against Indigenous rights, but in this chapter I will show how even colonial legal history has affirmed traditional law and custom with some Christian reasoning. Unsettling the colonial state is not a novel project. Recently, it was announced that the Vatican had renounced the Christian doctrine of discovery (Holy See 2023), although the wording of the communiqué raised a number of critical questions (McNeil 2023).1 Reading from an Australian context, it needs to be said that the notions of discovery in the papal formulations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have little legal relevance for Protestant spheres of influence. The papal announcement may have an impact on Catholic churches and institutions, but Australians live in a settler colonial state that was created under a Protestant Crown. Already in the sixteenth century, Elizabeth I had been drawn into colonial enterprises with a denial of the papal doctrine notably articulated by Richard Hakluyt in his 1584 Discourse on Western Planting (see Deane 1877; Grotius 1625). Moreover, the Australian Crown has now retreated so far into a hall of mirrors that it would be difficult to hold it to account, even if King Charles were to second the papal sentiments. In the federal Constitution, the people of Australia are termed subjects of the Queen and her successors, rather than citizens of a nation, and the document begins with a reference to the ‘Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.’ This is potentially confusing, in part because the Australia Acts of 1986 severed any practical legal connection to the United Kingdom (Dreyfus 2008). An untutored reader of the Constitution might wonder how this curious allegiance to a foreign Crown could be made sensible. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1764) put the problem nicely: the members of a society ‘take collectively the name people, and are separately called citizens, as partaking of the sovereign authority, and subjects as subjected to the laws of the state. These terms, indeed, are frequently 1  Robert J. Miller (2019) has identified ten key elements in the doctrine of discovery, but these elements are expressed in different ways depending on the historical context and jurisdiction: Christianity, civilization, first discovery, actual occupation, pre-emption, Indian/ native title, limited Indigenous sovereignty and commercial rights, contiguity, terra nullius, and conquest.

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confounded’ (23). In sum, the Constitution of 1901 lacks any coherent concepts of nationhood or citizenship, and the belated arrival of the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 only reinforces the point. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is very illuminating in the way it articulates the problem of sovereignty by distinguishing between two traditions of belonging. According to Megan Davis and George Williams (2021), the Uluru Statement places its emphasis on a spiritual notion in order to emphasize that this has never been ceded or extinguished, and neither will any future change to the Constitution have the effect of ceding sovereignty. This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’ and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown (181).

Any number of alternative definitions of spirituality and relationality might have been relevant, so why was this particular form of words adopted? The wording in question derives from the 1975 Western Sahara case in the International Court of Justice which provided an opinion on the legitimacy of Spanish jurisdiction over a territory to the south of Morocco. This wording was also quoted by Justice Brennan in the Mabo decision— not to make the point that sovereignty was never ceded, but only to refute the concept of terra nullius: This a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie… This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. This amounts to a denial of the very concept of terra nullius in the sense of a land which is capable of being appropriated by someone who is not born therefrom (Mabo v. Queensland 1992, 40, citing: ICJR 1975, 85–86).

In the context of the Mabo case, Justice Brennan did not conclude that the sovereignty of the Murray Islands ‘co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.’ Rather, he suggested that because the International Court of Justice had negated the expanded concept of terra nullius, the traditional rights and interests of the Murray Islanders should be recognized by the

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common law, while retaining the sovereignty of the Crown according to feudal principles. If we follow the trail of citations back through the Uluru Statement and Mabo to the arguments advanced by Judge Fouad Ammoun in the Western Sahara case, his conclusions were far more unsettling. He drew a distinction between material and spiritual sovereignties and concluded that a lack of attention to spiritual sovereignty had led to a number of injustices. The Berlin Conference of 1885 was highlighted in this connection, which Judge Ammoun had denounced in no uncertain terms in a previous case: It was a monstrous blunder and a flagrant injustice to consider Africa south of the Sahara as terrae nullius, to be shared out among the Powers for occupation and colonization, when even in the sixteenth century Vitoria had written that Europeans could not obtain sovereignty over the Indies by occupation, for they were not terra nullius (IJCR 1971, 86).

Judge Ammoun maintains that it is not simply that the expanded notion of terra nullius was legally flawed, but as a consequence, the acquisition of imperial sovereignty was invalid. This conclusion was not a matter of novel judicial activism, but rather, an orthodox example of canon law. In the hands of Francisco de Vitoria, Catholic legal arguments had been turned against the papal donations of territory, as well as the sovereignty of the Spanish Crown in the Indies (see Vitoria 1991). Since the government of Spain was a party in the Western Sahara case of 1975, this was no idle lesson in church history. The Spanish jurisdiction over the Western Sahara was denied because this African territory was not in fact terra nullius when it was claimed. Little wonder, then, that when Justice Quinlan offered his reflections on the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2018, he drew attention to its ‘generosity of spirit’ (6, 8). The Australian courts have repeatedly emphasized that there could be no sovereignty adverse to the Crown, yet here was the Uluru Statement quietly affirming the co-existence of spiritual sovereignty. It is very unlikely that Justice Quinlan was unaware of Vitoria’s legal arguments in the sixteenth century. Perhaps there was a measure of relief that the Uluru Statement did not seize on the more radical implications that were available in the opinions of the International Court of Justice. But instead of simply expressing gratitude for this outcome, Justice Quinlan took a remarkable theological leap and commented, gnomically:

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‘Even the sovereignty of the Crown, in its purest form, was expressed to come from divine right’ (2018, 8). This comment turns Judge Ammoun on his head, resurrecting a theological affirmation of Crown sovereignty instead of the Indigenous rights affirmed in Western Sahara. It is hard to take this sleight of hand seriously, in part because so much political theology has debunked the so-called divine right of kings, at least since the seventeenth century. John Milton, for example, advanced the principles of a so-called Hebrew republic, drawing on biblical and rabbinic texts (Nelson 2010; Parker 2015).2 But all such non-conformism is really beside the point, because Judge Ammoun gave his own perspective on the relevant church history in his opinion in Western Sahara, making a judicious choice from a very mixed bag of precedents. He simply disregarded the imperialist potential in Vitoria’s theory of just war and embraced only the denial of ‘discovery’ as a warrant for claiming territory. There was no endorsement of any of the imaged Spanish rights to travel and to preach the gospel—ius perigrinandi and ius praedicandi, to use Vitoria’s terminology—thus, Ammoun implicitly rejects the interpretation of Vitoria notoriously presented by Carl Schmitt (1950). It by no means follows, however, that the Western Sahara case puts an end to theology. There is in fact a theological argument in Judge Ammoun’s Opinion, with two main elements. First, there is the distinction between material and spiritual concepts of sovereignty, as already mentioned, with terra nullius linked to the material concept that was condemned by Vitoria and the Salamanca School. Secondly, Judge Ammoun argues quite explicitly that the closest Catholic analogy to spiritual sovereignty had nothing to do with a European Crown, but rather, with a Franciscan book on ‘Bantu philosophy’ authored by Placide Tempels in 1945. In this book, the judge found ‘a “striking analogy” with “that intense spiritual doctrine which quickens and nourishes souls within the Catholic Church”’ (ICLR 1975, 85). This quotation is evidently his own translation from the French edition, but the English translation of the relevant sentence in Bantu Philosophy has essentially the same content: ‘This intense spiritual doctrine, which animates and feeds the souls who are in the bosom of the Catholic Church, finds an arresting parallel in the ontological thought of the Bantu’ (Tempels 1959, 121; see also Kagame 1976; Mojola 2019). 2  In particular, 1 Sam 8:10–18 and Deut 17:14–20 were used to undermine the supposed divine right of kings.

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To be sure, Tempels was viewing an African ontology through the lens of a Franciscan tradition, which affirms intimate connections with the natural world (Sorrell 1988; Zimmermann 1996). And yet, the subsequent critiques of Placide Tempels hardly count against the radical conclusion that was drawn by Fouad Ammoun in the International Court of Justice (Dokman and Cornelli 2022). The point here is simply that St Francis would provide a better guide to spiritual sovereignty than any theology that might seek to legitimate the Crown. An invocation of the supposed divine right of kings would have Judge Ammoun’s argument exactly the wrong way around. Perhaps there was an assumption in Justice Quinlan’s remarks that British colonial jurisdictions in the late eighteenth century cannot be conflated with the Spanish imperialism from three centuries earlier. No doubt, that is an important consideration, but it is in the nature of legal argument to leap back through the centuries of precedent, as was evident for example in the Mabo judgement and in the Western Sahara opinion. Anxieties about anachronism might be put to rest by shunting Vitoria into the wings for a moment and considering instead a contribution from a lawyer named John Adams, writing in the Massachusetts Gazette in the 1770s, around the time of Captain Cook’s voyages down under. In the lead up to the War of Independence, Adams, future president of the United States, proclaimed that there were no valid sanctions, whether in biblical literature or the law of nations, that could adequately support English jurisdiction outside Great Britain. When King Henry VIII and his parliament threw off the authority of the pope, stripped his holiness of his supremacy, and invested it in himself by an act of parliament, he and his courtiers seemed to think that all the rights of the holy see were transferred to him; and it was a union of these two, (the most impertinent and fantastical ideas that ever got into a human pericranium, namely, — that, as feudal sovereign and supreme head of the church together, a king of England had a right to all the land his subjects could find, not possessed by any Christian state or prince, though possessed by heathen or infidel nations,) which seems to have deluded the nation about the time of the settlement of the colonies (Adams 1851, 125).

‘Discovery,’ Adams elaborates, ‘could give no title to the English king, by common law, or by the law of nature, to the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of the native Indians here’ (124–145). This was apparently the

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kind of truth that could be acknowledged as the American colonies were about to go to war with the English Crown, but then, was not acknowledged in the Mabo judgement of 1992—in which English feudal principles were reaffirmed alongside the enduring validity of native title. If Adams might also be dismissed at this point on the grounds that he had a conflict of interest, let us turn instead to the sober reflections of William Blackstone, whose venerable name is mentioned more than a dozen times in the Mabo judgement.

Blackstone’s Deconstructive Theology Given the affirmation of feudal title in Mabo, we can begin with Blackstone’s section ‘Of the Feodal System.’ He observes that this form of title was introduced gradually all across Europe, but with unusual haste in the case of Britain under William the Conqueror. In a single year, 1086, this tenure was secured under peculiar conditions, although ostensibly ‘by the common consent of the nation.’ It became a fundamental maxim, and necessary principle (though in reality a mere fiction) of our English tenures, “that the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom; and that no man doth or can possess any part of it, but what has, mediately or immediately, been derived as a gift from him, to be held upon feodal services.” For this being the real case in pure, original, proper feuds, other nations who adopted this system were obliged to act upon the same supposition, as a substruction and foundation of their new polity, though the fact was indeed far otherwise (Blackstone 2016b, 33).

Thus, astoundingly, we can conclude that feudal title was properly considered a ‘mere fiction’ in England, although it was indeed the law of the land. A footnote at this point then compares this English peculiarity to the biblical narrative in Genesis 47, where Pharaoh acquired dominion over all the lands in Egypt. The careful reader of Blackstone’s commentary will be left wondering what to make of this comparison between William the Conqueror and the biblical Pharaoh. Given the ironic tone of the discussion, one could reasonably conclude that neither Pharaoh nor William can be seen as unambiguously providential figures—especially if one takes the view that Pharaoh acquired the lands under dubious circumstances (cf. Ramantswana 2016; Brett 2000).

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Blackstone’s comments on feudalism are certainly ironic, but before drawing any more conclusions, let us first turn to the question of how he understood the divine right of kings. The question emerges in his discussion of the hereditary crisis when Elizabeth I died childless in 1603, bringing the line of Henry VIII to an end. The chosen successor was lauded by some parties at the time for supposedly representing a providential restoration of the Saxon royal line, which had been cut off in 1066 by the Norman invasion. But James VI of Scotland, who then became James I in 1603, was simultaneously a descendant of William the Conqueror, and thus he could lay claim to the royal Norman lineage as well. Blackstone’s commentary on this succession is framed in stingingly dry prose: And it is no wonder that a prince of more learning than wisdom [James I], who could deduce an hereditary title for more than eight hundred years, should easily be taught by the flatterers of the times to believe there was something divine in his right, and that the finger of Providence was visible in its preservation. Whereas, though a wise institution, it was clearly a human institution; and the right inherent in him no natural, but a positive, right.

The statute that recognized James as successor to Elizabeth I made no reference at all to a supposed divine right of kings: ‘Not a word here of any right immediately derived from Heaven; which, if it existed anywhere, must be sought for among the aborigines of the island, the ancient Britons’ (2016a, 136). We might be forgiven for inferring from Blackstone’s argument that heaven was therefore on the side of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who had a British Crown sovereignty forced upon them. On this point at least, there seems to be no great distance between the views of William Blackstone and Fouad Ammoun.3 Australian law has fallen short of the standard set even by William the Conqueror, who fabricated the consent of the landholders in 1086, let alone the standards of consent required subsequent theories of the social contract (Skinner 1978).

3  Blackstone held complex views about Indigenous property, so my ironic comment here relates specifically to his theological endorsement of the “ancient Britons”. See further, Somos 2019, 113–133.

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Spiritualities of Belonging The High Court of Australia has recently returned in a dramatic way to the topic of spiritual belonging in Love v. Commonwealth. By a thin margin, the Court resolved that even though the Aboriginal plaintiffs were not formally citizens under the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, neither could they be deported as aliens. Justice Edelman asserted that the antonym of ‘alien’ is not in fact ‘citizen’; rather, the antonym of alien is ‘belonger’ (Love v. Commonwealth 2020, 394, 437). He explains, ‘Since settlement, Aboriginal people have been inseparably tied to the land of Australia generally, and thus to the political community of Australia, with metaphysical bonds that are far stronger than those forged by the happenstance of birth on Australian land or the nationality of parentage’ (396). Reading this judgement through the lens of the Uluru Statement, one might conclude that ties to country that have been forged under a spiritual concept of sovereignty are in fact stronger than the citizenship bonds forged under allegiance to the Crown. The deconstructive potential in Justice Edelman’s reasoning is breath-taking, because it implies that statutory citizenship may lack the kind of spiritual strength that can be claimed by Indigenous people. Even migrant families who can trace their lineage back to 1788 cannot compete with the belonging constituted over two or three thousand generations. Pursuing the logic of Love v. Commonwealth a little further, I would suggest that all non-Indigenous communities embody diaspora identities, more or less—always linked historically in some way to distant lands. These multiple transnational links are reflected especially in the communal practices centred on churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples, and explicitly so when each religious tradition maintains links with sacred memories in perhaps Jerusalem, Rome, Mecca, Bodh Gaya, or Varanasi, but also with the Chin hills in central Burma, or ancestral villages in Samoa or South Sudan. It is clear that recent migrants often hold on to meaning, purpose and connectedness in their lives by sustaining links with religious communities (e.g., Pallotta-Chiarolli and Ricatti 2022; Weng, et al. 2022). But the transnational social capital possessed by religious traditions is also revealed in the practices and polities of the largest and oldest Christian denominations, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. If the federal Constitution of 1901 is to be considered the birth certificate of an Australian nation, as is sometimes suggested, this would imply an infant nation who from the beginning inherited hundreds of cultural

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traditions. The newly federated people were not citizens of a single nation; they were subjects of the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. And they were overtly racialized subjects of the Crown. As W. E. B. DuBois wrote in 1910: ‘Wave upon wave, each with increasing virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores of our time’ (339; see also Lake and Reynolds 2008). A peculiar wave of whiteness came ashore at Gallipoli just five years after DuBois wrote his classic essay ‘The Souls of White Folk.’ Rather than the Australian Constitution of 1901, it was this fateful military campaign would later become a regular focus of national memory. The solidarity formed at Gallipoli was, it should be said, not initially a matter of national identity (Beaumont 2014). This is clear from a speech given in Bendigo on Anzac Day 1917 by Prime Minister Billy Hughes. In this and other speeches at the time, his own Welsh identity was explicitly folded into the solidarities constituted by empire and whiteness, not with an explicit theology but certainly with all the markers of civil religion: On this day of Anzac the word “Empire” assumed a new and nobler meaning for us and for the world … the deathless story of the Gallipoli campaign will be sung in immortal verse, inspiring us and generations of Australians and New Zealanders yet unborn with pride of race, courage, tenacity of purpose, endurance, and that casting out of fear without which men, though boasting themselves free, are but wretched slaves … Into a world saturated with a lust of material things, which had elevated self into a deity, which had made wealth the standard of greatness, comes the sweet purifying breath of self-sacrifice (11).

The ironies in this Bendigo speech are legion. Commemorating heroic death in battle is not a biblical tradition (Wright 2011), but the contrast between material and spiritual values which resonates in some respects with classical Hellenistic spirituality, alongside the secularized Christology, is unmistakable. The invocation of classical motifs serves here to fuse originally quite separate ethnicities—especially the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh—a fusion catalysed in battle on foreign soil, while marginalizing the minority groups who participated (Mol 1971). In this synthesis of diaspora identities, the belonging constituted by an imperial Crown took priority, for example, over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identities. Accordingly, Aboriginal people who served in the

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Great War were not eligible for soldier settlement lands when they returned home, including those who returned to their mission churches (Lee 2019).

In Lieu of a Conclusion It would be tempting to conclude with reference to the three matters of state suggested in the Uluru Statement from the Heart: a Voice to Parliament, Makarrata and a truth-telling process (Loughrey 2023). The Mabo case maintained the assumption that the Crown acquired sovereignty over the entire continent and its islands, thus denying the Indigenous sovereignties that would be essential to treaty making. Under these circumstances, it would certainly be interesting to explore the possibility that spiritual sovereignty might then become the basis of treaty making, as suggested by former Chief Justice Robert French (2018). A risk in this line of argument is that it still leaves the churches off the hook (Deverell 2022). I want to focus, therefore, on the responsibility of the churches, and reflect for a moment on the proposals of Bartholomé de las Casas in the last years of his life. In letters written to the Royal Council of the Indies and to Pope Pius V, Las Casas argued that the church should be obliged by natural and divine law, as in fact they are, to restitute all the gold, silver, and precious stones they have acquired, for their wealth is taken from human beings who endure extreme need and who today live in misery, with whom, by divine and natural law, they are even beholden to share their own possessions (cited in Rivera-Pagan 2014, 25–26).

We might be inclined to dismiss a letter written in 1566 to a pope who has no relevance to an English doctrine of discovery. But even a modest amount of moral imagination could grasp some analogies here. For example, it would be difficult to resist the implication that the benefits accrued over time—notably by land grants of the Crown to the missions and churches—should be renounced. Economic restitution would be just one part of a more complex process of seeking justice through Makarrata and truth-telling, but from a Lascasian point of view, this would be an ineluctable part of penance or reconciliation (Lantigua 2020). This would not be a matter of performative apologies such as we have seen in the past. Preliminary research would need to clarify the history of land grants to churches and the economic benefits that such grants have

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yielded. The details of returning or renting land would be complex when it comes to identifying the rightful traditional owners, no doubt, but complexity is not a defence when it comes to truth-telling. Some local churches might be able to act more independently than others, depending on the legal and ecclesial structures at issue in each case. Building the necessary relationships with local traditional owner institutions would unfold differently in different contexts, and discussions about reparations would need to be mindful of power imbalances. Restorative justice processes entail relational and institutional transformation into the future, rather than simply episodic transactions. In my home state of Victoria, it will be possible for churches to support the treaty process that is already on foot, as we wait to see how the national aspirations of the Uluru Statement from the Heart play out at the federal level. But the churches will need to be held accountable for their own histories, regardless of what might be achieved by state and federal parliaments. It might be objected that the churches received their historic land grants in ‘good faith,’ and accordingly, the present state of the law would find nothing worthy of litigation. That may be true as a narrow point of law, but a good conscience would need to pursue the issue further. Interestingly, the legal terminology of ‘good faith’ in relation to landholdings seems to have arisen in thirteenth century canon law, with some inspiration drawn from Rom 14:23 (Hemholz 1995, 1996). One ambiguous form of land title was deemed to be analogous to Paul’s discussion of food offered to idols: ‘But those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, because they do not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.’ By implication, if there were moral doubts about the use of land, then this was considered a theological problem. In our case, the relevant idolatry would be terra nullius, and the associated denial of Indigenous sovereignties. In the past, the churches in Australia may not have harboured questions about the legitimacy of their land grants, but that is no longer the case. We now have subsequent knowledge about the failures of the law itself, and our consciences cannot be mollified by submerging them under the tide of history. Hiding behind the present state of the law cannot be an example of good faith. In the Mabo case, it was considered unthinkable to undo the Crown’s grant of land to the London Missionary Society without fracturing the feudal ‘skeleton of principle’ that ‘gives the body of our law its shape and consistency’ (Mabo v. Queensland 1992, 29). But far from fracturing the skeletal principles of Christian theology, the churches have an

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opportunity to regain the proper shape and consistency that has been lost by appropriating the benefits of colonial injustices. In this respect, a selfemptying church would reveal a belonging to Christ, rather than a belonging to the colonial state.

References Adams, Charles Francis, ed. 1851. The works of John Adams, second president of the United States. Vol. IV. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown. Beaumont, Joan. 2014. ‘Unitedly we have fought’: Imperial loyalty and the Australian war effort. International Affairs 90: 397–412. Blackstone, William. 2016a. In Commentaries on the Laws of England, book I: The rights of persons, ed. David Lemmings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016b. In Commentaries on the Laws of England, book II: Of the rights of things, ed. Simon Stern. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brett, Mark G. 2000. Genesis: Procreation and the politics of identity. London: Routledge. Davis, Megan, and George Williams. 2021. Everything you need to know about the Uluru statement from the heart. Sydney: New South Publishing. Deane, Charles, ed. 1877. Documentary history of the state of Maine: Discourse on Western planting. Vol. 2. Cambridge: John Wilson and Son. Deverell, Garry. 2022. ‘For your sakes he became poor …’: How the churches can reckon with their colonial legacy. ABC Religion and Ethics, October 23. https://www.abc.net.au/religion/churches-­and-­their-­colonial-­legacy-­garrydeverell/14091754. Dokman, Frans, and Evaristi Magoti Cornelli, eds. 2022. Beyond bantu philosophy: Contextualizing Placide Tempels’s initiative in African thought. London: Routledge. Dreyfus, Mark. 2008. Reforming our constitution: A roundtable discussion. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. DuBois, W. E. B. 1910. The souls of white folk. Independent, August 18. French, Robert. 2018. Simple justice—Recognition and sovereignty. National Aboriginal Legal Conference, University of Western Australia, September 25. Grotius, Hugo. 1625 On Unjust Causes of Wars. In De Jura Belli ac Pacis, II.22. IX. Paris. Hemholz, R.H. 1995. The bible in the Service of the Canon law. Chicago-Kent Law Review 70: 1557–1581. ———. 1996. The spirit of classical canon law. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Joint Statement of the Dicasteries for Culture and Education and for Promoting Integral Human Development on the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’. 2023. Holy see

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press office, https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/ pubblico/2023/03/30/230330b.html. Kagame, Alexis. 1976. La philosophie bantu compare. Paris: Présence africaine. Kelly, Danial. 2014. Foundational sources and purposes of Authority in Madayin. Victoria University Law and Justice Journal 4: 25–47. Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds. 2008. Drawing the global colour line: White Men’s countries and the question of racial equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lantigua, David. 2020. Infidels and empires in a New World order: Early modern Spanish contributions to international legal thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, Tim. 2019. ‘They were back to being black’: The land withheld from returning Indigenous soldiers. ABC News, April 13. https://www.abc.net.au/ news/2019-­04-­14/land-­withheld-­from-­indigenous-­anzacs/10993680. Loughrey, Glenn. 2023. Unpacking the statement from the heart: A personal perspective from a Wiradjuri man. Canberra: Crawford School of Public Policy. Love v. Commonwealth of Australia, Thoms v. Commonwealth of Australia. 2020. High court of Australia 3. http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-­bin/viewdoc/au/ cases/cth/HCA/2020/3.html. Mabo and others v. Queensland (No. 2). 1992. High court of Australia 23. 175 Commonwealth Law Reports [CLR] 1. http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-­bin/ viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1992/23.html. McManus, Justin. 2022. Thirty years after Mabo ruling, Mer Islanders celebrate native title milestone. Sydney Morning Herald, June 5. McNeil, Kent. 2023. The Vatican is distorting history around the doctrine of discovery. The Globe and Mail, April 4. Miller, Richard J. 2019. The doctrine of discovery: The international law of colonialism. The Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture and Resistance 5: 35–42. Mojola, Aloo Osotsi. 2019. Ubuntu in the Christian theology and praxis of Archbishop Desmond tutu and its implications for global justice and human rights. In Ubuntu and the reconstitution of community, ed. James Ogude, 21–39. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Mol, Hans. 1971. Religion in Australia: A Sociological Investigation. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson. Mr Hughes on the Heroes of Anzac. 1917. Bendigonian, April 25. Nelson, Eric. 2010. The Hebrew republic: Jewish sources and the transformation of European political thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. de Vitoria, Franciso. 1991. On the American Indians. In Vitoria: Political writings, ed. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria, and Francesco Ricatti. 2022. Migrant lives on first nation land: Greek-Australian memories of Titjikala in the 1960s. Journal of Intercultural Studies 43: 525–557. Parker, Kim Ian. 2015. ‘A king like other nations’: Political theory and the Hebrew Republic in the early modern age. In The Oxford handbook of the bible in early modern England, ed. Kevin Killeen, Helen Smith, and Rachel Willie, 384–396. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paulson, Graham, and Mark Brett. 2016. Five smooth stones: Reading the bible through aboriginal eyes. In Voices from the margin: 25th Anniversary Edition, ed. R.S. Sugirtharajah, 61–76. Maryknoll: Orbis. Quinlan, Peter. 2018. Co-existing Sovereignties? Reflections on the 13th National Indigenous Legal Conference. University of Western Australia. September 26. Ramantswana, Hulisani. 2016. Decolonizing biblical hermeneutics in the (South) African context. AcTSup 24: 178–203. Rivera-Pagan, Luis N. 2014. A prophetic challenge to the church: The last word of Bartholomé de Las Casas. In Essays from the margins, 1–26. Cambridge: Lutterworth. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1764. A treatise on the social contract: Or the principles of politic law. London: T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt. Schmitt, Carl. 1950. Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Separate Opinion of Vice-President Ammoun. 1971. Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970). International Court of Law Reports [ICJR], https://www.icj-­cij.org/case/53. ———. 1975. Western Sahara. International Court of Law Reports [ICJR], https://www.icj-­cij.org/case/61. Skinner, Quentin. 1978. The foundations of modern political thought. In The age of reformation, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Somos, Mark. 2019. American states of nature: The origins of Independence, 1761–1775. New York: Oxford University Press. Sorrell, Roger D. 1988. St. Francis of Assisi and nature: Tradition and innovation in Western Christian attitudes toward the environment. New  York: Oxford University Press. Tempels, Placide. 1945. La Philosophie bantoue. Élisabethville: Éditions Lovania. ———. 1959. Bantu philosophy. Trans. Margaret Read. Paris: Présence Africaine. Weng, Enqi, Anna Halafoff, Danielle Campbell, William Abur, Gary Bouma, and Greg Barton. 2022. Whiteness, religious diversity and relational belonging: Opportunities and challenges for African migrants in Australia. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 34: 289–313.

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Wright, Jacob L. 2011. Making a name for oneself: Martial valour, heroic death, and procreation in the Hebrew bible. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 36: 131–162. Zimmerman, Francis. 1996. Why Haldane went to India. In Decolonizing knowledge: From development to dialogue, ed. Frédérique Apffel-Marglin and Stephen A. Marglin, 279–305. Oxford: Clarendon.

CHAPTER 10

To Conquer and Subdue: An Ecological Reading of Wilderness in Jeremiah 17:5–8 and Beyond Emily Colgan

In his now infamous work, The British Colonisation of New Zealand (1837), colonial mastermind Edward Gibbon Wakefield rhetorically asked: ‘Is it not the will of God that the earth should be replenished and subdued, that the desert should give rise to the fruitful field…?’ (417)1 The language and imagery employed by Wakefield, which sets the fertile field against the desert land, is echoed in the rhetoric of other nineteenth century British colonists in Aotearoa, who similarly drew on a dualistic wilderness(desert)/garden(fertile field) logic as a powerful symbolic tool to further their colonial endeavours. While it is difficult to establish a definitive intertextual connection between images of land found in the 1

 In asking this question, Wakefield quotes ‘MA of Trinity College Cambridge.’

E. Colgan (*) St John’s Theological College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_10

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Bible and the language employed by nineteenth century British colonists, it seems plausible that these settlers were drawing—implicitly or explicitly—on a similar binary found in biblical literature. Given the settler use of biblical texts to scaffold the colonial project, this chapter sets out to explore the possible connections between the wilderness/garden dichotomy in the Bible and a similar rhetoric employed by nineteenth century British colonists. I will therefore begin by using an Eco-Rhetorical methodology to critically examine Jer 17:5–8, a text where this binary seems particularly pronounced. I will then attempt to trace intertextual echoes of this biblical imagery, noting the role such language may have played in dictating the terms of encounter between British settlers and the land of Aotearoa. Finally, I will offer a counter-reading of this biblical passage and briefly explore how these reflections might assist churches in confronting the ongoing effects of colonial injustice in Aotearoa.2

Jeremiah 17:5–8: An Eco-Rhetorical Reading Most commentators agree that these verses comprise a psalm with a distinctive wisdom orientation, contrasting the righteous and the wicked (Brueggemann 1998; Holladay 1986; Lundbom 1999; Stulman 2005). While it is clear that Jeremiah is speaking, the messenger formula in v 5 suggests the divine endorsement of this imagery, which draws parallels between the curse of a tree in a wilderness and those who trust in mortals, and the blessings of a tree beside water and those who trust in YHWH. Rather than explore the moral implications emerging from the polarities of approved-of and disapproved-of behaviour in this literature, however, I remain within the confines of Jer 17:5–8, focusing on the way in which the land and its inhabitants become a metaphor for these ideas. ̄  Kei te noho au i Tāmaki Makaurau, i tipu mai au kei raro i te taumarumaru o Ohinerau, ā, i te taha o te Waitemata.̄ Ko Ngati Whatua o Orakei te mana whenua, te iwi whakaruruhau. Ko tenei ̄ te mihi nunui ki a rātou katoa. This is a brief greeting and acknowledgement of tangata whenua (the people of the land) who are kaitaiaki (guardians) of Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), where I reside. I read and write as a Pākehā (non-Māori) whose family have been manuhiri (guests) in Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand) for eight generations. I am deeply cognisant of the many ways in which my ancestors were complicit in and benefited from the colonisation of Aotearoa. As one of their descendants, I also benefit from and am, all too often, complicit in this ongoing colonial legacy. I am committed to the radical decolonisation of Aotearoa, and I see this work as part of that broader kaupapa (agenda). 2

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A poem of four one-verse stanzas comprises this unit, forming two contrasting sections.3 Stanzas one and three focus on the relationship between the mortal individual and YHWH, and the curse/blessing imagery creates a neat symmetry between these respective verses. This symmetry clearly establishes the curse associated with rejecting YHWH and the blessing that emerges from faithfulness: Stanza I

v5

Stanza III

v7

Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in     mere mortals  and make mere flesh their     strength,  whose hearts turn away from    the LORD. Blessed are those who trust    in the LORD,  whose trust is the LORD.

It is, however, stanzas two and four that require closer inspection, as land-based imagery is drawn upon to describe these contrasting human individuals. As in the previous stanzas, the first line of v 6 matches the first of v 8, introducing the image of a tree and its surrounding environment. As the parallel imagery between these stanzas unfolds, so the trees and their environmental contexts are contrasted—the parched and barren wilderness is portrayed as an instrument of divine curse, while the implied abundance of the fertile land reflects YHWH’s blessing: Stanza II

v6

They shall be like a shrub in     the desert,  and shall not see when relief     comes. They shall live in the parched

3  An independent and artistically well-rounded unit, Jer 17:5–8 does not seem to be intrinsically connected to the surrounding material. The upper limit of the poem is indicated by a setumah (symbolising a break in the text) prior to v 5. While there is no such delimitation after v 8, the shift in tone, content, and sentence structure in v 9 indicates the beginning of a separate unit. It is also interesting to note a setumah at the end of v 6, dividing the curse portion from the blessing portion of the poem. Given the complementary nature of these verses, however, it seems unlikely that they were once separate units; rather, the setumah seems to function to highlight the difference between curse and blessing.

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Stanza IV

v8

    places of the wilderness,  in an uninhabited salt land. They shall be like a tree planted     by water,  sending out its roots by    the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes,  and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is    not anxious,  and it does not cease to bear     fruit.

Central to the metaphor that illustrates the contrast between curse and blessing, then, are images of the ‫( עַ ְרעָ ר‬shrub) in v 6 and the ‫( עֵ ץ‬tree) in v 8, who represent the cursed individual and the blessed individual respectively.4 Although these analogies rely on the figures of the shrub and the tree, these plants cannot be separated from their respective environs, which enable life or death/blessing or curse. A connection between the ‫עַ ְרעָ ר‬ (shrub), the desert, and the notion of curse, for example, is immediately evident in the assonance of these three terms. The repetition of the resh sound associates with these words a sense of dread that will come to define the first half of the poem: v 5 ‫( ָארּור‬to curse) v 6 ‫( כְ עַ ְרעָ ר ָבעֲ ָר ָבה‬like a shrub in the desert)

Nuancing this description is the ambiguity of ‫עַ ְרעָ ר‬, a rare word in Hebrew whose pattern of use here allows for a range of interpretations.5 Not only does this term denote the small tamarisk or juniper bush, it is also used to mean ‘destitute,’ (Ps 102:18)6 ‘stripped’ or ‘laid bare’ (Isa  The primary focus of this textual analysis will be on the poem’s second stanza and its representation of wilderness. Although I will make references to the fertile land implied in the fourth stanza, these references will be in relation to the depiction of wilderness. 5  The LXX for example, has agriomyrike ̄ (wild tamarisk). Other translations include ‘bush’ (NIV), ‘scrub’ (NJB) and ‘heath’ (ASV, KJV). I prefer the NRSV translation of ‘shrub.’ 6  McKane (1986) does not find any shrub imagery in Jer 17:6. Instead he argues that ‫ַע ְר ָער‬ be translated as ‘destitute.’ For McKane, the image thus refers to a destitute person who knows nothing of the good life and suffers a solitary existence in wasteland. Given the symmetry of the poem in so many regards, and the clear reference to a tree in v 8, I retain the balancing image of the shrub in v 6. 4

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23:13; 32:11), and ‘childless’ (Gen 15:2; 20:20–21). By exploiting the multiple meanings of a single word, this phrase not only introduces the metaphorical subject of stanzas two and four but also hints at the plight of those who are cursed. Through this wordplay, the text also indirectly depicts the land upon which the shrub depends. It introduces an association between the desert and infertility, which connects this land with ideas of hopelessness and death. Symmetrical juxtaposition is achieved in v 8 as the image of the shrub is contrasted with that of the tree that ‘does not cease to bear fruit.’ If the land associated with the shrub is barren and empty, then the land of the fruitful tree is lush and fecund. Following this pattern of balance and contrast, the image of the ‫עֲ ָר ָבה‬ (desert) and its negative connotations in Jer 17:6 is contrasted with a land of ‫( ַמיִ ם‬water) and ‫יּובל‬ ַ (streams) in v 8. Heightened separation is achieved between these two types of land as the heat of the desert and its associated drought is set against the cool moisture of a land blessed by precipitation. This distinction is developed in the third colon of the second stanza as further insight into the nature of this ‫ עֲ ָר ָבה‬is offered in the description of this place as a ‫( ִמ ְד ָבר‬wilderness)7 with parched or burned places.8 The suggestion of heat in the desert now becomes explicit as the wilderness is imagined being burned or scorched by the sun. This image is then balanced by one of moisture implied in the ‫( עָ לֵ הּו ַרעֲ נָ ן‬green leaves) of the blessed tree in v 8 that ‘does not fear’ when ‫( חֺם‬heat) comes. In the same way that the fertile soil enables fruitful abundance and is a source of blessing, so the parched land of the desert/wilderness is a place of scorching heat and death, making it the means by which YHWH’s curse is implemented. Definitive confirmation of the connection between the wilderness and the notion of curse is evident in the wordplay of the final designation of this wilderness as a ‫( ֶא ֶרץ ְמלֵ ָחה‬salt land, v 6). ‫ ְמלֵ ָחה‬translates to mean both ‘salt’ and ‘to be barren,’ reiterating the infertility associated with the image of the ‫( עַ ְרעָ ר‬shrub), but now extending this association to the greater wilderness. As an indication of the unsuitability of soil for cultivation, the 7  Although the assonant potential of ‫ עֲ ָר ָבה‬makes this term an understandable rhetorical choice for the description of the cursed land, the use of ‫ ִמ ְד ָבר‬in the same verse suggests these words are being used synonymously (cf. 1 Sam 23:24; Is 35:6; 41:19; 51:3). 8  A hapax legomenon, ‫ ֲח ֵר ִרים‬is a source of much uncertainty, but is typically translated as ‘parched places’ due to the understanding that the term is derived from the verb ‫ח ַרר‬, ָ meaning ‘to burn.’ Cf. Job 30:30; Jer 6:29; Ezek 15:4–5; 24:11. Slight variations in translation include ‘scorched places’ (Lundbom 1999, p. 784), and ‘stony (lava) fields’ (Holladay 1986, p. 489).

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presence of salt in the land emphasises again the inhospitable nature of the wilderness, an impression that is underlined in the claim that this land is ‫( ל ֹא ֵת ֵשב‬without inhabitant).9 The lack of productive potential in the saline land ensures a negative designation is incurred, a point emphasised by the abundance of fruit associated with its blessed counterpart in v 8. Like a barren woman unable to conform to the expectations of patriarchal social norms through reproduction, so this land does not adhere to the anthropocentric demand that it be of cultivable use. In this sense, the land itself becomes the curse. As it is without seed, salt gives symbolic expression to the notion of infertility, representing a land that has been relegated to perpetual desolation in that it is both the subject and object of divine curse. Indeed, this concept is not without precedent, recalling particularly the land that was made barren by salt in the tradition of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24–26; Deut 29:22–23; Zep 2:9; see also Ps 107:34). As the symbolic amalgam of curse, punishment, drought, infertility, and death, the wilderness epitomises the subordinate term of the dualistic hierarchies and typifies that which the dominant western consciousness finds abhorrent. It is the ‘Other’ against which the western human identity has traditionally been defined. By virtue of its otherness, the wilderness is a threatening presence, requiring humanity to recognise their inherent vulnerability and to acknowledge their dependence upon the land for survival. The association of wilderness with drought, infertility, and death forces human beings to confront their lack of authority and control in the world, and to face their own finitude in death. Given the rhetorical power of this symbol to induce fear and panic, it is hardly surprising that the image of the wilderness is synonymous with divine displeasure; and it is no wonder that this land is understood as an instrument of curse upon those who neglect their deity. By being depicted as the means by which God communicates displeasure, the wilderness appears as an instrument or ‘tool’ within this text. If the wilderness conditions described represent the instruments of God’s curse, it follows that these conditions must in themselves be considered inherently undesirable. The characteristics of wilderness depicted here, then, reflect for humanity an outward expression of the divine curse upon 9  Variations on this phrase are used frequently throughout Jeremiah to express a similar sentiment. Without exception, the lack of inhabitants is linked with the land’s desolation and destruction: Jer 2:6, 15; 4:7; 9:9 [Eng 10], 10 [Eng 11]; 26:9; 34:22; 44:22; 46:19; 51:29, 37.

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those whose ‘hearts turn away from YHWH’ (Jer 17:5). The wilderness is a place of punishment and as a symbol of judgement, it becomes synonymous with the wrath of God. To assign agency to the wilderness in carrying out such judgement implies the willingness or cooperation of both parties involved. The subjectivity required for such agency, however, is denied to the wilderness in this passage and the land seems little more than a vassal whose environs are the vehicle for divine retribution. Wilderness, then, has no inherent value in and of itself; rather, its value lies in its use to God as a communicative device. Through its association with concepts of disobedience and judgement, the wilderness becomes a moral category conceived in itself to be ‘a punishment and a necessary transitory stage in the restoration of Israel to its ideal setting’ (Talmon 1966, 37). In other words, the wilderness represents a state of temporary incompletion and as such, it awaits its transformation into the idealised garden.10 In addition to the physical distinctions between the garden and the wilderness, these two types of land are further differentiated by their moral and spiritual nuances. The connection between wilderness and punishment, for example, is underscored by the absence of YHWH in the ‘cursed’ stanzas (vv 5–6). And this absence is made all the more conspicuous by the repetition of ‫( יהוה‬YHWH) and ‫ָב ַטח‬ (to trust) in a chiasmus that introduces the stanzas concerning the land of abundant fruit (vv 7–8): v7

(in YHWH) ‫( ַביהוה‬to trust) ‫ָברּוְך ַהגֶ ֶבר ֲא ֶשר ְיִב ַטח‬    (to trust) ‫( ִמ ְב ַטחֺו‬in YHWH) ‫וְ ָהיָ ה יהוה‬

If the wilderness is not an ultimate symbol or goal in itself, but rather a liminal place that presents a barrier to both God and garden, transformation of this space becomes a moral imperative. As a barrier or impediment, the wilderness is vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation in the name of transformation and betterment.11

10  Brown (1999) refers to the wilderness as ‘terra reformanda,’ a land poised for transformation. He suggests the Garden of Eden as a model of land to which the wilderness must return. 11  Indeed, Beisner (1997) argues that the task of humanity is to ‘transform wilderness into garden,’ bringing the world from primordial to eschatological glory (13, 127).

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From Text to Context: Jer 17:5–8 and Its Colonial Reverberations From an analysis of the Jeremianic representations of garden and wilderness, my reading shifts to explore the extent to which such images were appropriated by British colonists to inform understandings of land in Aotearoa New Zealand. Recognising with Berry (1990) that every written text draws upon older works more or less consciously, this intertextual analysis attempts to identify possible points of connection between these ancient Hebraic images and attitudes towards land in Aotearoa. In this, I begin by focussing on literature that has emerged out of New Zealand’s colonial era. By engaging with texts from this context, I seek to listen closely for the evocation of Jeremianic memories of wilderness and garden, and will touch upon the ways in which this rhetoric has shaped the environmental histories of this whenua (land). The vast majority of the references to garden and wilderness found in New Zealand literature appear in the writings of early European settler communities, which began the process of colonisation from the mid-­ nineteenth century. As is the case in other colonised lands, the British colonial enterprise in Aotearoa brought large-scale environmental devastation as, in the words of William Fox, settlers came to ‘lay the basis of a true civilization, not only to subdue nature and till the soil; but impelled by Anglo-Saxon ardour and energy, to develop all that [is] worthy of development’ (Hector 1875, 2).12 The practice of radical ecological destruction was conscious and blatant as colonists set themselves in combat against the surrounding environment, working to realise Premier Julius Vogel’s vision of New Zealand as the ‘Britain of the South’ in both function and appearance (quoted in King 2003, 433).13

12  William Fox became the principal agent of the New Zealand Company (a British business focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand) and was Premier of Aotearoa at various times (1856, 1861–1862, 1869–1872, 1873). 13  Premier Vogel’s Land Act of 1877 required landowners to ‘bring it [the land] into cultivation,’ which meant clearing the forest as quickly as possible. Indeed, the prevailing attitude of nineteenth and early twentieth century colonists was summed up in 1907 by ethnologist Elsdon Best who was of the opinion that ‘a people settling in a forest country must destroy the forest or it will conquer them’ (quoted in Park 1999, 193). The combination of fire and axe meant that by the 1930s, almost all the lowland forests in New Zealand had been destroyed (Park 1995).

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The appearance of wilderness/garden references at this time is unsurprising on two levels. Firstly, prior to European contact—and indeed to this day—there was no direct equivalent word for or concept of ‘wilderness’ in Māori communities. Secondly, the emergence of these biblically grounded images of land coincides with a period of New Zealand history marked by a strong, Christian missionary presence, and an increasing number of British settlers who, if not practising Christians, were well-­ versed in biblical teaching by virtue of their heritage. As these groups sought to articulate their encounters with this new land, it is not unexpected that they did so by employing the value-laden categories of their ancient scriptures. Echoes of the Jeremianic image of wilderness are particularly prevalent in the descriptions of land by colonial settlers who depict Aotearoa as a desolate and barren place, without human inhabitants. Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary, Thomas Chapman, for example, bemoans that ‘it has many, many times been grief of mind to see thousands of acres of land lying waste and miles of country desolate and entirely uninhabited’ (quoted in Shepard 1969, 23). Similar echoes are captured in nineteenth-­ century colonial poetry, such as that of William Pember Reeves whose poem, ‘A Colonist in His Garden’ (quoted in Reeves 2000, 14–18), depicts New Zealand as a ‘desert’ (lines 57, 64), a ‘wilderness’ (line 65), and a ‘silent waste’ (line 76). Evoking the sentiment of Jer 17:6 which depicts the wilderness as uninhabited, Reeves goes on to claim that the islands of New Zealand are ‘Wide, empty plains’ (line 82), as ‘empty as their deep’ (line 10), and that they comprise ‘a land without a past’ (lines 13, 79), without ‘man, nor beast, nor tree’ (line 81), where ‘none before have stood’ (line 58). Like Jeremiah, then, these nineteenth-century colonists present a wilderness wasteland characterised by an absence of human occupation, although such emptiness extends here to imply a land preserved for colonial development.14 By depicting the wilderness in this way, however, both the colonial rhetoric and its Jeremianic memories reject the existence of an Indigenous human population as well as Indigenous other-­ than-­human ecosystems in this land. The colonial denial of these communities thus shifts their depiction from geographical descriptions of an agriculturally unexploited region to an ethnocentric and anthropocentric 14  This idea gained expression more broadly in the colonial doctrine of terra nullius (the empty land), which claimed that the land God gave to human beings was originally ‘empty’ and thus available to be conquered by European invaders.

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ontological assertion of wilderness as all that exists outside the domain of ‘civilised’ society, awaiting transformation by willing settlers. Thus, the wilderness and its inhabitants are understood to exist in a temporary state, anticipating the ‘betterment’ of colonial ‘rescue.’ Moreover, it is also not uncommon to find references in New Zealand’s colonial writings that reflect a connection between the wilderness and divine displeasure/curse. Writing in 1840, for example, British surgeon William Barrett Marshall wrote, ‘when… any place is left desolate by man, it becomes a waste… no longer a well-watered garden, but a wild and weary wilderness. The Christian spectator will remember that the barrenness by which he is surrounded is the curse laid by a merciful but holy God’ (quoted in Shepard 1969, 21). By depicting the wilderness as desolate, empty, and forsaken by God, the conquest and transformation of this country became a moral imperative for many of these settlers, the land representing the chaos of that which exists outside the realm of God and Christendom. Of course, it was not only the physical ‘wilderness’ that was located by the colonial mind on the subordinate side of the wilderness/garden hierarchy. The interconnected web of inferior Others extended here to include Indigenous communities, implicitly subsumed under the generic motif of the passive receivers of colonial conquest and ‘betterment.’ The sovereignty and agency of the land’s Māori inhabitants were consistently rejected by settlers, and the subordinate status of Māori within the colonial logic bound them to the wilderness context. Thomas Chapman, for example, identified Māori and wilderness as being parts of the same unsatisfactory state, writing that the ‘wilds [were] but too true a counterpart of the inhabitants that possess it’ (quoted in Shepard 1969, 27). A similar intertwining of Māori and wilderness is seen in the words of the Wesleyan missionary Cort Schnackenberg who in 1844 advised Māori, ‘if you find your mind [or] your heart to be a wilderness, cultivate it in the same manner as you do you fields, cut down the bush… spare no sin’ (quoted in Park 2006, 107). Indeed, it seems it was the combination of a dualistic conceptual reality and a value-laden concept of wilderness embedded deep within the colonial consciousness that lay  beneath the readiness with which many British saw Māori as ‘reeking of primitive savagery’ (Park 2006, 107). Like the larger wilderness context of which they were perceived to be a part, Māori were to be subjected to the transformative ‘betterment’ of English ‘civilisation.’

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In many contexts, this colonial ‘betterment’ of the wilderness resulted in Māori alienation from their land, as settlers maintained that no one could claim dominion over uncultivated lands whose soil did not bear the marks of their labour on it. In 1844, for example, Cort Schnackenberg insisted that ‘Wilderness land… is worth nothing to its native owners… Absolutely they would suffer little or nothing from having parted with land which they do not use’ (quoted in Park 2006, 107).15 Uncultivated land was wilderness, and as the colonial cultural and religious symbol stipulated, wilderness was empty of civilised human existence and was thus without any claim of ownership. Not only did this British ‘wilderness ideology’ result in significant changes to the physical landscape of Aotearoa New Zealand, it also brought about widespread raupatu (confiscation) of Indigenous land which would have devastating implications for the social, economic, and political well-being of Māori communities.16 More than a century later, Rowley Te Whenua Habib (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rungarangi) explored the connection between wilderness and Māori in his 1978 poem, ‘Another Kind of Wilderness (Mount Eden: Summit and Prison)’ (Habib 1986). For context, ‘Mount Eden’ is the colonial name of the volcanic mountain Maungawhau which lies in the heart of Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland city). It is also the name given to an historic prison which is situated less than a kilometre away from the base of the mountain. Habib opens his work by depicting the triumphant proclamation of a four-sided obelisk atop Mt. Eden dedicated to ‘the memory of the… /Pioneer Surveyors Who played so worthy a part / in the transformation of a wilderness/into the smiling land which lies before you’ (lines 10, 14–16). While these lines resonate with the writings of various nineteenth-century colonists, the stanza’s subsequent lines juxtapose these colonial sentiments with a more contemporary critique, as the voice of the poem demands: ‘And I suppose the Maori was a part/ of that so-called wilderness’ (lines 17–18). The inseparable intertwining of these dualistic 15  A similar attitude was reflected in the legal argument adopted by William Fox who insisted that Māori had rights only to the land which they inhabited and cultivated. He believed that land ‘unused’ by Māori should be declared a wilderness or ‘waste land’ and allocated to settlers  - along with troops to defend them on that land (Sinclair and Dalziel 1990). 16  After the New Zealand wars of the 1860s, substantial areas of Māori land were confiscated by the New Zealand Government. The biggest areas of raupatu (confiscation) were in the Waikato and Taranaki regions where around 1.5 million hectares of land were confiscated from local iwi (tribes) (Keane 2010).

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subordinates is foregrounded for the reader as Habib proceeds to make explicit the effects that this ‘taking of the wilderness’ has had on Māori communities. By shifting from the ‘smiling land before you’ to focus on the ‘stark grey stone-cold building’ (line 24) that is Mt. Eden prison, the poem hints at a causal relationship between the transformation of the ‘wilderness’ and the social, economic, and cultural disintegration that breeds crime and its penal consequences. The poem’s final lines poignantly confirm this connection as wilderness moves from being a physical description of the land to a metaphor for the brokenness and defeat of a people imprisoned and oppressed by the colonial regime: ‘A wilderness transformed into another kind/of wilderness. And there is no question /that the Maori is very much a part of this one’ (lines 39–41). Although the negativity of the wilderness image is retained, it is no longer used to denote the land or its other-than-human inhabitants. In an ironic twist, the wilderness notion is turned back on itself to expose the disastrous consequences that have resulted from the powerful symbolic world of this colonial image and its transformational imperatives. Despite the distance that separates us from the colonial era of New Zealand’s history, the tangible legacy of this wilderness rhetoric clearly continues to negatively impact the land and its people. Turning once more to the nineteenth-century, we find the continued resonance of the dualistic Jeremianic imagery, as the chaos of the New Zealand wilderness is set in antithetical parallel to the ultimate ideal of the cultivated and well-watered garden of the English homeland. Like the culturally and religiously loaded term ‘wilderness’ that British settlers imposed upon the New Zealand landscape and its unique biotic communities, so also its opposite—the fertile land/garden—became a potent colonial symbol. As British naturalist, John Richardson, observed in 1843, colonial settlers in New Zealand primarily sought ‘the overthrow of native forests, with a view to their replacement by farmhouses, verdant pastures, [and] rich crops of the cerelea’ (quoted in Star 2009, 51). Similarly, in 1847, Godfrey Charles Mundy approvingly observed that ‘Here and there appeared a clearing more or less perfect and, in peaceful contrast with the wild woodland… [there were] fine crops of wheat, oats, barley, and potatoes, with cottages of brick or wood… An occasional English-looking cart, with blue body and red wheels, and good teams of horses or bullocks gave a dash of Home to the picture, which was enhanced by the luxuriant growth of well-known English weeds…’ (quoted in Shepard 1969, 18). However, the most explicit contrast between the unsown wilderness and

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the fertile garden was drawn in 1849 by CMS missionary, Rev. Richard Taylor, who wrote, ‘This morning I walked over to Mr Chapman’s garden. The ground was literally strewed with fallen apples. I took my natives to see them … [and] bid them compare that fruitful garden with the fruitless wilderness we had passed over, that they might see what civilisation could effect’ (quoted in Shepard 1969, 31). These biblical images seem to have been significant for many nineteenth-century settlers, and played a role in dictating the terms on which Aotearoa was encountered. The powerful symbolic worlds associated with garden and wilderness that were found in the ancient biblical literature and mirrored in the nineteenth century colonial literature provided both the framework and the motivation for the actualisation of these symbolic realities. Settler communities thus set about transforming the untamed wilderness into a ‘friendly and pretty agrarian landscape’ (Patterson 2000, 89), modelled on the property regimes and extensive agrarian schemes of Europe. These actions irretrievably altered this country’s distinctive land and all but destroyed its diverse other-than-human ecosystems. In 1840, for example, Aotearoa had around 670,000 hectares of freshwater wetlands, which were highly valued by Māori as mahinga kai (traditional resource-­gathering areas). Colonial ‘transformation’ resulted in all but 15% of wetlands being drained, and turned into pastured paddocks (Park 2002, 151). As Geoffrey Park observes, ‘When the smoke of the colonists’ fires cleared at the end of the nineteenth century, New Zealand had become a different country… Huge slices of the ancient ecosystem were missing, evicted, extinguished’ (1995, 13). Botanic gardens also became agencies of imperialism as they became distribution centres for exotic plant species which immediately took to the soil here. It is estimated that since the initial European contact of 1769, over 30,000 different types of flowering and cone-bearing plants have been introduced to Aotearoa, mostly as garden plants (Wassilieff 2008). This alone has resulted in massive changes to the land’s unique biodiversity, but it has also contributed to over 100 New Zealand plant species being classified as either critical, endangered, or extinct (Holdaway 2007). The colonial mandate to ‘take the wilderness’ persisted well into the twentieth century. The most dramatic results of this mandate are reflected in the ‘grasslands revolution’ that began at the start of the twentieth century and would continue for the following 80 years. By combining bush clearance with the introduction of vigorous exotic grasses and the use of both herbicides and fertilisers, over 51% of the land’s surface area was

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transformed into grasslands (King 2003).17 Swept into an emerging self-­ understanding of ‘honest toil’ (Bell 1996, 35), the colonial campaign began erasing the presence of the land’s Indigenous ecological agency and the agency of its other-than-human occupants, to make way for the ‘large lawns,’ ‘shrub boarders,’ and ‘formal rose beds’ of the transplanted English garden (Wassilieff 2008). So drastic was the impact of this colonial transformation that one geographer was moved to note that human-sponsored radical modification of landscapes which had taken place over twenty centuries in Europe and four centuries in North America had occurred in only one century in Aotearoa (King 2003). Extending beyond the rhetorical realm then, this notion of garden and wilderness was successfully employed in the construction of colonial projects in Aotearoa and appropriated as a justification for British domination (Crosswhite 2004). As the wilderness outwardly embodied the chaos of an unfamiliar land, so the image of the garden came to reflect the growing control that colonists had over their surroundings. The ability to organise and command—as seen in the imposition of the garden—affirms the power of the colonial master over and against the wilderness and all that it represented. The garden was thus employed as a tool of oppression, used by an imperial authority to express their intention of domination and to demonstrate power and authority.

From Context to Text: A Reclamation One of the inherent difficulties in the representation of both wilderness and garden in Jer 17:5–8 is the way in which land is assigned value on the basis of its conformity to anthropocentric norms and ideals. On the one hand, these norms and ideals are inescapable as the concept of wilderness is itself anthropocentric—a way of positioning the human individual in relation to the external environment (Seddon 1997). On the other hand, such language limits alternative perceptions of wilderness as it is defined exclusively in terms of its relation to the human individual. Understanding the wilderness as infertile, for example, refers to soil that does not grow desirable produce for human communities. To say that the desert is uninhabited (v 6) means that it is without particular human inhabitants. In the 17  King notes this percentage would have been higher but for the South Island’s Southern Alps. The consequences of such drastic transformation continue to be felt, particularly in the alarming rate of erosion of the land.

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same way, when wilderness is seen as a parched and uninhabited place of fear and desolation, it is a particular human perception of this reality, which is then set against the perceived abundance and security of a garden that ministers to the desires of those human communities. By moving beyond the binary opposites that determine meaning in this text, the wilderness can be perceived in an entirely new light: as the ultimate end, as home. Free of the proverbial polarity that constrains understandings of wilderness, this land becomes the habitat of the ‫( עַ ְרעָ ר‬shrub) and, by extension, the dwelling place of additional, other-than-human communities. Although the wilderness is ‘the home of the curse’ to an anthropocentric identity (Pedersen 1959,), it is simply a home to these other-than-human communities (and indeed, some human communities).18 This shift in interpretive perspective sheds new light on the shrub as it becomes a symbol of the strength and resilience of wilderness life. As a symbol, the shrub challenges the western assumption that because the wilderness is unfit for human habitation it is utterly ‘uninhabited.’ Far from being withered and lifeless, this shrub lives (‫ ָשכַ ן‬lit. ‘to dwell’) in the wilderness (v 6).19 Rather than reflecting the worst punishment imaginable, it could equally stand for the tenacity and capacity to thrive that is characteristic of all life that finds its home in this wilderness.20 Indeed, as a context where other-than-­ human ecosystems flourish according to their own order, the wilderness can be seen as a place of wholeness and life. With this shift in understanding comes an acknowledgement of the authority and autonomy of these wilderness communities and the land that sustains them. They exhibit complete independence from humanity, maintaining themselves for immensely long periods of time and

18  LeGuin (1989) comments that ‘where I live as a woman is to some men a wilderness. But to me it is home’ (45). Here she makes a connection between women and the wilderness as ‘Others.’ She reflects the way in which the ‘master’ works to deny the legitimacy of the subordinate experience by alienating that which is normal to this Other – like the notion of home. Gaard (1997) argues that wilderness will be experienced differently in relation to where each human’s identity is located in terms of the dualistic pairs. She suggests that women and Indigenous minorities, located on the subordinate side of the dualistic sets, will feel a closer affiliation with the wilderness. 19  The CEB, NASB and NRSV versions translate ‫ ָשכַ ן‬to mean ‘live.’ 20  If the ‘shrub’ does in fact refer to the tamarisk as the LXX suggests, this plant actually thrives in the saline soil that is described as plaguing the wilderness.

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comfortably adapt to the climatic conditions outlined in vv 6 and 8.21 While the Eurocentric eye may perceive the wilderness as a motionless monotony of endless ‘waste,’ this land is, in fact, the domain of ‘other nations’ (Beston 1928), ecosystems that are nourished by their surroundings, thriving in the ‘parched places’ of human suffering. Despite conditions considered highly hostile by some human standards, the shrub is testament to the land’s ongoing nurture of its other-than-human communities. Without denying the harsh realities of the competition for survival within these communities, wilderness-as-home affirms this land as a place of familiarity and belonging for those who dwell there. Instead of being perceived as empty due to the absence of human inhabitants, the wilderness is understood as being full with the presence of long-evolving biotic communities and animal species that know this place as home (Plumwood 1998). By acknowledging the self-determining patterns evident in this land, the wilderness is able to be conceived as an autonomous ‘Other’ who is recognised and valued as independent in this text. As Other, the temptation to insist on conformity to Eurocentric norms and ideals is resisted. A distinction is maintained between humanity and wilderness, but rather than a hyper-separated distinction between dualistic opposites, this separation is one of awe-felt respect for the sovereign Other that is the wilderness. As an autonomous agent capable of sustaining life and responding to external variants like drought (Jer 17:6), the land demands the reader recognise its subjectivity and intrinsic value. This, in turn, shifts the perception of wilderness from that of object and a means to an end, to that of subject and an end in itself.22 To deny the inherent worth of the wilderness and imagine this land as an instrument of punishment thus becomes an act of violation, of disregard for the legitimacy of its autonomy. Once identified as the domain of the Other, however, human readers are able to move towards relationship with this complex and many-sided subject, entering the wilderness space as guests and being privileged to new insights into another kind of home. This alternative perspective demands the humility of humanity. It insists upon respect for the land as host and provides 21  Leopold (1968) notes with awe the way in which the component species of the wilderness are rarely lost, and they do not get out of hand. 22  Scriven (1997) suggests that it is in fact the ability to adapt and respond to external circumstances without reference to the well-being of other organisms that endows all living things with ‘some good of their own’ (151–153, author’s emphasis).

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opportunities for humanity to be transformed by an encounter with the expansive unknown that is the wilderness (Zimmermann 1992). At the risk of privileging an anthropocentric perspective, it is worth touching on the ways in which this reconceived understanding of wilderness imagery is able to challenge those ‘traditional’ theological anthropologies of dominance and mastery passed down to us by colonial Christianity. Far from being an uninhabited chaotic void that ‘offers’ nothing to humanity, this land, by its very nature, enables opportunities for an alternative orientation—a different way of locating the human self in relation to the surrounding environment. As a reality that is in no way conditioned by human concerns, the wilderness is a reminder that the land’s nourishment is not exclusive to human beings; rather, humanity belongs to an interconnected, encompassing order that is created and sustained by this Other. Such knowledge diminishes the western human’s sense of self-importance and destabilises the long-held Christian understanding of humanity as being at the centre of the universe (Lane 1989). In what David Jasper describes as a ‘decentring of being’ (2004, 143), the wilderness requires a redrawing of the parameters of humanity’s self-­ identification to acknowledge the intrinsic worth and autonomy of the land regardless of its instrumental value. From this decentred location, we are better able to envision a new relationship with this land and its other-­ than-­human inhabitants, which would, as David Tacey suggests, mean recognising and respecting the uncertainty, confusion, and difference of the wilderness (1995, 119). This alternative orientation does not seek to negate or transcend the (potentially) fearful response of humanity to wilderness; rather, this response is set in a broader conceptual context and is seen as just that: a human response. What is negated, however, is the malevolence understood as being inherent in this space and the consequent imperative for redemption through transformation. Moreover, this alternative theological anthropology sits much more comfortably with mātauranga Ma ̄ori (Indigenous knowledge/ways of knowing), which existed in these lands long before the arrival of colonial Christianity. While these systems of knowledge do not correspond in all aspects, there are certain resonances between the alternative orientation retrieved from this Eco-Rhetorical reading and the concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) found i te ao Māori (within Māori worldviews). Kaitiakitanga affirms the whanaungatanga—or ­interrelatedness/

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kinship—of all creatures within all species.23 All have value in themselves and as such, are to be respected and honoured. Kaitiakitanga respects the mana (influence/authority) of all living things and seeks to uphold their mauri (essence) with tapu (sacredness), aroha (love), and manaaki (care/ hospitality). It situates human beings in creation, not as supreme masters over the earth community, but as interdependent members of the earth community. Humans are urged to offer aroha and manaaki to all other living things. As interdependent whanau (kin/family) and members of the earth community, we serve, and in turn, are served in a reciprocal pattern of respect and mutual custodianship. The interweaving of this mātauranga works to interrupt the discourses of mastery and subjugation that have dominated both text (biblical) and context (Aotearoa) for so long. This site of interruption offers an opportunity for churches in particular to name and acknowledge the horrific violence caused to both whenua (land) and tangata whenua (Indigenous communities, lit. People of the land) as a result of colonisation, expressed both historically and in the contemporary context. It compels churches to confront our collusion in the colonial enterprise and to recognise the ways in which biblical rhetoric has been appropriated to legitimise the violation, exploitation, destruction, and theft of land and Indigenous communities (both human and other-than-human). And, most importantly, it exhorts churches to further engage in the crucial work of redressing, compensating, and returning to Māori that which has been silenced and stolen in order that the wilderness give rise to the fruitful field.

References Beisner, E. Calvin. 1997. Where garden meets wilderness: Evangelical entry into the environmental debate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Bell, Claudia. 1996. Inventing New Zealand: Everyday myths of Pakeha identity. Auckland: Penguin Books. Berry, Wendell. 1990. The responsibility of the poet. In What are people for? Essays by Wendell Berry, ed. Wendell Berry, 88–92. London: Rider Books. Beston, Henry. 1928. The outermost house. New York: Ballantine. Brown, William P. 1999. The ethos of the cosmos: The genesis of moral imagination. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

23  The translations of these terms are inadequate approximations only. The English translations here do not capture the depth and nuance of these concepts.

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Brueggemann, Walter. 1998. A commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and homecoming. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Crosswhite, James. 2004. Rhetoric in the wilderness: The deep rhetoric of the late twentieth century. In A companion to rhetoric and rhetorical criticism, ed. Walter Jost and Wendy Olmsted, 372–388. Malden: Blackwell. Gaard, Greta. 1997. Ecofeminism and wilderness. Environmental Ethics 19: 5–24. Habib, Rowley Te Whenua. 1986. Another kind of wilderness (Mount Eden: Summit and prison). In Countless signs: The New Zealand landscape in literature: An anthology, ed. Trudie McNaughton, 170–171. Auckland: Reed Methuen. Hector, James. 1875. Transactions and proceedings of the New Zealand institute. Wellington: George Didsbury. Holdaway, Richard. 2007. Extinctions – Smaller birds, reptiles, frogs, fish, plants. Te Ara  – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/extinctions/page-­6. Holladay, William L. 1986. Jeremiah 1: A commentary on the book of the prophet Jeremiah chapters 1–25. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Jasper, David. 2004. The Sacred Desert: Religion, literature, art and culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Keane, Basil. 2010. Te Māori i te Ohanga: Māori in the economy. The alienation of Māori land. Te Ara – The encyclopedia of New Zealand. http://www.teara. govt.nz/en/te-­maori-­i-­te-­ohanga-­maori-­in-­the-­economy/4. King, Michael. 2003. The penguin history of New Zealand. Auckland: Penguin Books. Lane, Belden C. 1989. Fierce landscapes and the indifference of god. Christian Century 106: 907–910. LeGuin, Ursula K. 1989. Women/Wilderness. In Healing the wounds: The promise of ecofeminism, ed. Judith Plant, 45–47. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers. Leopold, Aldo. 1968. A sand county Almanac. New York: Ballantine Books. Lundbom, Jack R. 1999. Jeremiah 1–20: A new translation with introduction and commentary. New York: Doubleday. McKane, William. 1986. A critical and exegetical commentary on Jeremiah: Introduction and commentary on Jeremiah 1–25. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Park, Geoff. 1995. Nga Uruora: The groves of life: Ecology and history in a New Zealand landscape. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ———. 1999. Going between goddesses. In Quicksands: Foundational histories in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, ed. Klaus Neumann, Nicholas Thomas, and Hilary Ericksen, 176–197. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. ———. 2002. ‘Swamps which might doubtless easily be drained’: Swamp drainage and its impact on the indigenous. In Environmental histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, 151–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2006. After the scene, after the fever. In Theatre country: Essays on landscape and whenua, ed. Geoff Park, 96–112. Wellington: Victoria University Press.

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Patterson, John. 2000. People of the land: A Pacific philosophy. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. Pedersen, Johannes. 1959. Israel: Its life and culture. Copenhagen and London: Oxford University Press. Plumwood, Val. 1998. Wilderness Skepticism and wilderness dualism. In The great new wilderness debate: An expansive collection of writings defining wilderness from John Muir to Gary Snyder, ed. J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson, 652–690. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Reeves, William Pember. 2000. A colonist in his garden. In The passing of the forest and other verse, 14–18. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey. Scriven, Tal. 1997. Wrongness, wisdom, and wilderness: Toward a libertarian theory of ethics and the environment. Albany: State University of New York Press. Seddon, George. 1997. Landprints: Reflections on place and landscape. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Shepard, Paul. 1969. English reaction to the New Zealand landscape before 1850. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Sinclair, Keith and Raewyn Dalziel. 1990. ‘Fox, William,’ dictionary of New Zealand biography. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara. govt.nz/en/biographies/1f15/fox-­william. Star, Paul. 2009. Humans and the environment in New Zealand, c. 1800 to 2000. In The new Oxford history of New Zealand, ed. Giselle Byrnes, 47–70. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Stulman, Louis. 2005. Jeremiah. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Tacey, David J. 1995. Edge of the sacred: Transformation in Australia. North Blackburn: Harper Collins. Talmon, Shemaryahu. 1966. The ‘Desert motif’ in the bible and in Qumran literature. In Biblical motifs: Origins and transformations, ed. Alexander Altmann, 31–63. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wakefield, E.G. 1837. The British colonization of New Zealand. London: John Parker/New Zealand Association. Wassilieff, Maggy. 2008. Gardens – Estate and Homestead Gardens. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/gardens/page-­3. Zimmerman, Michael. 1992. The blessing of otherness: Wilderness and the human condition. In The wilderness condition: Essays on environment and civilization, ed. Max Oelschlaeger, 245–270. Washington: Island Press.

PART III

Un-silencing Alter-Native Theologies

CHAPTER 11

Taught to Fish but Still Starving: Unsettling Theological Hermeneutics in Oceania Faafetai Aiava you say that you think therefore you are but thinking belongs in the depths of the earth we simply borrow what we need to know Konai Helu Thaman (1999)

This chapter discusses typical issues Pacific Island students (and perhaps others from non-Western contexts) encounter when interpreting the Bible or theology. Part of the problem is an overreliance on the interpretive methods that we have inherited and an inability to think in accordance with their prescribed rules. On a deeper level, however, there is a seeming lack of awareness that the reading methodologies we use have philosophical underpinnings that serve the colonial interests of dominant cultures.

F. Aiava (*) Pacific Theological College, Suva, Fiji e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_11

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This warrants an important conversation on theological hermeneutics that may broaden the understanding of those new to the study, or perhaps challenge the views of more established scholars regarding the place and role of the reader. In constant negotiation with the idiom of the man who is taught to fish, instead of being handed one, this chapter is divided into three sections, each of which bears local insights into fishing. The first section on settled hermeneutics discusses mainstream perceptions of what constitutes interpretation, followed by the limitations of historical-critical approaches that have been handed down by missionaries. The second section looks at de-settling some of these interpretive theories by scrutinising the alleged centres of knowledge and their inability to navigate the diversity and elusiveness of meaning. The final section, inspired by the fluid and Indigenous wisdoms of Oceania, highlights some of the unsettling yet relational ways of ‘thinking about thinking.’

Settled Hermeneutics: ‘Fish come from the Sea’ Some time ago, I was taught in an undergraduate foundation course on biblical criticism that no fisher (interpreter) ever goes to the sea (the biblical text) carrying fish (meaning). Fish must come from the sea and never the other way round. This was a truth that had ‘settled’ into my thinking as the only way of interpreting the Bible. At that time, it was not simply an idea transmitted by foreign settlers, but had become a local teaching. It proved to be an authoritative principle that would facilitate how interpretation was to be executed in every course that I took in my studies, including homiletics. However, as my own hermeneutic orientations began to shift, particularly as I started writing, I was soon told that I was in danger of violating the integrity of biblical texts; I was being charged with a crosscontamination of sorts (see Aiava 2019, 2020, 2021). Rather than deny the allegations, I thought it would be more appropriate to explain why this ‘settled perception’ of the hermeneutic process might actually be the problem. Based on the theological curricula of our theological colleges today, historical-critical approaches to the Bible are undoubtedly among those most effectively taught by the European missionaries that came to the Pacific. Although these approaches have been criticised for their overzealous commitment to determine what a text ‘really means’ in its original sense, they remain a staple in the theological formation of would-be pastors and lecturers of the Pacific (see Havea 2014). For John Barton, the

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growing disinterest in historical-critical approaches stems from an overemphasis on contemporary relevance and an uncritical denial of words themselves having definitive meanings, for instance, in instruction manuals or legal documents (1998, 17). Barton argues that historical-critical approaches have not been given enough credit for reopening the meanings of sacred texts (revered as the ‘Church’s book’) beyond those widely circulated. I concur with Barton’s basic claim that biblical interpretation should not be dictated by authorities or confined to their expectations (1998, 19). I also believe that attending closely to the historical setting of a text (including its reception through the ages) not only enables it to challenge its readers, but also makes such approaches indispensable to the interpretation of the Bible. Where I diverge from Barton, however, is in his assumption that historical critics are able to occupy a neutral position from which they could ask ‘free’ questions. It is not that Barton is unaware of the tendency of historical critics to canonise particular approaches over others. He acknowledges, in passing, that some have tried to legitimise the types of questions that can or cannot be asked (1998, 19). But the fact that Barton does not engage these conversations in any depth is problematic. Perhaps in his mind, it is impossible for questions of historicity to be loaded in any way. It ignores, as Wilhelm Dilthey reminds us, that ‘[w]e are historical beings first, before we are observers of history, and only because we are the former do we become the latter’ (cited in Casimira 2020, 30). Take, for example, Margaret Mead’s hallmark study Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). Her work was applauded by her scientific community back home for being the first of its kind. This was long before it was challenged by Derek Freeman. In his controversial book, The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead (1999), Freeman reviews Mead’s data, conducts his own interviews, and eventually declares that Mead had been hoaxed. In an alleged defence of Samoa, Freeman claimed that Mead’s informants did not say anything about a culture of sexual permissiveness, but were instead sharing innocent jokes about adolescent sex. For Samoan audiences, Freeman quickly became the voice of reason and the hero we did not know we needed. Or at least until Paul Shankman revisited Freeman’s use of published and unpublished sources, only to identify an underlying motive at play. According to Shankman, Freeman wanted to diminish Mead’s stature within the academy (2013, 52). By pointing out multiple areas where Freeman omitted information from his work, particularly

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where it contradicted his hoax narrative, Shankman comes to the conclusion that Freeman’s analysis was more of a smear campaign than objective scholarship. What is at stake with this? Hermeneutical discourse is often reduced to being a study of how we interpret, paying more attention to the means or the methods used to analyse a text over questions of who is trying to interpret and from where. For instance, is the interpreter acting alone or on behalf of a community? What are the prevailing knowledge or value systems in their context? With reference to the above debate, then, it is ironic that two reputable scientists supposedly engaged in ‘objective’ studies arrived at contrary results. Both wrote from privileged positions and made names for themselves in their respective communities, but at whose expense? According to Konai Helu Thaman, this encounter between Western academic researchers and Oceanic peoples is by no means an encounter between equals. In her view, what might be conceived as knowledge likely ‘constitutes a type of power exercised over those who are “studied” or “known,” and those who produce the discourse have the power to enforce its validity and its scientific status and make it “true”’ (2003, 3). Such privilege is why I am just as sceptical of proponents of historical-critical methods in biblical studies claiming some kind of neutrality. Whether it is to maintain the status quo or to serve an underlying prejudice, any researcher is capable of adjusting his or her questions, experiments, and findings. This is why attending to the question was crucial for Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer distinguishes an apparent or floating question from a real question that ‘is concretized in a specific this or that’ (1994, 363). To put it differently, there is no such thing as an uninterested question that floats above the reality it wants to understand. Real questions are borne from lived experiences and ultimately formed by a ‘historically effected consciousness’ (Gadamer 1994, 301). Along similar lines, Upolu Vaai differentiates between researchers who documented the experience of islanders from those who lived the experience of islanders (2020, 48). In either case, the resulting ‘facts’ would depend largely on the types of questions asked and the experiential circumstances that shaped them. To be clear, my claim is not that questions about authorial intent, the social historical worlds behind texts, or the literary formations of ancient texts are unimportant. There is a time and place for these methods in biblical criticism. What I am saying, however, is that the questions we ask will never be free from the cultural and historical realities (including memories, traditions,

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prejudices, and experiences) that shaped them. This should not be seen as problematic. In our ongoing search for meaning, presuppositions are what make us human. It is not a linear or singular process, nor is it something that can be settled forever. It is also not—as Western empirical research would have it—a process that begins with interpreters becoming invisible.1 In many cases, how we interpret stories, including Bible stories, merges with the telling of our own stories. For David McMillan, this is precisely why we need to devote more and not less energy to ‘our own locatedness or self-involvement in reading and proclaiming the text’ (2011, 33). Returning to where we began, the settled teaching that ‘fish come from the sea’ is not altogether wrong. It is just incomplete and somewhat unhelpful when it comes to understanding the existential aspects of interpretation. For the purpose of improving this idiom, I suggest that a fisher never actually goes to the sea empty-handed. At the very least, he or she would carry tools (e.g., hooks, reels, nets and bait), an appropriate level of knowledge for the task, and a wealth of resonating experience. It is possible that the original idiom was coined to prevent individuals from committing the infamous ‘eisegesis’ (reading into). But the idiom does not fully capture the multidimensional exchanges that occur when we engage texts or works of art. It also does not explain why pastors or religious celebrants are pre-emptively drawn to specific texts, for example when preparing for a birthday, graduation, village gathering, wedding or funeral address. We might get away with disguising our subjectivities and predispositions by calling it application, but even before it is applied the intention of the reader is already involved.

De-settling Hermeneutics: Fish Are Elusive Regarding the historical and ongoing collusions between theology, mission, and colonisation, Joerg Rieger has suggested the following about the analogy between teaching and fishing: Apparently, the people have no idea how to fish, and we know it. Therefore, we are the teachers. This asymmetry is also behind much empowerment-­

1  This point is elaborated in more detail by Linda T. Smith. She argues that Indigenous writers become invisible either through overemphasising the validity of other writers or by way of addressing themselves as ‘out there’ or ‘other’ (1999, 35–36).

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talk, however progressive it may be: those of us who have the power can pass it on to the people in need of it (2004, 219).

While the scope of Rieger’s work is too wide to discuss here, its far-­ reaching sentiments express the need for Christians to rethink the flow of power in our past and present practices and ways of knowing, so that we do not repeat the mistakes of our colonial predecessors. One of these mistakes is in the way in which truth itself has been understood as fixed, rigid, or unchanging. This way of thinking, claims Vaai, traces back to a ‘doctrine of precedence’ that was introduced by Eurocentric scholars for whom truth has to be authenticated before it can be passed on (2020, 47). This not only contrasts with what Epeli Hau‘ofa denotes as versions of truth that could also be ‘reversed when circumstances demand other versions’ (2000, 454), but it is also incapable of dealing with the complexities and relativities of truth. Like fish, truth itself can be elusive. This situation calls to mind a fishing proverb from Samoa: ‘Even the wisest of fishers cannot know when a bonito leaps to the canoe’s outrigger side.’2 Though seldom admitted, the proverbial wisdom stresses that human knowledge is limited, and not every truth will fit neatly with our expectations. For centuries, this preoccupation with finding absolute truths has been riddled with expectations. According to Walter Mignolo, the expectation to control and classify knowledge was precisely how ‘the colonial matrix of power was created, managed, transformed, and controlled’ (2018, 167). In Mignolo’s eyes, ‘the world cannot be changed if the “knowledge and the knower of the world” do not change’ (2018, 179). Bernard Narokobi shared similar sentiments with reference to Melanesia: ‘[f]or over one hundred years, we have been subjected to microscopic study by Western scientists, scholars, and experts only to emerge second rate’ (1983, 9). Mignolo reiterates this point with regard to peoples of the ‘Third World’ and their allocation to third place (2018, 179). To that end, de-settling hermeneutics implies a double movement. It requires a radical decentralisation of knowledge, on the one hand, and a disruption of our desire to control, on the other. As Rieger and Kwok testify, it is seldom possible to find God in instances where God is being controlled (2012, 32). This is what differentiates de-settling from unsettling, as they are used in this chapter. The former refers to an action that I 2

 Translated from the Samoan proverb, ‘e poto lava le tautai ae se le atu i ama.’

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carry out willingly and deliberately. The latter, however, refers to the reaction to, or the effect of, my provocative actions. In my view, it is necessary to de-settle, or intentionally rupture, settled notions of power and essentialist ways of thinking. One such example is the way that truth is often perceived in monotheistic religions as a prized kernel or core in need of constant protection. For Havea, it was one of the reasons that contextual theology in the Pacific has not been critical enough. He writes: The essential elements are expected to travel, but the excess baggage of experience, culture, and so forth, are not expected to go along. The irony here is that contextual theology highlights experience yet, at the same time, expects that all that matters are the essential elements that will travel from one context to the next, as if the experiences in previous contexts do not really matter (2012, 44).

Such a  position is common in faith groups that treat truth as being static or as having an essential core. The pursuit of truth thus becomes an exclusive venture based on an assumption that there can only be one. In my own teaching of contextual theology, I would preface at the outset that context is not limited to the recipient’s context, but always refers to a plurality of intersecting contexts. While many scholars acknowledge the common axiom that ‘all theology is contextual,’ fewer are convinced that all contexts can be theological. De-settling also involves utilising the Indigenous thought systems of the interpreter’s own communities, including the languages in which the thoughts were conceived. As Havea explains in a different work, ‘language makes some belong, and some people not belong. Language connects as well as discriminates and displaces’ (2016, xi). If Martin Heidegger was correct in claiming that ‘language is the house of Being’ and it is ‘the creators of the words’ that guard the home (1977, 193), then for many Pacific students—for whom English is a second or even third language— the English language is more like a rundown motel, a mere stopover on the way to the desired destination (that is, an academic qualification). Since ‘being’ connotes participating and belonging to a particular language, a language barrier is not simply an obstruction to knowledge, it is

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a displacement of the living truths that ultimately aid the understanding of the student.3 In his magnum opus, Being and Time, Heidegger offers a compelling critique of the idea that interpretation is something that happens after one understands. He wrote, [i]n interpretation understanding appropriates what it has understood in an understanding way. In interpretation understanding does not become something different, but rather itself. Interpretation is existentially based in understanding, and not the other way around. Interpretation is not the acknowledgment of what has been understood, but rather the development of possibilities projected in understanding (1996, 139).

I am reminded of an adage attributed to Albert Einstein: ‘if you can’t explain it simply, you have not understood it well enough.’ The reason, if we take Heidegger’s assertion into account, is that the interpretive process (that makes explanation possible) cannot be isolated nor differentiated from understanding itself. If, therefore, interpretation is the embodiment of the possibilities projected by what we have understood, then what are the interpretive possibilities for those whose understanding is starved right from the outset by the language of communication?

Unsettling Hermeneutics: Fishing as Communal My final example of local fishing comes from Sia Figiel’s poem, Faded Memory, in which she recalls a community ritual from Matautu Apia  in Samoa. In the opening lines, there is a buzzing excitement among relatives, friends, and those from neighbouring villages preparing for the moment when all will assemble on the shore to boil crops, prepare other dishes, and more importantly, start fishing. The poem climaxes with a ceremonial feast for all ages filled with laughter, song, dance, and unforgettable memories. But the happiness is short-lived. It is followed by a grave lament of the ‘good old days.’ A time before canned fish, before the advent of the refrigerator, before frozen foods and before the beach turned into a docking station for big tankers (2017, 179–184). To put it mildly, 3  Randall Prior argued that the distance between cultures of primary orality and cultures of primary literacy should not be underestimated. He suggests that the two are not mere “modes of communication, they constitute two different worlds” (2019, 147).

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the poem ends in despair as the entire event resides only in memory. As Figiel writes: Diesel fumes And dynamite And rising sea levels While big tankers dock at the Matautu wharf Unloading canned fish From Alaska and Argentina And the South China Sea While salt sticks to the photographs Of relatives Staring like ghosts At the refrigerator Whizzing and whooshing Whizzing and whooshing While lizards stick their tongue out From the ceiling And shit On our faded Faded memory (2017, 184).

If it is not already evident, I have insisted above that interpretation is much more than an academic exercise or abstract theory lodged in theological education or in the interpretation of written texts. As thinking beings immersed in multiple layers of community, interpretation is something that we engage in every day and cannot be separated from memory. The brain that remembers is not isolated from the brain that interprets. On that note, I offer in this section some alternative ways of thinking that might help us adapt to the diversities of truth and, if the recent pandemic has taught us anything about the old normal, resist the comforts of settled thinking. To be unsettled, in this sense, means not going back to stagnancy. It connotes the need to revive the fluidity of interpretation so that it becomes a transformative process for the memories in texts and the living memories of its readers. In the words of Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, ‘I am not searching for a truth, or the truth, but for an accommodation of many truths, including mine’ (2009, 142). This view suggests that truth like memories can be both ‘rooted and routed’ (DeLoughery 2007). It is likely why thinking in Oceanic communities is hardly confined to landmasses, or in the

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classroom for the matter. We learn from adolescence that the classroom is everywhere. Contrary to its definition in the English language, when we speak of land (fanua, fenua, fonua, whenua, or hanua) we are referring to the intricate relationships of life-within-the-cosmos, including our seascapes. For example, when trying to locate the Pacific Islands on the dreadful single-page atlas, many would begin by tracing the sporadic dots (i.e., landmasses) inside the sea. However, as Hau’ofa announced many years ago, it would be better to think of the Pacific as ‘our sea of islands’ (1993). The point of departure for him and many like-minded thinkers in Oceania is that our stories are not just bound to our lands (roots), but they also ebb and flow with the enormity of our shared ocean (routes). This is not surprising for Pacific Islanders understood as having descended from seafarers. Prior to the establishment of national borders, inter-island travel was commonplace, particularly between Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga. The frequent travel, coupled with a high level of expertise in ocean voyaging, earned Samoa the label of the ‘Navigator Islands’ by the French navigator Bougainville (Vaa, 2001, 48). For these communities, the liquid borders connect more than they disconnect. They are ‘places of dwelling and places for engagement … places of intersection and of negotiation, of going and coming, of transiting and emigrating’ (Davidson et al., 2015, 16). James Clifford came to a similar realisation in his comparative study of Pacific cultures in the homeland and overseas. He argued that anthropologists have been subconsciously drawn to the village setting first, without paying much attention to the fluid and dynamic aspects of culture (1992, 99). He rightly concludes that relations of travel indicate as much about a people’s culture as relations of dwelling. Though I fervently believe that the fluidity of knowledge breeds creative possibilities, this belief is not without its dangers. It implies that a totalising account of our Pacific histories and epistemologies may continually elude us. This is not a deal-breaker if you ask me. What we have instead is an amalgamation of fluid, meaningful, and living memories, including those that travelled with Christianity. This is where I think theological hermeneutics and critical interpretation of the Bible come together in an unsettling yet productive way. More specifically, we can critically resist the temptation to constrict divine revelation to the pages of a book. For Wilda Gafney, this ongoing discernment of biblical texts is like ‘God-­ grappling’ (2017, 5), whereby readers have to seek the Word of God not just in the texts but between the lines of the text—a practice many of us have been taught to avoid.

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With this in mind, I digress once more to the formal classroom. How might the above apply to those studying theological hermeneutics? To these scholars and students, I cannot offer a definitive answer, but rather raise two probing questions. First, what makes meaning meaningful to you? Second, is it possible for you to interpret without your memories? More often than not, we are compelled to interpret texts or life or God employing Western value systems, imposed memories, and, in tandem with becoming invisible readers, rigid methods that prioritise the primacy of the individual. Soong-Chan Rah calls this the ‘unholy trinity of Western philosophy’ comprising of me, myself, and I: From Hellenistic philosophy to medieval thought to the Enlightenment and postmodernity, each phase of Western philosophy has put forth its central tenet the primacy of the individual … [R]egardless of the philosopher’s context, the repeating motif of Western culture has been the centrality and primacy of the individual (2009, 29).

I have made the case elsewhere that reading texts in this manner manifests a losing of face in several ways (Aiava 2017). It is not only disrespectful to the relevant faces within a text, but also to the communities and relationships that make life meaningful to an individual. Understanding the premise that the self in Oceania is always a relational self might help safeguard readers from falling into one of two extremes. On the one hand, it helps us avoid becoming selfish readers who ignore the faces of the other (in or behind a text or work of art); on the other hand, it helps us avoid becoming overly selfless wherein the faces of one’s own community become invisible. I contend that seeking a dynamic position between these extremes would better enable us to see the ever-changing faces surrounding a text and, more importantly, to resist the urge to be settled.

Concluding Remarks Since understanding itself is a never-ending process, I offer below a list of ongoing issues in relation to the interpretation of theology in Oceania. The original list was compiled by Randall Prior, author of ten books in the Gospel and Culture in Vanuatu series.4 Here I have rephrased his points as 4  For more details on the development and outcomes of this series, see Prior (2019, 163–22).

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questions. I put it forth not as a ‘to-do list’ for local theological seminaries, but rather as food for thought for those hungry readers in Oceania who cannot seem to catch fish with the tools we were given. Bon appétit! 1. Is theology essentially an activity of seminaries and colleges, or is it more fundamentally an activity of local church communities? 2. Is theology the academic pursuit of knowledge and ideas, accessed through texts and classroom lectures, and requiring critical thought, or is it embodied, learned in context, grounded in experience and involving a praxis methodology? 3. Can the articulation of theology only adopt a literary form, or could it take a range of other forms? 4. Is theology to be done solely, or primarily, by those who are sufficiently educated—the ‘elite’ or ‘professional’—or is it primarily the task of the whole community of faith? 5. Should theology be an individual or a communal enterprise? 6. Is the primary purpose of theology to articulate the views of a ‘professional’ within the academic world, or is its primary purpose to serve the local Christian community in its calling to be faithful to the gospel? (Prior 2019, 142).

References Aiava, F. 2017. Taking selfies: Honouring faces (Alo) in theology and hermeneutics. In The relational self: Decolonising personhood in the Pacific, ed. U.L. Vaai and U. Nabobo-Baba, 257–270. Suva: University of the South Pacific. ———. 2019. ‘Take the staff…command the rock’: A healing paradox for Moses’ pain through a Fofo Alamea reading. Pacific Journal of Theology 57: 17–33. ———. 2020. ‘Si’i le Tuā’oi: Shifting perceptions on exodus 1:8—2:10 through a Samoan/Pasefika Reading. Pacific Journal of Theology 58: 97–115. ———. 2021. Eleele interrupts the Eden wedding: From mother earth to mistress. In Decolonizing eco-theology: Indigenous and subaltern challenges, ed. S.L. Mendoza and G. Zachariah, 93–107. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock. Barton, J. 1998. Historical-critical approaches. In The Cambridge companion to biblical interpretation, ed. J.  Barton, 9–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Casimira, A. 2020. The dance of the frigates: Reframing the ecumenical history of the Pacific theological college from the perspective of the Pacific household. Pacific Journal of Theology 59: 15–39.

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Clifford, J. 1992. Travelling cultures. In Cultural Studies, ed. L.  Grossberg, C. Nelson, and P. Treichler, 96–116. New York: Routledge. Davidson, S., et  al. 2015. RumInations. In Islands, islanders, and the bible: Rumination, ed. S. Davidson, M. Aymer, and J. Havea, 1–21. Atlanta: SBL. DeLoughery, E. 2007. Routes and roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island literatures. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Efi, T.A. 2009. Physician heal thyself: Planning for the next generation. In Su’esu’e Manogi: In search of fragrance, ed. T. Sualii-Sauni et al., 142–152. Apia, Samoa: National University of Samoa. Figiel, S. 2017. Faded memory. In Relational hermeneutics: Decolonising the mindset and the Pacific Itulagi, ed. U.L.  Vaai and A.  Casimira, 179–184. Suva: University of the South Pacific. Freeman, D. 1999. The fateful hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A historical analysis of her Samoan research. Boulder: Westview. Gadamer, H. 1994. Truth and method, rev. ed. Trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall. New York: Continuum. Gafney, Wilda C. 2017. Womanist midrash: A reintroduction to the women of the torah and the throne. Louisville: John Knox Press. Hau’ofa, E. 1993. Our sea of islands. In A new Oceania: Rediscovering our sea of islands, ed. E. Waddell, V. Naidu, and E. Hau’ofa, 2–16. Suva: University of the South Pacific. ———. 2000. Epilogue: Pasts to remember. In Remembrance of Pacific pasts: An invitation to remake history, ed. R. Borofsky, 453–471. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Havea, J. 2012. The cons of contextuality… kontextuality. In Contextual theology for the twenty-first century, ed. S.B.  Bevans and K.  Tahaafe-Williams, 38–52. Cambridge: James Clarke and Co. ———. 2014. Engaging scriptures from Oceania. In Bible, borders, belonging(s): Engaging readings from Oceania, ed. J. Havea, D. Neville, and E. Wainwright, 3–19. Atlanta: SBL. ———. 2016. Foreword: polytick’g translation. In Bible-ing My Samoan, ed. M. Ma’ilo. Apia: Piula Publications. Heidegger, M. 1977. Letter on humanism. Trans, F. A. Capuzzi and J. G. Gray. In (ed.) Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. D. F. Krell. London: Routledge. ———. 1996. Being and time. Trans. J. Stambaugh. Albany: State University of New York Press. McMillan, D. 2011. Theology as autobiography. Practical Theology 4: 27–34. Mead, M. 1928. Coming of age in Samoa. New York: Morrow. Mignolo, W.D. 2018. Colonial/Imperial differences: Classifying and inventing global orders of lands, seas, and living organisms. In On Decoloniality: Concepts analytics praxis, ed. W.D.  Mignolo and C.  Walsh, 177–193. Durham: Duke University Press.

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Narokobi, B. 1983. The melanesian way. Boroko: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. Prior, R.G. 2019. Contextualizing theology in the South Pacific: The shape of theology in Oral cultures. Eugene: Pickwick Publications. Rah, S.C. 2009. The next evangelicalism: Freeing the church from Western cultural captivity. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Rieger, J. 2004. Theology and Mission between Neocolonialism and Postcolonialism. Mission Studies 21: 201–227. https://doi.org/10.1163/ 1573383042653677. Rieger, J., and P. Kwok. 2012. Occupy religion: Theology of the multitude. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Shankman, P. 2013. The ‘fateful hoaxing’ of Margaret Mead: A cautionary tale. Current Anthropology 54: 51–70. Smith, L.T. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books. Thaman, K.H. 1999. Thinking. In Songs of love: New and selected poems, 1974–1999. Suva: Mana Publications. ———. 2003. Decolonizing Pacific studies: Indigenous perspectives, knowledge, and wisdom in higher education. The Contemporary Pacific 15: 1–17. Vaa, L.F. 2001. Saili Matagi: Samoan migrants in Australia. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies. Vaai, U.L. 2020. Relational theologising: Why Pacific islanders think and theologise differently. Pacific Journal of Theology 58: 40–56.

CHAPTER 12

Archives: From Places of Silence and Silencing to Places of Regeneration Wayne Te Kaawa

Ka hoki nei au ki te mauri o tōku iwi Let me return to the life principle of my people1

Introduction This chapter began with a photographic image that had been stored away in an archive for 73 years. My research was initially focused on identifying the people in this image, but it quickly expanded to include several other images. As the project expanded, one hundred and thirty-five people became involved in this research. All had a whakapapa (genealogical) connection to the people in the photographs. At the heart of this research was the question of how these images of ancestors might inform theology 1

 This is the beginning of an ancient karakia (prayer) of the people from Kawerau.

W. Te Kaawa (*) University of Otago, Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_12

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today. Specifically, this chapter aims to unsettle the dominant theology behind how Indigenous people were presented in church literature and archives: as unnamed people. For a small Māori community, this project became a way of reconnecting with our ancestors and telling stories of their historical, cultural, and spiritual connections to place.

Archival Silences For Māori and Indigenous communities, archives can be painful places of silence and silencing. In colonial societies, archival silences echo in Indigenous communities around the world (Jimerson 2009). Historical documents and photographic images stored in archives are records that privilege the white missionaries and teachers, who are almost always named, whereas Indigenous people are often simply indicated as ‘natives.’ Place is also significant to Indigenous peoples; there are deep historical, cultural and spiritual connections between people and place. When white missionaries or teachers appear in an image, both they and the place where the photograph was taken are usually identified. When the ‘native’ is depicted in a photo where there is no white missionary or teacher, however, then details of place and connections are usually missing, that is, in spite of the ‘native’ community having lived in that particular place for many generations. Place only becomes validated when a white missionary or teacher is present. For Māori, there is a deep connection between the people viewing the archival material and those who are depicted in the images. Even when the people who are photographed have passed away, the connection between people living and dead remains. The memory of a moment recorded in time is stored away in an archive for preservation. When accurate information is not recorded with the photographic images, then years later when descendants of the people recorded in the photographic images view the photos, they may be unaware that the person they are viewing is their great-grandmother or great-grandfather. Put plainly, archival silence is a form of racism that typically involves: (a) a deliberate misrepresentation of the past by the individual persons who gathers and records the information, that is, by not recording

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either the names of Māori who appear in photographs or the place where the image was taken. (b) institutions that allowed this racist practice to take place and continue for so long. (c) institutions that now own the archives but have failed to either put sufficient resources into naming Māori who appear in images or reconnect these photographs with their home communities and descendants. This chapter examines how one small Māori community in the eastern Bay of Plenty of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand has begun the work of addressing these archival silences.

The Research Project According to Hirini Kaa (2020), the task of the Māori research is to write histories that can help Māori people to escape from the version of the past into which they have found themselves written. The Presbyterian Archive located at Knox College in Dunedin is dedicated to preserving the institutional memory of the Presbyterian Church in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Archive makes the following statement on their website: Our collections tell the story of the Presbyterian Church in Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s the story of a diverse range of people; Scottish settlers and Māori, missionaries and ministers, the families of Chinese goldminers and new New Zealanders from the Pacific and beyond. It’s a story of women and of young people and communities. It’s a story of the good times and the hard times, the times lived out the Gospel and the times that we struggled with challenges and division. This is our story (Presbyterian Research Centre n.d.).

In the Presbyterian collections, there are photographic images from the Māori missions dating back to the early twentieth century. On one occasion when visiting the archive, I came across this image (P-A21. 17–75) with the accompanying description:

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An elderly 1947 Creator: Māori woman Māori Missions holding her Committee grandchild Subject: Portraits-Groups Buildings-Architecture

Description: A Māori woman holding her granddaughter, with other children (mostly) behind her. Photograph taken by the porch of an unknown Māori meeting house. Note the painted rafters and carving

Further details included, ‘Miss J. Milroy, of Kawerau, has sent us this very nice photo of a really old Maori grandmother holding the youngest of her eight grandchildren, who were left orphans a year ago. And what a fine carved Maori meeting house.’ I recognised the name Miss J. Milroy and remembered that I had meet Jean Milroy as a child. Examining the photo more closely, the carvings on

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the house were familiar to me; I had grown up on this marae: Hahuru marae in Kawerau. The faces of the children in the image were also familiar. I realised that the ‘really old Māori grandmother’ was, in fact, my great-grandmother, Mihitaurangi Hunia. Of the eight ‘orphaned grandchildren,’ the child on the far right sitting on the ground is my birth mother, while the girl standing on the porch is my whāngai2 mother. The remaining children in the photo are the grandchildren of Mihitaurangi. Two of the people captured in this image are still alive today, and have confirmed that I was correct in my identifications. The young lady holding the baby is Ida (the eldest granddaughter of Mihitaurangi), who is seated next to her husband Eric ‘Snowy’ Maras. They had two children, Eric and Rangi. Not long after this photo was taken, Eric senior had died unexpectedly. Proper documentation should have recorded the following information: Location: Hahuru Marae, Kawerau Identification: Mrs. Mihitaurangi Hūnia with all her grandchildren and great-­ granddaughter. Child she is holding is her grandson Patupo Hunia Lady seated behind holding baby is, Te Ida Hine Maras (granddaughter of Mihitaurangi) holding her daughter, Rangi Maras, next to Te Ida is her husband Eric Maras Children are: Bessie Jane Hunia, Sybil Hunia, Te Aue Shirley Hunia. Boys are, Alabama Hunia and Raymond Hunia

It seemed that admiring the Māori meeting house was deemed to be more important than recording the names of the people, the occasion, the location, and the correct relationships. The identity of these people is reduced to an unnamed ‘really old Māori grandmother with eight orphaned grandchildren.’ After further research, I found that the Presbyterian Archives held 34 images taken between 1930 and 1955. The main commonality across these photos was the word ‘Kawerau’ in many of the descriptions. I grew up in this small community and all of the people in the images were related to me. In all the photos, the majority of Māori people were reduced to nameless identities while the white missionaries or teachers were consistently named. The task, therefore, was to identify these nameless people, thereby reclaiming their identities and learning something of their world and context when the photo was taken. 2

 A child by customary adoption.

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How did I proceed? The Presbyterian Archives granted me access to the electronic images. A Facebook page was soon established with a small select group of people from Kawerau working to identify all the people in the images. Each week a photographic image would be posted to the Facebook page, and then our work of identification would begin. As our project developed, people with whakapapa (genealogical) connections to Kawerau soon began requesting to be involved. The numbers of participants grew to one hundred and thirty-five people who had lived in Kawerau, and were now living throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. In the remainder of this chapter, I will share with you some of the images and information that our research uncovered.

Results of the Research Image: P-A21. 41–125.

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Kawerau Mission Station

1953 Creator: Publicity Committee. Māori Missions Committee. Subject: Buildings

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Description: View of the mission station buildings at Kawerau, showing three separate buildings. A small school building in centre with ‘fold-back’ windows. (NB typed caption on reverse: ‘Kawerau Mission Station.’ Reverse: stamp ‘The Property of the Publicity Committee Presbyterian Church of N.Z. No. 483’)

To give the reader an understanding of where the majority of these photos were taken, this image is the Kawerau mission and mission school. This is land that was gifted to the Presbyterian Church in 1928 by the iwi of Kawerau. To the left is the original schoolhouse, next to a classroom that was moved onto this site from Reporoa. To the right is the mission house where the missionary teacher lived. This house has remained in our family since 1959 when the school closed (and my sister lives in it today). Image: P-A22. 25–80.

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Group photo at Kawerau Mission

1935 Creator: Home Missions Committee Subject: Portraits— Groups.

Description: A group photograph of Maori women and children, taken in front of the Mission House at Kawerau

The above image was the first photograph I posted on the Facebook page, on 1 January 2021. Looking at the photo, I had recognised some familiar features of the people, features that we see today in the people who live in Kawerau. This photo received an immediate response of excitement from Skip Savage: ‘Wow! That’s awesome! Gezz, come on whanau get our thinking caps on, priceless.’ The lady in the front row on the far left was identified by Skip as possibly being his grandmother: Arihia Haweti (Savage). Other members of the Haweti whanau viewed the photo and, by comparing it to other whanau photos of Arihia, confirmed that it was indeed their grandmother. A great-granddaughter, Ngatiira Peita, posted her excitement that the name Arihia had been passed from one generation to another for six generations, and that her own granddaughter (the great, great, great-granddaughter of Arihia!) now carried the name. Arihia Haweti was to appear in further image (e.g., P-A21.16–66). The person in the second row, second from left, was identified as Kararina Tukiwaho by her granddaughter Rahera Archer. The person in the second row on the far right was identified as Mihiwai Rose Te Rire. The person who made the identification was her granddaughter, Louise Te Rire. Mihiwai Rose is the elder sister of my father Hepeta Te Kaawa. The comment that was made in the Facebook discussion was, ‘you still see these faces today walking around Onepu.’ This comment became prevalent as the project continued; some people were unable to be identified but their familiar facial characteristics are still seen in their descendants today. ‘Whakapapa’ translates as the layering of generations upon generations upon generations. The first layer is included in the word ‘whakapapa’ or ‘Papatūānuku,’ commonly described as ‘mother earth.’ All subsequent layers are built on this foundational layer of the land which grounds the whakapapa. A common technique of recording whakapapa is to trace a lineage not to a single person but to an entire generation of people who are connected by that whakapapa. In the Facebook discussions, the younger members of our iwi were more preoccupied with tracing their individual genealogy to a person

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depicted in the photo. By contrast, Rahera Archer, the current matriarch of Onepu, was more concerned with continuing the traditional method of whakapapa by placing the people depicted within the context of the whole generation of people both captured and not captured in the photographic images. The intergenerational discussions showed how Western interpretations of genealogy had become incorporated into a Māori understanding and interpretation of whakapapa. The Facebook discussion was also at times a difficult and painful discussion. As Margaret Burton comments, ‘It’s so sad that when these photos were taken, Maori were nameless men and women, more often than not.’ In viewing these photographic images that were taken in our community, there was a painfulness that the wider world never sees or hears about, an archival silencing. Identifications: Backrow from Left to right: …, … Kararaina Tukiwaho, Mihiwai Te Rire. Front row from left to right: Arihia Wharepapa Haweti, …, …, …

Image: P-A21. 16–69.

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Māori children eating from a bowl

1935 Creator: Māori Missions Committee Subject: PortraitsGroups

Description: A group of Maori children sitting on the lawn, eating from a bowl. Reverse: (ink pen) ‘Enjoying (?) a product of the Junior Cooks’

This particular photo is one in a series of eight photos taken in 1935. Six of the photos have the same coding in a sequence: P.A21–16-66.67,68,69,70,71. Four of the photos contain children, in various situations: riding horses, eating, a group photo and one photo of a baby bathing in a large wash bowl. There is no information given in the descriptions about any of the locations, although one photo with a landscape gives the information ‘Tarawera River’ (Kawerau is a community that is located alongside the Tarawera River). Another photo locates a group of children next to a shed, which I know very well having repaired and painted it on several occasions. And yet another photo has the comment, ‘after the measles are over.’ I posted this image on Facebook on 16 February 2021. While no people in the photo were identified in the discussion, a comment was made by Mr. Tomairangi Fox, which provided some context to the photograph: ‘Mum had told me when they use to have kai from a dish or bowl, it was called, “He rihi Kotahi” where they were all fed from a dish or bowl. He korero whakaaro tenei. Seeing that photo reminded me of that korero.’ This comment raised a lot of questions and discussion about the context of the time. At the end of the nineteenth century, Māori had been considered to be a dying race. By 1930, numbers had grown substantially, to around 67,000, with 90% of the population based in rural areas. However, health was a major concern and a number of epidemics had devastated many communities. The 1929 influenza epidemic took 297 deaths across the country while diphtheria took 150 deaths in Māori communities. From 1936 to 1938, typhoid, polio and measles all swept through Māori communities with a heavy death toll (Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand n.d.). From 1930–1935, New Zealand experienced the Great Depression, with high levels of unemployment and significant financial pressures. In Kawerau, during the lead up to these depression years, a marae had been built as the cultural centre of the community. In addition, negotiations were successfully completed with the Presbyterian Church to open a

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mission and mission school. As a community with limited resources, Kawerau had rallied to provide food for children during school hours 2  years before the New Zealand Government had instituted a policy of providing free milk in schools. In the six photos of children and adults, the people are well dressed, in good health and appear happy. This shows the resilience of the Kawerau Māori community during these difficult economic times. Image: P-A36. 38–168.

All are one in Jesus Christ

1949 Creator: Audio Vision Education Committee Subject: Portraits – Groups

7 Jan 2021

Description: A group of Maori women, some with children, sitting in a garden reading, possibly taken at Kawerau

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This photo is one of a series of eight that was taken in 1949. All eight photos are simply entitled, ‘All are one in Jesus Christ.’ This title was a regular feature in The Break of Day children’s periodical magazine that was produced by the Presbyterian Church. Each issue contained an article on the church’s mission fields, and often also contained a story and photo from the central North Island Māori missions. In these publications, Māori were still cast in the role of missionary subjects (Morrison 2012). In the description notes is ‘publication, the break of day.’ This church publication carried some stories and photos of Māori who had an association with the Presbyterian Church, but the focus was on the white settler Presbyterian deaconesses who, ran Sunday schools (Paterson 2012). It is possible that this photo or one from the 1949 series may have been published in The Break of Day. In three of the photographs the missionary teacher, Miss Jean Milroy, appears and is named. None of the forty-eight Māori people in any of these eight photos are named. The creator of the images is the education committee, who likely wanted to capture positive images of adults and children being educated. Three of the photos show women being taught to sew using a singer treadle sewing machine. The photo above shows the women in a reading group, most likely a Bible study group. Three final photos show some sort of community education classes for the parents of the school children. What was most heartening was, people in the Facebook discussion seeing their mothers and aunties as young women for the first time. Sharon Te Kaawa: ‘Lady besides the one with hat on looks like aunty Mihiwai?’ Louise Te Rire: ‘It does aye, wonder who she is holding?’ Wayne Te Kaawa: ‘Who was born in 1949?’ Louise ‘Te Rire: Te Haukakawa I think?’ Luvi Ngāheu: ‘It is mum. Isabel Fox head down looks like Helen’. Karlene Robertson: ‘Yes, aunty does aye. Just loving these photos’. Luvi Ngāheu: ‘These photos are awesome’. Georgina Te Rire: ‘Karen looks like her nanny’. Gerry Karekare: ‘Helen looks like aunty Isabel’.

Of the 48 people in the eight photos taken in 1949, 13 people were successfully identified. From the Facebook discussions, six of the people in the above photo were named. Identifications: Left to Right: Kararaina Tukiwaho, Hohipera Isabel Fox, Naki (partly obscured) … Mihiwai Te Rire holding Te Haukakawa, Morehu Maaka, Mina Karekare.

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Image: P-A21. 37. 121.

. Girls in Māori dress. 7 Māori 1955 Creator: girls in flax skirts and plaited Māori tops, standing on a stone plinth Missions with a carved wooden post. Committee There is also a plaque with an Subject: inscription on the plinth. Costumes Reverse side of photo ‘706’ Monuments

Description: Seven Maori girls in flax skirts and plaited tops, standing on a stone plinth with a carved wooden post; there is also a plague with an inscription on the plinth. Reverse: stamp ‘706’

This image is one of four photos taken of young Māori girls in traditional costumes. This image was posted on Facebook on 12 January 2022. The location was immediately identified as Hahuru marae, the cultural centre of the iwi in Kawerau and a five-minute walk from the Kawerau

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Mission and School. One person in the photograph was identified as Ani Waikaretu Te Rire (Mrs Ani Wickliffe) who is still alive today, well into her 80s. What was of particular interest, however, was the traditional costumes that the young girls were dressed in. The patterns were quite familiar and identified as being taken from the artwork from within the ancestral house, Hahuru. We speculated about the weaver of these costumes. On a visit home to my sister, Sharon Te Kaawa, we were going through some of the whanau heirlooms and even found the original costumes. My sister took these two images to Ani Wickliffe,3 who became quite emotional as she had never seen these photos before. This brought back memories of her young school days in the 1950s. Ani not only identified the people in the photo but also told the story of the costumes and the occasion on which these photographs were taken. This special occasion taken turned out to be the courtship of my parents, Hepeta and Millie Te Kaawa. As Ani Wickliffe recalled, ‘In 1955, Millie Hunia was a teaching assistant at the Kawerau School. Hepeta Te Kaawa had been discharged from military service in the Korean war. The iwi decided to hold a pōwhiri at Hahuru marae to welcome Hepeta home to Kawerau. As this was a special occasion the school were invited to take part in the occasion and provide some items. Millie decided to weave by her own hands the customs for her female students. The patterns were taken from the inside of the Hahuru house.’ Ani Wickliffe also remembered walking from the school to the marae as a child for this occasion and the powhiri: ‘We were standing around the flagpole with aunty Millie when uncle Hepeta arrived at the gate of the marae. Aunty thought, wow, he is nice looking. Uncle Hepeta came onto the marae and looked at us children and thought, they look nice in their costumes, I wonder if their teacher standing with the children is the weaver? Romance blossomed immediately and they married not long after their first meeting at the marae where they first meet.’

3  Ani Wickliffe is depicted in both photos and is the daughter of Mihiwai Rose Te Rire, older sister of Hepeta Te Kaawa.

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Photos of Hepeta and Millie Te Kaawa with the original costumes made by Millie

What was the occasion? My father had just returned home from service in the Korean War with the United Nations’ peace-keeping force. This was considered an important event in the life of the community; even the school attended the welcome home ceremony. In the accompanying description in the archive, however, no mention is made of the occasion that this photo was taken. Identifications: Location: Hahuru wharenui, Hahuru marae, Onepu (Kawerau) Occasion: Powhiri for Hepeta Te Kaawa returning from Korean War Left to right: Ellen Karekare, Bonnie Nuku, Margaret Karekare, Mate Te Rire, Mere Whakaruru, Ani Te Rire, Shirley Ngaheu

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Image: P-A21. 43–127.

Mission School 1953 Creator: Group Māori Photograph Missions Kawerau Committee. Subject: PortraitsGroups

26/01/2021 Description: Group photograph of the pupils and staff of Kawerau Mission School. Including: (left to right) second row: dental nurse (4th from left); Miss Jean Milroy (5th); Mrs. M. Hardman (6th); Miss Nancy Clarke (7th)

As this photo was examined and we began identifying people, someone made an observation about the westernisation of names. This practice had originated in the early 1900s. Our grandparents had Māori names that were rich in meaning, often taken from ancestor names or from significant events. However they would go to school and hear their names constantly being mispronounced and then would be punished for correcting their teachers mispronunciation. To spare the children from enduring a similar experience, their parents had changed the naming convention and begun

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giving their children an English name followed by a Māori name. Thus my mother had been named Millie Amiria. This practice continued into my generation: Wayne Manaaki. I would describe this convention as a ‘tikanga manaakitanga’ (a way of protection). It was a response to the situation of Māori names being mispronounced and children being punished. Because names are about identity, constant mispronunciation can impact identity and self-esteem. This has certainly been my own experience; and over the years, my names have constantly been mispronounced: Manaaki, as monkey, and Te Kaawa, Toe Carwee. Other people responded on Facebook by sharing memories and information. Nani Kararaina, for example, made the following comment: ‘Yes mummy retold the same story of firstly getting the slap/smack for speaking Te REO at Kura & being told English names will be instilled in them. These days there is a resurgence back to our beautiful names thru our moko (baby names comeback) and more of us are reverting back to our parents Maori names.’ Rev. Hone Te Rire shared the names of his father and siblings from the Te Rire whanau: Alfred – Te Maungarangi; Ani – Te Waikaretu; Raymond – Te Urumingi; Phillip – Piripi. Florence – Te Mae; Margaret – Te Waotatahi; William – Te Haukakawa; Graham – Kahurere. Marjorie – Lovey; Sonny – Riaka; Thompson – Tamihana. Lincoln Savage, a schoolteacher at King’s College in Auckland, shared the following on the Facebook page: ‘I had this very conversation with my Year 9, te reo class today! i.e tupuna punished and tupuna names given pakeha names.’ Jacki Woolston-­Walker shared the following information: ‘I remember as a kid been told about it here in the eastern bay and dad said it was the same when he was young 1930s, in Taumarunui and when he was in Korea. Maori couldn’t have Maori names. Dad and them didn’t care but they had to be careful with people outside their group/family. Some people weren’t so nice.’ Ihaia Pari, asked the question, ‘is that why mum dosent [sic] use her Māori name?’ In a post, Helen Savage was adamant where the blame for this westernisation of names should be placed: ‘it was the Pākehā education system of the time.’ To round this discussion off, I relayed an event at Kokohinau marae in the 1990s:

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I remember in the 1990s attending a whanau reunion at Kokohinau marae and there was a karakia for releasing names and blessing names. After the karakia uncle Fred Wetini was known as Te Rangitupukiwaho. His younger brother, Peter Wetini became known by his Māori name, Rapaea. Their cousin Willie Coats became known by his Māori name, Te Wharekaihua which like the names of his two cousins was the name of an ancestor.

My suggestion was that perhaps we should hold a ceremony to say thank you to our English names and publicly reclaim our Māori names. Identifications: Top row, left to right: Jacky, Aubrey Himiona, Teri, Alfred Te Rire, Teriini Nuku, Alec Tukiwaho … Samuel Karekare, Jimi, Charlie Savage, Weko, Blacky, Ben, Hori Middle row: Piripi Te Rire, Rangi Maras, Rangi Whetu, Rutu Janet Tukiwaho, Mere Whakaruru, Parehuia, Shirley, Tina … Margaret Karekare … Sitting: , … Harete, Matekino Te Rire, Nurse Evans, Miss Jean Milroy, Mrs. Monica Hardman, Miss Fletcher, Te Mae Te Rire, Beverly Hardman, Erena Karekare, Toi Bottom row: Tumihitai George Raerino, Mereteuia Raerino, Peggy, Gina, Stanley Tukiwaho, Te Haukakawa Te Rire, Pirihira Tukiwaho

Image 12.P-A21. 17–76

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Party in Māori 1940 Creator: canoe. Crossing the Māori Tarawera River to Missions the infernal regions Committee Subject: Transport

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Description: A group of Māori, including some children, crossing the Tarawera River in a long dug-out canoe. Reverse: (ink pen) ‘Party in Maori Canoe crossing the Tarawera R. To the ‘infernal’ regions’ Publication: ‘Break of Day’ (date unknown; 1940?)

After the New Zealand Land Wars of the 1860s, the iwi in Kawerau, who had been loyalists to the Crown, suffered the confiscation of 85,000 acres of land. Colonisation followed confiscation as the environment was prepared for European settlement. After 1890, the Rangitaiki swamp, or wetlands as it was called, was drained in order to produce fertile land for white settlers. Draining this land proved difficult, so the government took direct responsibility for the project in 1910. The Rangitaiki Drainage Scheme, as it became known, included making a cut at Matata to allow the Tarawera River to flow directly into the sea. The Tarawera River was then straightened and dredged. The Tarawera Western Drain and the Awakaponga Canal were constructed in order to take seepage from the Tarawera River into the drainage scheme. This created close to 80,000 acres for European settlement and farming. Very little if any of the land was reserved for the benefit of the people in Kawerau. Within two generations, an entire way of life had been transformed. The community had relied of the Tarawera River and wetlands as an important food source and on the river as an important route of travel. Thirteen years after this photo was taken, the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill was built on the Tarawera River. A new town was built with the Mill and the name of Kawerau was given to this new town (and Kawerau proper was renamed Onepu). The establishment of the Mill destroyed the river; the Mill discharged its chemicals directly into the river. Fish, eels, inanga, and other important food sources were contaminated and rendered unfit for human consumption. Some of the people who are still alive today tell stories of taking their harvest home from the river only to find that the eels and fish tasted like diesel. The above photo is important in that it is one of the few that provides evidence of how the Kawerau Māori community were a river-based culture. An interesting discussion emerged on the Facebook page about tribal pepeha or whakatauaki (proverbs and aphorisms) that tell of the relationship between people and important features of the tribal landscape. The most notable being ‘Ko au te awa ko te awa ko au [I am the river, the river

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is me].’ This whakatauki signifies the unique relationship between the Whanganui River and the iwi of Whanganui. The saying reflects the unique physical and spiritual intrinsic inter-relationship between river and people. No doubt our ancestors would have had similar sayings that captured the relationship between the Tarawera River and the people who lived along its banks. Colonisation and other factors have contributed to these saying being lost. However, there was no reason why the current and future generations could not create their own whakatauki, ones which expressed the intrinsic relationship between river, landscape, and people. Some of the suggestions included the following: From Hone Te Rire: ‘He ripo, he ı ̄nanga, he tuna, he kainga, ko Tarawera te tipua’ (wetlands, freshwater whitebait, eels, a home, Tarawera the extraordinary). Te rourou iti o Tarawera (the small basket of Tarawera). From Warren Hunia: ‘He auahi ki te rangi, Tarawera ki te whenua’ (Smoke rising to the sky, Tarawera to the land). And ‘he maunga e ngunguru nei, he wai e rere ana’ (A rumbling mountain, a flowing river). And my own contribution: ‘Ko te awa o Tarawera, he pā tuna, he waiariki’ (Tarawera river, place of eels and hydrothermal baths). Identifications: Tukiwaho at the back of the waka.

Image 12.P-A21. 17–77

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At the hot 1940 Creator: regions Māori Missions Committee Subject: Portraits – Groups

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Description: A group of Māori standing in front of a thermal area; steam visible at rear. Reverse: (ink pen) ‘At the hot regions’

This photo follows in sequence after the previous photo. The trip by waka (canoe) on the Tarawera River was to the Kawerau geothermal area. Kawerau is part of the Pacific ‘ring of fire’ and is on an active volcanic line that runs in a straight line from Whakaari (White Island) to the mountains, Pūtauaki, Tarawera, Tauhara, Tongariro, Ngaruahoe, and Ruapehu. Kawerau is located at the base of Pūtauaki, which is estimated to have last erupted 2000–3000 years ago. Tarawera last erupted in 1886 which covered the Kawerau area in volcanic ash making life difficult. The most recent eruption of Whakaari was in 2019 resulting in twenty-two deaths and twenty-five injuries. The people of Kawerau enjoy a cultural, spiritual, economic, and historical relationship with the geothermal fields for more than thirty generations. As people who whakapapa to Te Arawa, they maintain a narrative of their ancestor Ngatoroirangi who called on his sisters, Te Pupu and Te Hoata to send him warmth from Hawaiki. The sisters responded by sending their brother warmth via geothermal activity. This narrative explains the epistemology of geothermal activity in the central North Island. This narrative allows the people of Kawerau to enjoy in perpetuity the benefits of the geothermal fields for bathing and cooking food. Separate areas were designated for bathing and cooking. In the bottom right-hand side of the photo can be seen a basket that could possibly have been used to carry food to be cooked or used as a cooking basket. Two possible areas were identified, Rotoitipaku ngawha or Okakaru ngawha: Anthony Savage: ‘This could be Rotoitipaku, hard to distinguish exactly where because of the steam pretty sure that’s the area where the warm water spring was where we use to swim. Rotoitipaku, had awesome cooking ngawha we use to go there with chestnuts and cook them while we swam pluck ducks during the shooting season my dad had his maimai in that area.’ Tomairangi Fox: ‘Rotoitipaku (Okakaru Ngawha) boiling hot pools.’

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Mrs. Ani Wickliffe tells stories of her childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: ‘We would dig holes in the bank of the Tarawera River and create our own little individual pool to bathe in.’ Stories are often told by the people of Kawerau that describes the beauty of the Kawerau geothermal fields as being a miniature Whakarewarewa.4 Like its Rotorua counterpart, small tourist groups were given guided tours. Today, the geothermal fields continue as an important site for cultural and spiritual wellbeing. The geothermal fields have also become economically important as post-settlement the iwi have gone into commercial partnership with various energy companies with ownership rights to two geothermal power stations. When you read historic publications concerning the Kawerau geothermal area, the local Indigenous people are written out of the landscape and are non-existent. This photo is historic evidence of the relationship between the Indigenous people of Kawerau and their unique environment. Identification: Tukiwaho Te Rini. Location: Rotoitipaku.

Conclusion This research project had two main goals. The first goal was to identify people from my home community in photographs taken by the Presbyterian Church between 1930 and 1955. From the thirty four photos, there were 214 people from my home community appearing in the photos, with only four of the people named in the accompanying descriptions. From this project, eighty four of the unidentified people were successfully named (a 40% success rate). Of the eight Pākehā people in the photos, six were already named in the accompanying description. From this project, the remaining two Pākehā teaching staff were easily identified and named. The second goal of the project was to put the digital images back into the hands of the community where the photographs were taken. Photographs taken by the Church seldom, if ever, end up in the hands of those captured in the images. Those who are photographed rarely, if ever, even see the photos, and over time can forget that a particular photo ever existed. The Presbyterian Archives were very gracious in allowing the photos to appear on the Facebook page, and thus allowing for people to 4

 A major geothermal tourist site in Rotorua.

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download copies. The Archive staff also offered to print, frame, and accompany copies back to the Kawerau community. There remains an ethical concern: Who owns the legal rights to the photos? Is it the agency who authorised the images to be taken, the archives who now hold the original photographic images, or the communities who are represented in the images? Regardless of what the answer may be, I advocate strongly that those who appear in the photos must also have legal ownership rights to the images they appear in. From this project a number of things have been learnt. The camera can be an exceptional source of authority and objective truth. Photographs in church archives of Indigenous people are often without context, or appear in a context that has been misshaped. The images that are captured were intended and have been used to support the mission of the church, that is, by showing to a European audience the success of the church’s missionary efforts. Often the photos are highly romanticised images of happy, smiling natives learning new skills like sewing. Archives must connect communities with the photos to allow local knowledge to be added to the photographic collections. This empowers Indigenous communities to begin to write the narratives of the people captured in the images. How they have been recorded and written is how they will be viewed and remembered. When names and locations are not documented those in the photographs are viewed as people without an identity, or sometimes a false identity is created for them. This project has also shown how historical photographs can initiate intergenerational conversations. These conversations can be difficult, bringing up painful issues such as the westernisation of names, colonisation, the loss of land, and the loss of a way of life. Those in the Facebook discussion saw their parents and grandparent listed as nameless people. The final word should to go Jacki Woolston-Walker, the great, great granddaughter of Mihitaurangi Te Riini-Hunia: Uncle Wayne, thank you so much for starting this page and letting us join. It’s fantastic seeing our elders as young people. Being able to see elders that we have never met. Thank you for everyone who is able to identify our whanau as well. I showed the girls the photos and they really enjoy seeing them too.

Look again at the photos from an Indigenous viewpoint, now what do you see?

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References Jimerson, Randall C. 2009. Archives power, memory, accountability, and social justice. Chicago: Society of American Archivists. Kaa, Hirini. 2020. Te Hāhi Mihinare, the Anglican Māori church. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Morrison, Hugh. 2012. Representation of Māori in Presbyterian Children’s missionary literature, 1909–1939. In Mana Maō ri and Christianity, ed. Hugh Morrison, Lachland Paterson, Brett Knowles, and Murray Rae, 159–178. Wellington: Huia. Paterson, Lachlan. 2012. The rise and fall of women field workers within the Presbyterian Māori missions, 1907-1970. In Mana Maō ri and Christianity, ed. Hugh Morrison, Lachland Paterson, Brett Knowles, and Murray Rae, 179–204. Wellington: Huia. Presbyterian Research Centre. n.d.. https://pcanzarchives.recollect.co.nz. Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. n.d. A timeline of epidemics in New Zealand, 1817–2020. https://teara.govt.nz/files/27772-­enz.pdf.

CHAPTER 13

Beyond the Tautologa: Tu(akoi) from a Geopolitical Lens Maina Talia

The work of the Good Samaritan, as tuakoi (neighbour), has significance for life in Tuvalu. It provides another way of looking at the menace posed by rising sea levels and climate change. It speaks to a Bible-conscious audience that deeply treasures its own Indigenous wisdom, its muna o te fale (wisdom of the home). From the perspective of public theology, it speaks to an audience that lives with the threats posed by the climate emergency to these islands. For public theology, this is one dimension of the call to be bilingual: in this instance speaking into the lives of a people who are seeking to find ways of connecting their culture—their experience of king tides, droughts, the loss of the pulaka pits—with their Christian faith. The other side of this call to be bilingual is to release this talk of the tuakoi into the geopolitics of climate change. That is possible because talk of the neighbour can function as a middle axiom (cf. Oldham 1937). It is language that is readily used and understood in all cultures, even while still

M. Talia (*) Independent Scholar and Climate Activist, Vaitupu, Tuvalu © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_13

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possessing a specific biblical and Indigenous reference point. The invitation to consider the people of Tuvalu from the perspective of the neighbour, then, has several dimensions: geopolitics, climate justice, culture, and theology. The invitation constitutes a request to respect and embrace Indigenous knowledge as well as a right to life, a right to existence. It is time to look to the tautologa (horizon) and consider how these vulnerable communities and low-lying atolls may feature and be represented in the complex global response to climate change.

Who Is your Neighbour? It has not been the practice of Tuvalu’s representatives in global forums to make use of this language of the neighbour, the tuakoi. The standard practice has been to make appeals based on geographical vulnerability and how prone life on the islands is to threat due to their physical structure. The idea of employing a discourse to do with the tuakoi is rather different. It is intended to align the political narrative with one that is Indigenous, as well as with one that possesses strong moral and religious dimensions. The intention is also to stimulate an affective response from within the geopolitical community. There are two sides to this intention. The appeal to affect takes place in a field that Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg have described as ‘the new emotionologies of climate change’ (2015, 145–163). In their work on climate change, capitalism, and corporations, Wright and Nyberg pay attention to the expression of emotional responses to a ‘climate-shocked world.’ Their specific focus is on the public relations and advertising initiatives taken by corporations in order to project an image of environmental concern—though that intention may, in fact, mask a motive to increase greater consumption. What Wright and Nyberg have recognized is how the corporate world now recognizes the importance of emotion in a way in which it once had not. Along similar lines, Kari Marie Norgaard (2011) has explored the ‘sociology of emotions’ in everyday life. Why is it possible for those who enjoy the benefits of ‘climate privilege’ to maintain indifference, apathy, and ignorance about what is happening to the world’s climate? Why does a cognitive knowledge and localized experience of ‘troubling events’ not lead to greater public engagement and action? What ‘perspectival selectivity’ of emotions is in play here? How are emotions to do with climate change being ‘managed’?

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The second side to this strategy of appealing to affective response relates to the importance of ethics, psychology, and religion (Clayton and Manning 2018). The question of whether global citizens are tuakoi connects with wider discussions about ethics and moral obligations. The realities of climate change need to be understood in terms of ethical responsibility and obligations to those who are being most impacted, as well as more realistic assessments of the costs of adaptation. In this context, Stephen Gardiner (2011) and Donald Brown (2013) have diagnosed the failure of the global community to recognise its obligations as an ‘ethical tragedy’ that has been ‘evolving’ and ‘lingering.’ They describe the current situation as a ‘perfect moral storm,’ in which ethical concerns and obligations have been unable to gain traction (Brown 2013, 128–142). How might the language of tuakoi  – with its affective and ethical dimensions  – indicate a way forward? Cynthia Moe-Lobeda (2013) has provided a rich account of ‘neighbour-love’ as a planetary imperative, one which that holds together emotions, religion, and ethics. Aware of a tendency to look upon the Christian life as primarily a personal or individual vocation, Moe-Lobeda situates the love of neighbour in opposition to a global ecological and economic order marked by structural evil and the ‘ongoing grind of [otherwise] “hidden” environmental racism’ (37). Unlike some other contemporary theologies, Moe-Lobeda does not hesitate from naming these forms of structural violence as sin. In the context of climate change, it is a vital task to ‘unmask the evil that parades as good’ that is quickly leading us towards ‘moral oblivion’ (83–111). In addition, Moe-Lobeda consciously writes from the perspective of a privileged ‘we,’ the minority of the world’s population who are ‘economically privileged’ and are an ‘overconsuming class’ (10–12). She is also mindful of how ‘[o]ne young and dangerous species, homo sapiens, now threatens Earth’s capacity to regenerate life as we know it’ (31). In light of these contexts, she insists that it is time for a ‘shift in discourse … something new is required of humankind … something new required of religion and religious ethics’ (40–44). Moe-Lobeda makes the case for a new ‘theological language for the sake of the world’ (7–10). In developing a new language, Moe-Lobeda gives particular attention to the Christian tradition of ‘neighbour-love.’ In the search for ‘theological seeds of hope and power,’ she establishes such love in a calling by God – hence an ‘ecological and economic vocation’ – and insists on such a vocation being ‘the central moral norm of Christian life’ (61). Indeed, she insists that neighbour-love is ‘the essence of morality’ (167). Focusing

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on the biblical instruction to love the neighbour (Matt 22:37–39), Moe-­ Lobeda notes that the verb agapao is a future indicative. The instruction to love the neighbour is not so much a case of what one should do, but what one will do. To be clear, Moe-Lobeda recognises that this call to love one’s neighbour is a disturbing vocation. And she recognises that this call has particular challenges in the context of climate change: What would be the shape of neighbour-love for a people who saw themselves as an integral and utterly dependent species in a tapestry of life—a planetary community of creatures and elements which coursed the sacred energy of life itself? How would loving neighbour look if these people also were progressively destroying the conditions for life on Earth? What are practical implications of love embedded in the overarching determining realities of the early twenty-first century—the neoliberal global economy, and ecological devastation? How does the “thief” love the victim? (165-166).

In ways that support Moe-Lobeda’s reflection, Maureen O’Connell has observed that globalization ‘has blurred the distinction between those who innocently travel and those who rob others of their dignity along the way’ (2009, 205–206). In her reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Sharon Delgado (2017) similarly reflects on how difficult it can be to determine who are the ‘good guys’ and who are not. In her work, Moe-Lobeda outlines several features of neighbour-love. Positively, she suggests that the root of all love is God. This is what gives love its transformative power; love serves the well-being of whomever is loved. In addition, this means that love is not only a disposition but a gift, both for the one who loves and the beloved. Nonetheless, Moe-Lobeda is careful to make clear that love is never perfect and ‘is subject to forces that work against it or that diminish, block or distort it.’ As outlined earlier, ‘a theology of love must contend with sin’s power to sabotage it’ (174–176). This leads to the question of who one’s neighbour actually is in the contemporary world. Moe-Lobeda breaks with a standard definition of the neighbour in Christian ethics, which draws from Reinhold Niebuhr’s distinction between love and justice. She is rightfully wary of Niebuhr’s account of justice, and how its ‘meanings shift’ and evolve through a ‘millennia-­long and contested history’ (179). And she is equally wary of how Niebuhr relegates love to ‘the world of private relationships’ (176). Against Niebuhr’s privatisation of love of neighbour, she insists that love

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as it unfolds in the parable of the good Samaritan ‘ignores social boundaries’ (177). Furthermore, Moe-Lobeda extends the category of neighbour to those who in this time of globalization and climate change are our ‘distant neighbours.’ In keeping with her earlier analysis, the category of neighbour includes ‘anyone from whom we can steal … land, water and livelihood’ (177). To be clear, the category of neighbour-love still depends on a call to love others. Neighbour-love is also still contextual. But Moe-­ Lobeda now expands this context to include the whole ‘household of Earth’: humankind is ‘called to love (that is, serve the well-being of) the other-than-human parts of God’s beloved creation, as well as the human’ (200). This expansion or ‘leap’ is ‘grounded in the intrinsic worth of the other-than-human’ (201). In a similar development of this idea of neighbour-­love, Michael Northcott (2007) has elsewhere referred to the way in which ‘all human beings, all creatures, are relationally connected to the carbon cycle of the planet.’1 There is indeed a ‘geochemical interconnection of all human actions and all life’ (163). It is of course one thing to identity the importance of neighbour-love, but another to begin putting it into practice. Moe-Lobeda gives particular attention to the challenges with enacting neighbour-love in contexts of massively unbalanced power. The difficulties are not hard to envisage. Within a global economy, neighbour-love involves peoples ‘who live thousands of miles across the globe’ with little or no contact (2013, 131). Indeed, Moe-Lobeda herself wonders whether neighbour love is even the right language for our relationships with millions of distant ‘neighbours,’ whose lives are being impacted by ours through economic systems and climate change. It should come as no surprise that Northcott binds his understanding of the love of neighbour to a particular form of advocacy. In A Moral Climate, Northcott locates the biopolitical crisis of the present with the consequence of empire. In such a context, it is ‘those poor or voiceless human and nonhuman beings whose prospects climate change is 1  Rather than earthing this reading of neighbour love in the parable of the good Samaritan, Northcott argues that this interconnection is a ‘physical analogy for the Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints, or “cloud of witnesses”.’ Again, rather than use terms like mutuality, Northcott opts for a ‘spiritual solidarity of the people of God across time and space’. What is presumed in Northcott’s use of geochemical interconnection and spiritual solidarity is a ‘due recognition of the common ancestry of all human beings’ and a ‘shared dignity’ through humanity’s creation in the image of God.

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threatening [those who are the] neighbours through the climate system to the powerful and wealthy’ (2007, 285). Northcott draws on the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible and Jesus’ ministry to evoke alternatives to the political and militaristic systems of empire: he does so with a hermeneutical eye on the economic empires that shape contemporary geopolitics. What is required, then, is more than individual acts of mutuality and solidarity. These still have their place, but more is required. Moe-Lobeda insists on the need for a new moral economy built upon entirely ‘new economic practices, policies, norms and expectations’ (2013, 202). For the sake of ecological sustainability, human economies must be placed inside Earth’s economy in a way that gives greater recognition to an environmental equity. Easier said than done! In his enquiry into the nature of climate justice, Henry Shue (2014) has identified a particular point of tension. There are deeply unequal power relationships in discussions of mitigation, adaptation, and survival. Those who are most responsible and culpable for emissions, and who have been benefiting from the exploitation of the natural environment, hold significantly more political power. The globalized economic system in which these discussions take place is constructed upon historical injustices and exploitation. There is already a level of ‘background injustice’ that is compounded by climate change and its impact on vulnerable and low-­ lying nations. Shue describes this as ‘compound injustice’ (37–42). On this basis, he highlights how the urgency of responding to climate change, and of not ‘bequeathing hazards to future generations,’ can lead to a set of priorities that leave the vulnerable even more at risk. For the sake of the planet as a whole, agreements are being made that leave past injustices unacknowledged and unaddressed. Put differently, the nations that are most impacted by climate change are ‘weak actors’ on the global stage. Terence Halliday (2020) uses this language in his sociological work on global governance, law-making, and economy. Halliday’s work focuses on the United Nations’ Commission on International Trade Law. He pays particular attention to questions of who sets the agenda, who can attend meetings (noting that minor states are only occasionally invited), who is included in the ‘informal corridor politics and inter-sessional meetings,’ and whose voices are heard and have influence (434). This kind of study also needs to be done on the Conference of Parties to do with climate agreements. There is little room in these discussions for ‘small, marginal or peripheral states.’ What remains is

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simply a moral voice, one which can be ignored or drowned out. Halliday argues that the task of theology in this kind of situation is to work for the inclusion of more voices from below, to offer critique, and raise the profile of otherwise weak actors.

The Geopolitics of Climate Change It is clear that any discussion about the tuakoi (neighbour) must at some point engage with the complex geopolitics of climate change. This is a daunting prospect. It means lifting the discussions that happen on the islands towards the horizon of the political and economic world beyond. There is no word for geopolitics in the Tuvaluan language.2 It can best be described by the term tautologa. This word on Vaitupu refers to the point where the sky (lagi) meets the sea (moana). It is the horizon. One of the challenges that emerges, therefore, is how to make more widely known some of the conversations that are already taking place at the local level. One such opportunity was a workshop on climate-change induced displacement, held at Kainaki Falekaupule in Funafuti in June 2018. This workshop was organized by the Tuvalu Association of Non-­ Governmental Organizations (TANGO). It met under the prophetic theme of Toku Fenua Toku Tofi/My Island My Birthright. The panel for the workshop was selected with the intention of generating discussion about the need to promote and protect traditional knowledge, the implications of climate change for statehood, the economic and non-economic loss and damage, and the role of the church and international law. In his opening remarks at the event, Tafue Lusama, the president of TANGO, insisted on the importance of differentiating between voluntary migration of individuals and forced relocations of peoples. This distinction also underlay the contribution of the Prime Minister, Enele Sopoaga, who emphasized the human rights of those adversely affected by climate change and the need for legal protections. Sopoaga referred to ‘induced displacement for a safe and secure future.’ This basic stance was qualified by the common desire to view relocation as the final option for the peoples of Tuvalu. It was a position that was accompanied by a recognition of the

2  The term geopolitics was coined by Rudolf Kjellen, a Swedish political scientist and defined geopolitics as ‘the theory of the state as a geographic-spatial phenomenon.’ Cited in Halden (2007, 44). See also Deudney (1997).

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importance of preserving cultural identity and cultural and traditional values for a potentially displaced nation. The workshop operated within a rights-based approach to climate change and its impacts on a vulnerable nation. Tuvalu was deemed to be ‘part of the international family,’ and as such required international assistance to deal with a problem that was not of its own making. While in other international forums the plight of Tuvalu may not be so well known, this workshop was sensitive to the commitments of the Paris Agreement, as well as to the Global Compact on Migration and the  New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. Ghazali Ohorella, an international legal scholar and Indigenous rights expert, positioned the future of displaced peoples using the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. By focusing on the well-being of future generations, the former President of Kiribati, Antone Tong, sought to put a human face on the problem of climate change which  has often been approached in ‘overly scientific or abstract’ terms. The sheer seriousness of the climate crisis was expressed by Simon Kofe, the Senior Magistrate of Tuvalu. Kofe spoke about the implications of climate change for statehood and sovereignty, that is, in light of ‘the potential absence of a physical territory or population.’ For Tapugao Falefou, the overriding concern was similarly the intersection of identity with sovereignty. The workshop produced an outcome document, ‘Toku Fenua Toku Tofi/My Island My Birthright.’3 Among other things, the document identified those impacted as ‘indigenous to our islands,’ and it identified how ‘the unforgiving impacts of climate change’ will ‘negatively transform our society as a whole.’ Most directly, the document articulated the ‘fear that the loss of our ancestral lands will force us into extinction.’ The document was clear about how climate change has ‘exacerbate[d] the challenges and disadvantages already faced by Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific’ and left these nations in a position of political and economic marginalization. The document concluded with a set of commitments about the need to stand ‘for what is right and best for our Peoples.’ The option of migration induced by climate change was presented as only ‘the last resort,’ which would be considered after ‘all options and avenues available to us’ have been ‘exhausted.’ 3  ‘Toku Fenua Toku Tofi/My Island My Birthright’ came out of the Climate Change Induced Placement Workshop held in Funafuti, Tuvalu in 21–22 June 2018.

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The language of statelessness was not used in the final document from this workshop. Nonetheless, it was used in the meeting itself and was implicit throughout the conversations about forced migration, sovereignty, and the preservation of culture and existence. Within the context of low-lying islands in an age of climate change, statelessness means something different for those who become stateless as refugees or exiles in situations of persecution or war. The UN Conventions on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1954 and 1961 had not envisioned situations of climate-­ induced statelessness. The document ‘Toku Fenua Toku Tofi/My Island My Birthright’ therefore represents a summary of the threats to land, identity, sovereignty, worldview, Indigenous customs and knowledge. It conveys the current tragedy and reflects on how a moral storm is impacting a society that itself produces minimal emissions. It is the voice of a ‘weak actor’ in the geopolitical sphere. The problem, of course, is that this document has official no standing. Indeed, it is largely unknown beyond the horizon of the islands where it was crafted. It nevertheless invites external powers to consider who the neighbour is in a time of climate change.

References Brown, Donald A. 2013. Climate change ethics: Navigating the perfect moral storm. London and New York: Routledge. Clayton, Susan, and Christie Manning, eds. 2018. Psychology and climate change: Human perceptions, impacts and responses. Cambridge and London: Oxford Academic Press. Delgado, Sharon. 2017. Love in a time of climate change: Honoring creation, establishing justice. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Deudney, Daniel. 1997. Geopolitics and change. In New thinking in international relations theory, ed. Michael W.  Doyle and G.  John Ikenberry. London: Routledge. Gardiner, Stephen M. 2011. A perfect moral storm: The ethical tragedy of climate change. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Halden, Peter. 2007. The geopolitics of climate change – Challenges to the international system. FOI Swedish Defence Research Agency User Report, December. Halliday, Terence C. 2020. Public theology and global governance: Weak actors in Lawmaking for the world economy. International Journal of Public Theology 14: 432–433. Moe-Lobeda, Cynthia. 2013. Resisting structural evil: Love as ecological-economic vocation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

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Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2011. Living in denial: Climate change, emotions and everyday life. Cambridge and London: MIT Press. Northcott, Michael. 2007. A moral climate: The ethics of global warming. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd. O’Connell, Maureen H. 2009. Compassion: Loving our neighbor in an age of globalization. Maryknoll: Orbis. Oldham, J.H. 1937. The church and its function in society. Chicago: Willett, Clarke and Company. Shue, Henry. 2014. Climate justice: Vulnerability and protection. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Toku Fenua Toku Tofi/My Island My Birthright’ June. 2018. The climate change induced placement workshop held in Funafuti, Tuvalu. Wright, Christopher, and Daniel Nyberg. 2015. Climate change, capitalism and corporations: Processes of creative self-destruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 14

Unsettling Economies: A Moana Account(ing) Jione Havea

Maui Kisikisi was the son of a woman from Koloa to Maui ‘Atalanga, whose father Maui Motu‘a lived in Pulotu (underworld). Maui Motu‘a was blind, but he enjoyed eating roasted yams – for there was fire in Pulotu. At that time, there was no fire in Koloa (Tonga). One day, Maui Kisikisi sneaked behind his father when he went to visit Maui Motu‘a and to work at the garden. The father and grandfather did not know that Maui Kisikisi also came (his first visit to Pulotu). Maui ‘Atalanga went to the garden, and Maui Kisikisi crept up to his grandfather and tasted the peels from his roasted yams. Ifo (yum). So, he took one of the two yams and climbed up a nonu tree. When Maui Motu‘a reached out for the yams, one was missing. Maui Kisikisi had eaten it, then he took a bite of a nonu fruit and threw it down at his grandfather. Maui Motu‘a felt the bite mark and cried, ‘The teeth of Maui Kisikisi.’ Maui ‘Atalanga heard the name of his son. He saw Maui Kisikisi on the tree and to cut a long story short, he chased Maui Kisikisi back to Koloa.

J. Havea (*) Trinity Methodist Theological College & Charles Sturt University, Melbourne, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7_14

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Maui Kisikisi scooped up live coals with his vala (body wrap), and upon reaching Koloa he told the fire to hide in the trees. When Tongans rub two sticks, fire would come out so they could eat cooked food. (One of the Tongan sacred stories)

Tonga sits over a sea of fire, at the southwest end of the so-called Ring of Fire. On January 15, 2022, after weeks of underwater volcanic quaking and rumbling, the sea of fire erupted through a submarine volcano between Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai, spewing water particles that went up to 100 kilometres into space—ten times higher than commercial airplanes, which fly at 10–12 kilometres above sea level (Lee and Wang 2022; Amos 2022). This powerful eruption was heard from as far away as Alaska, and it generated tsunami waves that ran freely through nearby islands. Fire flows under us, and fire hides in trees. Both assertions are not unique to the Tongan sacred text translated above (our late grandmother’s version). As legends go, this version is not as spectacular as the Maohi Nui version of Pele migrating/fleeing to Vaihi (Hawai‘i) where she became the goddess of volcanoes and fire, and the creator of islands. But as far as legends go, the 2022 submarine eruption between Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai passes the Tongan sacred text in the tests of time and experience. Before the tsunami waves reached Tongatapu (65 kilometres away), the capital island of the group, Tongans in diaspora (who were concerned because of the quakes and rumblings in previous days) were contacting one another and checking on families in the home(is)land. Then the waves came, and the satellite phone connection was cut off for five days while the internet connection was cut off for another five weeks. Dark days those were. Diaspora communities came together to pray and to gather supplies to send back to Tonga. They were not just the Tongan diaspora communities that stood up to collect, to package, and to ship. Other diaspora Pasifika (on ‘Pasifika,’ see below) communities came forward with their gifts of resources and time, aspirations and commitments, faith and solidarity. Shipping containers filled with supplies were ready to be sent to Tonga, even before the communication superhighway of modern internet technology was reconnected.

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Māfana The native people of Pasifika have been described as a relational (vā) people (Vaai and Carimira 2017), and the response to the Hunga Tonga– Hunga Ha‘apai volcanic explosion and tsunami help explain why. We are relational because, to use a Tongan term, we are a māfana people. The term māfana describes the ‘warmth’ in people’s heart, mind, and soul. Māfana is the oomph that moves people to act and think in certain ways, whether in harmful or helpful ways, hostile or congenial ways, and even in snooty or detached ways. Māfana moves us to relate to/against one another, within and beyond the limits of our (is)lands, in different ways. Regarding the helpful ways that build positive and life-affirming relations (vā lelei), māfana is evident in people’s welcoming faces and generous actions, such as the overwhelming responses to the 15 January 2022 submarine explosion and tsunami waves.1 A sea of fire flows under us and connects us in Tonga to other (is)lands in the Ring of Fire and a sea of ma ̄fana flows out of our bodies, minds, and souls, into the ways we live with one another. This sea of māfana moves Tongans in diaspora to (re)connect with relations back at our ­home(is) land, and the same sea of māfana inspires Pasifika people—at home and away in diaspora—to relate to and share in each other’s struggles. Māfana fosters relationships, but it is not free or cheap. Because māfana involves the gifting of resources and time, it inspires reciprocity. That is to say, that affirming that we are a relational people is only part of our story. We are a relational and a reciprocal people, the reason for which is that we are a māfana people (Salesa 2017). The custom (nomos) of māfana is shared across Pasifika, and it shapes how ‘economy’ functions in the Moana world/views (on ‘Moana,’ see discussion below). On account of the foregoing, i2 submit a Moana ‘accounting’ entry: economy is about task and process (procedure, operation). Economy has 1  Māfana plays out stronger on the ground and face-to-face (fesiofaki, faaloalo) than in virtual space. 2  I use the lowercase ‘i’ (except at the beginning of a sentence) because i also use the lowercase with you, she, we, he, they, it, and others. This is a sign of my affirmation that i (as individual) do not exist without relating to others and to the surroundings, a sign of my resistance against the privileging of the so-called independent modern self, and a sign of my rebellion against the colonial English language.

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more to do with enabling people to relate and function than with providing opportunities for privileged or endowed individuals to accumulate and appreciate profit.

Economies Everyone must be given a place for shelter. Everyone must be given a piece of land for gardening. In other words, the resources from land and sea which are available to sustain the household must be shared or distributed for everyone’s survival. This is a gospel of sharing and distribution within the household (Boseto 1995, 181).

Won-Tok Leslie Boseto used the terms ‘household’ and ‘won-tok’ (one-talk) to frame his description of the economic relationships that sustain the Solomon island(er)s. The term ‘household’ translates the Greek term oikos, which is the ‘eco’ in ‘economy’ (as well as in ecology and oikoumene)—the term ‘economy’ combines oikos and nomos (rule, law, custom). A household depends on its members keeping their economic duties (read nomos) as providers (of provision, service, and assistance) and recipients. A household functions because of, and according to, an expected (unspoken, understood) economy—the emphasis here is on the nomos element of ‘economy.’ Boseto sees the same eco- and nomos-relation in the won-tok custom that links people who share the same language; this won-tok custom functions within and across the Solomon Islands, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu.3 They may not be blood relatives but sharing the same language makes them relatives, obliging them to care for one another as members of a (won-tok, one language) household. Pushing further than the domestic space of an immediate family unit, Boseto stretches ‘household’ into the public and social spaces of won-toks. A village functions as a household, comprising of several families that have places and responsibilities for upkeep of the village. An island also functions like a household, comprising of several villages that are responsible 3  There are over 60 living native languages spoken in the Solomon Islands, over 870 languages in Papua New Guinea and West Papua, and over 145 languages in Vanuatu, with the creole Tok-Pijin as the lingua franca. Tok-Pijin enables all native groups to be won-toks, beyond the barriers of their localized native languages.

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for the life of the whole island. At the levels of villages and islands, sharing the same language (being won-toks) weaves people into relationships that require responsibilities from each of them (read: reciprocity). Because they share the same language (tok)—some families from different villages, some villages in different islands, and some islands far away from each other— they are won-toks. Won-tok relationships involve responsibilities, the fulfilling of which obliges the sharing of space, resources, assistance, and collaboration. In this regard, what might be called ‘won-tok economy’ works not according to capitalist valuations—that put a price tag on lands, waters, products, harvests, goods, and so forth—but to relational responsibilities and services, and Boseto draws this Solomon Island custom or nomos (the ‘nomy’ in ‘economy’) into the realm of theology: Gospel and economy belong together. Both good news (gospel) and economy are related to creation. Our ancestors located their gods in creation. Their gods resided in the rivers, the mountains, valley, reefs, trees, and so forth. They were not far away and above us in heaven (Boseto 1995, 182).4

The won-tok economy entails the sharing of resources, in the contexts of relationships and responsibilities, and is therefore critical of people who benefit from the modern, capitalist economy: ‘Yet many people today want to rape our mother-earth for their own use, for their own benefits, without recognizing our real cousins, brothers and sisters within the one world-household’ (182). The won-tok economy works because won-tok people are māfana to use their resources and services to uphold and foster relationships—which may be understood as a form of discipleship. This brings to mind what Samoans call tautua.5 There are many elaborations of what tautua means

4  Boseto nonetheless prefers the sovereign Christian God: ‘The whole world is the household of God’ (182). 5  ‘Tautua is made up of two syllables: tau and tua. The definitions of the word tau as a verb are ‘relate, reach, fight, read or count’ and as a noun it means ‘coverings of an umu, and weather’. The first syllable tau describes the undertaking of the tautua as a reaching-out to serve the family. The word tua refers to the back of a body, and it also designates the back space (as opposed to the front) where the service of tautua is undertaken. Tua emphasizes the back of the tautua’s body that will carry out the tasks required of the tautua role, despite their weight and difficulty’ (Nofoaiga 2017, 34).

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and entails, their benefits and shortfalls, but for this exercise i draw on the work of Vaitusi Nofoaiga: The culture of tautua is a family-based social and cultural role, value and practice, that views the needs, rights and roles of people in the family and community as primary. I am immersed in and through that culture as a tautua. It is the fatuaiga tausi (role of a member of the family) of any member of a Samoan family regardless of status and gender. Thus, the fundamental existence of tautua begins within the family (2017, 34).

In rooting tautua in the family, Nofoaiga’s work comes into the shades of Boseto’s understanding of the intersection of ‘household’ and won-tok. The aim of tautua may not be to become, to borrow Boseto’s words, ‘co-­ creators and co-stewards with the God of the Bible’ (183) but it definitely is about fulfilling the responsibilities to family, to community (or church), to the village, and to the island—all of which are households. Tautua and won-tok are not economic systems per se, but customs (nomos) that testify to understandings of economy that are based on reciprocal relations and responsibilities rather than on products and monetary values. In these customs, ‘profit’ is not counted in terms of what has been gained, or how many new members one has added to one’s won-tok, but in how relationships have grown in māfana. Oceania In Oceania, derogatory and belittling views of indigenous cultures are traceable to the early years of interactions with Europeans. The wholesale condemnation by Christian missionaries of Oceania cultures as savage, lascivious, and barbaric has had a lasting and negative effect on people’s views of their histories and traditions. In a number of Pacific societies people still divide their history into two parts: the era of darkness associated with savagery and barbarism; and the era of light and civilization ushered in by Christianity (Hau’ofa 1994, 149, emphasis added).

The late ‘Epeli Hau‘ofa (who grew up in Papua New Guinea) challenged derogatory and belittling views  – that islands are small in size (not big enough, which feels like a ‘guy thing’) and islanders are small minded (not wise enough to lead and decide for themselves, which feels very patronizing) – and cultures that have been propagated mostly by foreign scholars and embraced by many locals.

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Belittlement is whatever guise, if internalized for long, and transmitted across generations, may lead to moral paralysis, to apathy, and to the kind of fatalism that we can see among our fellow human beings who have been herded to [mental] reservations or internment camps (152).

In the political sphere, belittling views install ‘inferior-rating’ senses of dependence (on colonial powers to provide leadership and governance) and despair (especially in the case of island nations that have not made much ‘progress’ since independence). ‘The hoped-for era of autonomy following political independence did not materialize’ (150). And in the economic sphere, belittling views make local governments depend on foreign aid and concessions, trade, and investment. In other words, Pasifika governments are ‘inferior-rated’ to depend upon, and to sell their alliance and souls, to foreign donors. The ‘road to Damascus’ experience for Hau‘ofa was at the end of March 1993 (thirty years prior to the writing of this reflection), while he was traveling from Kona to Hilo (Hawai‘i). He observed the scenery and concluded that ‘the world of Oceania is not small; it is huge and growing bigger every day’ (151). Hau‘ofa thus pushed for changing the rhetoric and mindset: ‘There is a world of difference between viewing the Pacific as “islands in a far sea” and as “a sea of islands”’ (152). Hau‘ofa used the term Oceania for the ‘sea of islands.’ Oceania is rich with resources, languages, wisdoms, cultures, and people. Moreover, the people of Oceania have migrated overseas, and through their migration the geography of Oceania has expanded: The world of Oceania may no longer include the heavens and the underworld, but it certainly encompasses the great cities of Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. It is within this expanded world that the extent of the [Oceania] people’s resources must be measured (157).

On his return from Hawai‘i to Fiji, where he was a professor at the University of the South Pacific, Hau‘ofa met an old friend at the Honolulu airport: [He was] a Tongan who is twice my size and lives in Berkeley, California. He is not an educated man. He works on people’s yards, trimming hedges and trees, and laying driveways and footpaths. But every three months or so he flies to Fiji, buys eight-to-ten-thousand dollars worth of kava, takes it on the plane flying him back to California, and sells it from his home. He has never

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heard of dependency, and if he were told of it, it would hold no real meaning for him … There are thousands like him, who are flying back and forth across national boundaries, the international dateline, and the equator, far above and completely undaunted by the deadly serious discourses below on the nature of the Pacific Century, the Asia-Pacific coprosperity sphere, and the dispositions of the post-cold war Pacific rim, cultivating their evergrowing universe in their own ways, which is as it should be, for therein lies their independence. No one else would give it to them-or to us (160, emphasis added).

At the regional and international levels, governments are trapped by inferior-rating belittling views. But at the grassroots levels, native islanders find their own independence—politically, and economically. As such, Hau‘ofa concluded: Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us … We must not allow anyone to belittle us again, and take away our freedom (160).

Hau‘ofa has been praised for his critical and creative shifting of geographical, political, epistemological, and cultural boundaries. He shifted the rhetoric from ‘Pacific islands’ to ‘Oceania’ as a ‘sea of islands.’ The phrase Oceania is us has found its way into many studies and circles, where it has taken new and alternative lives. What has not been fully explored is the economic implications of the assertion, Oceania is us. Whereas Boseto was reflecting from his Solomon home(is)land, Hau‘ofa pushed the limits of Pasifika islands and island-mindedness in two directions: first, into Oceania as a ‘sea of islands’ and second, he pushed the borders of Oceania into the diaspora. Nonetheless, Boseto and Hau‘ofa, in my humble opinion, would both agree that political freedom (independence) requires economic freedom, and the direction to such freedom is not forthcoming from the halls of power (national governments) but from organic ingenuity of grassroot people in their daily lives. That freedom, at home or in diaspora, is the upshot of the endeavour to survive. I see this endeavour (to survive) as the ‘balancing sheet’ for a Moana understanding of economy (qua function). Survival is the keyword here (Havea 1993). Survival is the aspiration of grassroots people, for whom survival is sweeter when it is available to and

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experienced in a collective (household, won-tok). Relating to economy, survival is the reconciling factor. And for the sake of the books of the moral police, survival permits write-offs. reStorying

In the shadows of Boseto and Hau‘ofa, i invite reStorying around two concerns: First, the concern for the names (labels, designations) for the wide, big, deep Pasifika ocean that homes many native island(er) cultures. On this, i draw Hau‘ofa’s understanding of Oceania back to Pasifika (as space) and Moana (as worldview). And second, the concern for economy. The following reflection brings the views by Boseto and Hau‘ofa to frame what i propose as Moana understanding of economy (qua function). Moana First, the concern for the signifiers—Moana and Pasifika, in relation to Oceania and Pacific. The term Pasifika (alt. Pasefika, Pasifiki, Pacifika) nativizes the label that Europeans gave our turbulent oceanic world. In the place of Hau‘ofa’s geographical and political argument for Oceania as the appropriate descriptor (over against Pacific Ocean and Pacific Islands) for our region, i use the problematic label Pasifika because it reminds us of our colonial history. Across Pasifika, colonisation continues—in the occupied island groups of Maohi Nui (French Polynesia), Kanaky (New Caledonia), Rapa Nui (Easter Islands), West Papua (Indonesia), Hawai‘i (50th State of USA), Mariana and Guam (US permanent territories), Tutuila and Manu‘a (American Samoa)—and coloniality is disguised in governments and churches.6 Hau‘ofa sketched the space of Oceania to reach Palau and the Marianas (on the northwest) and across to Hawai‘i (to the east), then down to Rapa Nui and back across to Aotearoa New Zealand. Furthermore, Hau‘ofa stretched the geographical reach of Oceania to the ‘cities’ on the west coast of the United States and the east coast of Australia and New Zealand, to where Pasifika natives have migrated; i use Pasifika to call attention to colonial powers, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand and 6  Coloniality (the colonial matrix of power) is masked by the blessings of Christianisation and made acceptable by the cravings for civilization and development. The force that drives all three – Christianity, civilization, development – is capitalism.

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Australia, in our region. Hau‘ofa was writing against belittlement; i am writing against naivety. Our agendas interweave; naivety is the baptismal water for belittlement. I use Pasifika as designation for the same sea-space that Hau‘ofa called Oceania. I also use the name Oceania, but for a wider world (of sea and islands) than Hau‘ofa presented. When i use Oceania, i refer to the sea world that extends further north on the western side to include the island groups arching from Indonesia through the Philippines to Taiwan and Japan. These island groups also sit on the Ring of Fire, and they are the homes from where some of our ancestors voyaged with some of our native customs and languages.7 These islands have been grouped with (southeast) Asia, but the sea of fire that flows under us links them to the islands of Pasifika.8 Given that western colonial powers divvied our islands, seas, and skies into economic zones, i invite reStorying our oceanic world (space) and pushing away the colonial labels. reStorying our world also requires reframing our worldviews, our ways of thinking, and that brings me to the term Moana. Moana is one of the native names for the deep ocean that homes and links the ‘sea of islands’ in Pasifika. But there is more to Moana than sea-­ space. I also use Moana to refer to native modes and frames of thinking, in other words, to Pasifika worldviews. Worldviews are of course connected to space (worlds), and to avoid confusion in this essay, i use Pasifika to refer to the space (world) and Moana to refer to the native worldviews and wisdoms. For the purpose of this reflection, the key characteristic of Moana worldviews and wisdoms is the interweaving of four ecological bodies in the Pasifika world: (is)land, sea, sky, and underworld (Havea 2024, forthcoming-­a, forthcoming-b). The underworld is named Pulotu in the sacred story at the top of this chapter, the Moana body that Hau‘ofa appeared to have given up when he stated that ‘[t]he world of Oceania may no longer include the heavens [sky] and the underworld’ (157, emphasis added). Hau‘ofa attended to the spaces of (is)land and sea, and i prefer to 7  For example, the Tongan language has been traced back to Indigenous Taiwan, and both languages are classified with so-called Austronesian languages that are spoken as far west as Madagascar. 8  Hau‘ofa stretched Oceania to the shores of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States, four nations governed by white cultures. I stretch Oceania to island nations whose Indigenous peoples look like the natives of Pasifika.

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interweave those with the sky (rather than heaven) and the underworld (Pulotu). The four ecological bodies interrelate—so what happens with one body is understood to have something to do with what happens, or has happened, with the other three bodies. A Moana understanding of economy will accordingly affirm the interrelation between, and interweaving of, these four Moana bodies.

Economy Second, the concern to reStory economy. The won-tok custom (Boseto) and Oceania mindset (Hau‘ofa) testify to a notion of economy that is not driven by the value of assets or the exchange of capitals. Assets and capitals are of course involved in Pasifika economy, as in all economies, but the focus in the Moana worldview is on nurturing relations (which reaches as broadly as the language that people speak) and in breaking free from cultures and mindsets that belittle Pasifika island(er)s. Without relations and freedom, a person, a household, a village, and an island are poor. They might possess (raw) assets and capitals but, in terms of Moana understanding of economy, they are poor. In the relational cultures of won-tok and Oceania, collaboration and the sharing of resources are customary. Collaboration and sharing—the spokes in the wheel of reciprocity—are clearly stated in Hau‘ofa’s account of his old friend whom he ran into at the Honolulu airport: He told me in Honolulu that he was bringing a cooler full of T-shirts, some for the students at the university with whom he often stays when he comes to Suva, and the rest for his relatives in Tonga, where he goes for a week or so while his kava is gathered, pounded, and bagged in Fiji. He later fills the cooler with seafoods to take back home to California, where he has two sons he wants to put through college. On one of his trips he helped me renovate a house that I had just bought. We like him because he is a good storyteller and is generous with his money and time, but mostly because he is one of us (1995, 160, emphasis added).

This friend, who ‘had never heard of dependency,’ reached out to won-toks who helped him prepare the kava to take back on his return to California, and thus the circle of relations rippled across the deep sea of Pasifika. At some point, this friend—who was at the bottom of the mode of

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production—will join the ancestors, but his two sons might meet up some place with the students who were at Suva, and through talanoa (stories, telling of stories, conversations)9 the circle of relations will ripple further and further—into the next and following generations. In the rippling of relations, assets and capitals are not the motivating or decisive factors. Rather, assets and capitals are means for extending and renovating relations. In relational cultures, ownership is communitarian in nature. Ownership is exercised with respect to relations, rather than as the right of possession over assets and capitals. In the old days in Samoa, for example, a person performed tautua because her or his family ‘owned’ the responsibility for the wellbeing of their household (Moleli 2018). The family’s ownership was over work to do—so it is burdensome and taxing—for the wellbeing of, and out of respect for, the household. In modern days also, and in the domains of capitalism, the communitarian understanding of ownership is practised over the resource rich lands and seas of Papua (Whiting et  al. 2023). An individual (leader, chief) will attend a meeting on behalf of their family (household) to discuss issues relating to assets and capitals, but ownership is with the family and so the individual will need to go back and consult the family before a resolution could be proposed. And so, more public meetings are necessary, and more family consultations, before a decision could be made. Through these rippling exchanges, which require a lot of time, some relations are renovated and some fall apart. In light of the above reStorying of the challenges by Boseto and Hau‘ofa, i propose sharing as modus operandi of economy (qua function) in Pasifika. The inspiration for sharing is responsibility (duty, dharma) for household(s) rather than what one will receive in return, so sharing is deeper than the exchange of assets and capitals. What one gives matters more than what one receives, and what one receives is the spark for reciprocity—further and further, into the next and following generations. The working out of economy is obliging and enriching, but it can also be trapping and impoverishing. In relational cultures, distribution is enabled by people who share and collaborate. However, distribution is not always fair because privileged people (like Hau‘ofa, Boseto, and myself) tend to receive more than the 9  Talanoa is the confluence (or intersecting) of three fluxes: an act (of telling and talking); a gift (of intersecting stories); and an event (of listening, and then exchanging and conversing).

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grassroots folk at the bottom of the social ladder. This is due in part to there being more people at the bottom who give, and to people at the bottom doing the heavy lifting of the customs of tautua, relationality, and reciprocity. Economy as practice in Pasifika thus fails the tests of capitalism and distributive justice. Food When our grandmother told us the sacred story at the top of this chapter, it was primarily for etiological reasons—fire came from Pulotu (underworld). The civilization of fire was brought from below, and the connection between two of the Moana ecological bodies—(is)land and underworld—is clear. Our grandmother also hinted at the two other ecological bodies—sea and sky. These two bodies are not named in the sacred story, but they are implied as the plot shifts between (is)land and Pulotu because, in her worldview, the entry to Pulotu is the place where the sun sets—that is, where the sea meets the sky.10 In the Moana world/views, one of the longings that bind these four ecological bodies is food. The four ecological bodies are understood as feleoko—a Tongan term that describes the home of nourishment and energy. On account of the (implied) intersections of the Moana ecological bodies in the sacred story above, one may hear (read, taste) the story with one’s stomach. Maui ‘Atalanga came from Koloa (island) to Pulotu in order to work at the garden; Maui Motu‘a was roasting yams for himself and his son; Maui Kisikisi stole and ate one of the yummy roasted yams, then he snuck fire back to Koloa so that his household too would enjoy eating cooked food. This ‘accounting’ points to the proverbial elephant in the room, that food is the unnoticed, taken-for-granted subject of many sacred texts. Food is in the scriptures and rituals of world religions, from Krishna’s stolen butter to the Buddha’s rice bowl, to modern day Passover and Iftar tables. Food is the key ingredient in the opening stories in Genesis, in the dreams of Joseph, in the complaints of the people in the wilderness, in the spying and invasion of Canaan, in the basket of Judith, in the calling of prophets, in the suffering of Job’s household, in the last Passover with Jesus, in the Emmaus event, and all the way to the new world and new 10  There are other points of entry to Pulotu: a body of water on land, a bush of bamboos, the roots of ancestral trees, and so forth. There are many ways of getting to Pulotu!

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heaven in Revelation. Food is everywhere in Pasifika sacred texts, households, stomachs, and minds. And food is at the bottom line of all economies. Notwithstanding, there is more to the above sacred story than food. There is also an element of subversion in this native account(ing). Fire, and by association—light, came from a place usually associated with darkness. And storytellers add their own subversions. In the case of our grandmother, with each reStorying she appeared more interested in celebrating Maui Kisikisi as a wise grandson. His wisdom was evident in his finding a way to bring fire, using his vala (mat or tapa used as his body wrap)— which is highly flammable, and in discerning that fire could be stored in trees. Many keepers of Pasifika traditions celebrate Maui Kisikisi as a trickster, but our grandmother celebrated him for his wisdom (tongue-in-­ cheek: wiser than our lot). Maui Kisikisi was generous in sharing the ifo (yum, delight) experience he received at Pulotu with his households at Koloa and across Tonga. The purpose for his bringing fire was so that people may eat cooked food, and such new knowledge and progressive development are indicative of economy (qua function) in Pasifika. Economy is not so much about the distribution of assets and capitals, but the sharing of wisdom and delight for the profit (benefit) of households. Our grandmother also appreciated Maui Motu‘a the grandfather, for ‘seeing’ the teeth of Maui Kisikisi on the bitten nonu fruit. Maui Motu‘a was old and blind, but he was able to see with his stomach. That capacity—to see when one is blind, to see with one’s stomach—makes economy tick in Pasifika. That capacity makes Pasifika natives give and give, and go broke in tautua, because they are a māfana people. That capacity was appreciated and celebrated in the generation of my grandmother. But will it function for the generation of our granddaughters?

References Amos, Jonathan. 2022. Tonga volcano eruption continues to astonish. BBC News, December 13. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-­environment-­63953531. Boseto, Leslie. 1995. The gospel of economy from a Solomon Islands perspective. In Voices from the margin: Interpreting the bible in the third world, ed. R.S. Sugirtharaja. Maryknoll: Orbis. Hau‘ofa, ‘Epeli. 1994. Our sea of islands. The Contemporary Pacific 6: 147–161.

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Havea, Jione. 1993. A reconsideration of pacificness in search of south pacific theology. The Pacific Journal of Theology 10: 5–16. ———. 2024. Homing woman-eve in native world(view)s: A Moana Reading. In Routledge handbook of Eve, ed. Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan. New York: Routledge. ———. forthcoming-a. Theologizing Moana and Pasifika world(view)s. In Transpacific political theology, ed. Kwok Pui-lan. Waco: Baylor University Press. ———. forthcoming-b. Native religions and hidden Moana ecologies. In World Christianity and ecological theologies, ed. Graham McGeoch et  al. Minneapolis: Fortress. Lee, Jane J. and Andrew Wang. 2022. Tonga eruption blasted unprecedented amount of water intro stratosphere. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, August 2. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-­e ruption-­b lasted-­u nprecedentedamount-­of-­water-into-­stratosphere. Moleli, Samasoni. 2018. Jabez in context: A multidimensional approach to identity and landholdings in chronicles. PhD Dissertation. Melbourne: University of Divinity. Nofoaiga, Vaitusi. 2017. A Samoan reading of discipleship in Matthew. Atlanta: SBL. Salesa, Damon. 2017. Island time: New Zealand’s Pacific future. Auckland: BWB Texts. Vaai, Upolu Lumā, and Aisake Carimira, eds. 2017. Relational hermeneutics: Decolonising the mindset and the Pacific Itulagi. Suva: University of the South Pacific. Whiting, Natalie, Alex Barry, and Theckla Gunga. 2023. How the ‘second Amazon’ became a battleground. ABC News March 9. https://www.abc.net.au/ news/2023-­0 3-­0 9/how-­t he-­s econd-­a mazone-­b ecame-­b attlegroundsepik-­png/102062130.

Index1

A Aboriginal, 3, 5, 23–27, 29–31, 34, 38, 40–42, 48, 53–54, 57–73, 100, 112, 125, 134, 139, 144–146, 149, 151 Aboriginal theology, 41 Ancestors 6, 12–13, 24, 30, 33, 42, 45, 58–59, 64, 83, 104, 138–139, 154, 189–190, 204, 206, 208–209, 227, 232, 234 See also Tupuna Ah Kee, Vernon, v, xvii, 4, 23, 26, 28–30, 34 Ammoun, Fouad, 140–142, 144, 151 Anger, 59, 66, 84 Animal, 33, 168 Apology, 77–78, 84–86, 88–89, 91–92 Archive, v, 6, 189–191, 193–195, 197, 199, 201, 203, 210–211 Ardern, Jacinda, 5, 77–78, 81, 84–90

Art, artist, artwork, v, 1, 4, 17, 26–29, 48, 50, 64, 179, 185, 202 Atoll, 214 Auckland, vi, 77, 79, 85–87, 112, 114, 128, 130, 154, 163, 205 Australia, v, 1–3, 5, 25–26, 29, 31, 37, 41–42, 45–48, 51, 57–60, 62–65, 70–72, 93–95, 98–100, 112, 137–138, 140, 144–146, 148, 194, 229, 231–232 B Barbaric, barbarism, 12, 62–63, 110, 112, 118–119, 132, 228 Belonging, 5, 26, 87, 94, 139, 145–146, 149, 168, 181 Bible, 14–15, 31, 38, 44, 65, 154, 175–177, 179, 184, 200, 213, 218, 228 See also Scripture

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 B. F. Kolia, M. Mawson (eds.), Unsettling Theologies, Postcolonialism and Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46121-7

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INDEX

Bodies, body, 2, 7, 16–17, 27, 33, 83, 97, 100, 119–120, 126, 148, 164, 224–225, 227, 232–233, 235–236 See also Embodiment Boseto, Leslie, 7, 226–228, 230–231, 233–234 Britain, British, 6, 47, 110, 112–115, 117–118, 122–123, 126–127, 129, 132–135, 138, 142–144, 146, 153–154, 160–164, 166 See also England C Capitalism, 214, 231n6, 234–245 Catholic, Catholicism, 29, 31, 33, 58–59, 67, 94, 96–101, 103–104, 138, 140–141, 145 Chief, 79, 80, 82–83, 111, 125, 128, 132, 147, 234 Christology, 12, 39–46, 48, 50, 52, 146 See also Jesus Christ Church Missionary Society (CMS), 17, 110–111, 113–116, 120, 122, 124, 127–128, 132, 161, 165 Civilization, 110, 112–113, 119, 126, 134, 138, 160, 228, 261n6, 235 Climate, 6, 63, 213–222 Clothes, clothing, 17, 118, 121–122 Colonisation, colonialism, 2–5, 7–8, 13, 19–20, 22, 24–26, 37–42, 46–48, 50, 52, 60, 77, 109–110, 123, 133, 153, 154n2, 160, 170, 179, 207–208 Colony, 110, 115–116, 124 Community, v, 3, 5–6, 39, 57, 59–62, 64–66, 68, 71, 77–78, 87, 93, 96–98, 100–104, 106, 132, 145, 150, 160–164, 166–168, 170,

177–178, 181–184, 186, 190–191, 193, 197–200, 203, 207, 210, 211, 214–216, 224, 228 Connection, 2, 6–7, 15, 16, 25, 29, 34, 41, 43, 64, 68, 82–83, 94, 96, 103, 138, 140, 142, 153–154, 156–157, 159–160, 162–164, 167, 190, 194, 224 Conquer, conquest, 45, 138n1 160n13, 162 Context, 2–3, 5–6, 12, 15, 20, 23, 38n1, 40, 42–43, 45, 48, 51–52, 61, 65, 68, 79, 85, 94–95, 97–98, 100–101, 118, 125, 138–139, 148, 155, 160, 162–163, 166–167, 169–170, 175, 178, 181, 186, 193, 197–198, 211, 215–217, 221, 227 Contextual theology, 21, 42–43, 181 Control, 94, 97–99, 110, 118, 158, 166, 180 Cosmology, 16, 25, 38 Creator, 24, 30, 33–34, 61–63, 65, 68, 200, 224, 228 Crucified, 26, 33–34, 48 Curriculum, 13–14, 20–21, 59, 118 D Dance, 6, 33, 68, 182 Dawn Raids, 5, 77–79, 84–86, 88 De La Torre, Miguel, 12 de las Casas, Bartholomé, 147 Decolonial, decolonisation, 4–5, 21, 57–61, 64–65, 67–68, 70–72, 154n2 Diaspora, diasporic, 5, 58, 86, 93–96, 98, 100–101, 103–104, 137, 145, 147, 224–225, 230 Diet, 118, 121 See also Food

 INDEX 

Discomfort, 59, 90 Discovery, 67, 138, 141–142, 147 Dreaming, the, 61, 63 DuBois, W. E. B., 146 E Earth, 19, 44, 49, 82, 128, 153, 170, 175, 196, 215–218, 227 Ecclesiology, 15, 96–97 Ecological, ecology, 160, 166, 215–216, 218, 226, 232–233, 235 Economic, 7, 23–24, 25n2, 37, 49, 58, 78–79, 129, 147, 163–164, 209–210, 215, 217–220, 226, 228–230, 232 Education, v, 2–3, 5, 13, 31, 47, 57, 59–63, 68, 70–73, 91, 100, 109–120, 122–124, 131–133, 183, 200, 205 Elders, 17, 26, 61–63, 68, 79, 86, 96, 102, 104, 211 Embodiment, 11, 166, 182, 186 See also Bodies, body Empire, 30, 32–33, 110–112, 132–135, 146, 217–218 England, 113n4, 117, 142–143 See also Britain, British English (language), 25, 83, 103n3, 111, 116–118, 120, 141, 170n23, 181, 184, 205–206, 225n2 F Facebook, 194, 196–198, 200–201, 205, 207, 210–211 Fale, 2, 6, 87, 213 Family, 24, 28, 44n22, 60, 62, 69, 79–84, 86, 95–98, 111, 129, 132, 154n2, 170, 195, 205, 220, 226, 227n5, 228, 234 See also Whanau Fanua, 81–84, 87, 89, 90, 184

241

Fish, fishing, 43, 78, 176, 179–180, 182–183, 186, 207 Food, 25, 33, 43, 98, 104, 119, 121–123, 148, 182, 186, 199, 207, 209, 224, 233, 235–236 See also Diet G Garden, 6, 44, 118, 153–154, 159–162, 164–167, 199, 223, 226, 235 Garibay, Emmanuel, v, 1, 2, 7 Genealogy, 43–44, 196–197 See also Whakapapa Genocide, 40, 46 Government, 140, 219, 229–231 British, 109, 115, 133 New Zealand, 5, 13, 77–78, 84–90, 110, 113–114, 116, 119, 121, 124, 126, 128–132, 163n16, 199, 207 Grey, George, 5, 110–128, 130–133 Gubba, 25 H Habitat, 6, 167 Hau‘ofa, ‘Epeli, 7, 180, 228–234 Havea, Jione, 2n1, 3n2, 7, 78, 176, 181, 230, 232 Healing, 15–16, 41, 45, 125 Heathen, 14, 40n10, 109, 120–121, 142 Heidegger, Martin, 181–182 Hermeneutics, 6, 49, 176, 179–180, 182, 184–185 He Wakaputanga o Nu Tireni (Declaration of Independence), 20–21 High Court of Australia, 137, 145 Holocaust, 31 Holy Spirit, 103 Human Rights Commission, 2, 109

242 

INDEX

I Identity, 2–4, 6, 11–13, 15–18, 21, 24, 41–42, 44–45, 48, 52, 62, 64, 79, 93–95, 101, 103, 146, 167, 193, 205, 211, 217, 220–221 Ifoga, 5, 78–82, 84–91 Imperialism, 40, 142, 165 Injustice, 4–6, 12, 20, 88, 133, 140, 149, 154, 218 International Court of Justice, 139–140, 142 Invasion, invaded, 19, 24, 127–128, 130, 144, 235 Island, 7, 94–96, 103, 113, 115, 120, 137, 144, 147, 161, 178, 184, 213–214, 217, 219–221, 224, 226, 228–233, 235 J Jennings, Willie James, 37, 46n25, 52, 97 Jesus Christ, 4, 11–34, 37–52, 200 Justice, 6, 12, 20–21, 33, 44, 77, 84n3, 87–90, 126, 131n8, 148, 214, 216, 218, 235 K Kaa, Hirini, 15, 40, 191 Kaitiaki, kaitiakitanga, 15, 169–170 Kı ̄ngitanga, 125–130 L Labour, 7, 48, 78, 86, 112–115, 118, 121–122, 132, 163 Laughter, 33, 182 Law, 89, 112, 114–115, 126, 129, 131, 137–138, 140, 142–144, 147, 148, 218–219, 226 Liberation theology, 20

Lineage, 12, 44n22, 100, 144–145, 196 London Missionary Society, 148 Luther, Martin, 48–49, 114 M Mabo vs. Queensland, 5, 137, 139–140, 142–143, 147–148 Māfana, 7, 225, 227–228, 236 Māori theology, 15, 19–21 Marsden, Samuel, 15 Mastery, 25, 169–170 Mātauranga, 12, 14–15, 19, 43, 111n1 Maunsell, Robert, 5, 110–133 Mead, Margaret, 117 Memory, memories, 2–3, 11–15, 20, 67, 78, 84, 102, 117, 145–146, 160–161, 163, 178, 182–185, 190–191, 202, 205 Migration, 78, 86, 219–221, 229 Mikaere, Ani, 38–39, 51 Missionary, missionaries, 2n1, 5, 12–15, 17, 20, 37–40, 46, 51, 52n34, 60, 63, 95, 100, 110–112, 115–116, 119–122, 124, 129, 136, 148, 161–162, 165, 176, 190–191, 193, 195, 200, 211, 228 Moana, 219, 225, 230–233, 235 Moana (2016 Disney film), 103 Mob, 29, 31, 58, 64, 66, 68, 70–71 N Native, 2, 6, 15–16, 19–20, 38n1, 47, 110, 113–115, 117–124, 128–129, 132, 142, 163–165, 190, 211, 225, 226n3, 230–232, 236 schools, education, 110, 113, 115, 121, 123 title, 5, 137, 138n1, 143 Neighbour, 6, 213–219, 221

 INDEX 

O Oceania, 95, 176, 184–186, 228–233 Oppression, oppressor, 4, 12–13, 34, 40, 42, 44n20, 51, 164, 166 Other-than-human, 6, 161, 164–170, 217 P Pacific, v, 3n2, 5–6, 17, 64, 77–78, 93–99, 101–104, 175–176, 181, 184, 191, 209, 220, 228–231 Pacific theology, 3n2 Pākehā, 2n1, 12–21, 126–127, 205, 210 Pasifika, 2–3, 5–7, 77–78, 80, 84n3, 85–89, 224–225, 229–236 Pastor, 63, 102, 179 Pattel-Gray, Anne, 38–39, 41n13, 42n15, 51, 61, 63 Pedagogy, pedagogic, 13, 110, 112, 114, 122, 133 Photo, photograph, 6, 16, 18, 26, 183, 189–204, 207, 209–211 Police, 79, 85–86, 114, 231 Positionality, 3, 60, 94 Praxis, 186 Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, v, 6, 191, 193–195, 198, 200 Protestant, 97, 138, 145 Public theology, 6, 213 Q Queen (of England) 112, 125–128, 130, 138 Queenites, 126–127, 129 R Race, racialised, 14–15, 17–18, 23, 24n1, 38, 97, 112, 114, 117, 119, 124–125, 128, 146, 198

243

Racism, racist, 2–4, 16, 18, 20, 38, 40–41, 45–46, 72, 77–78, 84n3, 86, 88, 109–110, 190–191, 215 Rainbow Spirit Elders, 60, 62 Reclamation, 11, 21, 166 Reconciliation, 11, 18, 21, 78, 80–81, 90, 147 Relational, relationality, 5–6, 50–52, 58n2, 94, 102, 104, 139, 148, 176, 185, 217, 227, 233, 234, 255–235 Relationships, v, 18, 21, 43–45, 51–52, 62, 66–68, 70–71, 80, 94–97, 99, 110, 148, 184–185, 193, 216–218, 225–228 Religion, 25, 38, 47, 51, 52n34, 62, 95n1, 121, 146, 181, 215, 235 Reparation, 148 Research, v–vi, 6, 13, 23, 41, 58n3, 94, 96, 102, 147, 178–179, 189, 191, 193–194, 210 Resilience, resiliency, 94–95, 98, 104, 111, 122, 167, 199 Restorative justice, 77, 88–89, 148 Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, 123 S Sacred, 11, 19, 41, 63, 78, 82, 145, 170, 177, 216, 224, 232, 235–236 Salvation, 40, 44n21, 46, 52, 65 Samoa, Samoans, vi, 3, 6, 78–90, 94–96, 98, 101, 145, 177, 180, 182, 184, 227–228, 231, 234 Savage, 4, 11–15, 17–18, 162, 228 Scripture, 33, 43, 61, 111, 114, 118, 120–121, 129, 161, 235 See also Bible Sea, 126, 176, 179, 183–184, 207, 213, 219, 224–226, 229–230, 232–235

244 

INDEX

Selwyn, George, 116–117, 119 Settlement, 15, 37, 45, 115, 129, 131–132, 142, 145, 147, 207, 210 Settler colonialism, 37, 39, 46, 77 See also Colonisation, colonialism Settler, settlers, 2, 4, 6, 12, 17, 37–39, 46–47, 49, 52, 60, 65, 71, 77, 114, 117, 125, 129, 138, 154, 160–165, 176, 191, 200, 207 Silence, silenced, 47–48, 79, 170, 190–191 Skye, Lee Miena, 4, 40–43, 45–46, 48, 52 Song, 31, 103, 114, 182 Sovereignty, 5, 64, 127, 138n1, 139–142, 144–145, 147–148, 220 Spirituality, spiritualities, 16, 40n10, 42, 63, 88, 98, 139, 145–146 Survivor, survival, 3, 25–26, 158, 218, 226, 230–231 T Talanoa, 78–79, 84, 234 Tā moko, 17 Tangata whenua, 11–12, 15, 18, 21, 84n3, 87, 109, 154n1, 170 Tasmania, 24, 40 Te Kaawa, Wayne, 4, 6, 12n2, 40n8, 42–45, 52, 87 Te reo Māori, 12, 111, 116–117, 205 Terra nullius, 29, 138n1, 139–141, 148, 161n14 Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), 20–21 Theologia crucis, 4, 39, 48–51 Theologian, 1–4, 7, 34, 39–42, 45, 47–48, 51, 58–59, 61, 66, 70, 72, 97, 104 The Theologian (painting), v, 1, 7

Theological college, 3n2, 20–21, 61–62, 67, 69–72, 176, 186 Thornton, Warwick, 4, 26, 31–34 Tikanga, 12, 15, 19, 38, 64, 205 Tonga, Tongans, 3, 6, 80, 184, 223–225, 229, 232–233, 235–336 Torres Strait Islander, 24, 26, 34, 57–58, 60–67, 70, 72, 137, 139, 144, 146 Traditional owners, 58, 60, 64–65, 148 Trauma, 14, 77–79, 84, 93–94, 98–99 Treaty, 147–148 Tuakoi, 6, 213–215, 219 Tupuna, 12, 205 See also Ancestors Tuvalu, 3, 6, 213–214, 219–220 U Uluru Statement from the Heart, 139–140, 145, 147–148 Unsettle, unsettling, 2–3, 5, 11, 46, 51, 59, 98, 102, 110, 137–138, 140, 176, 182–184, 190 The Uso Table Talk (podcast) 5, 94–96, 98–102 V Vaai, Upolu Lumā, 39n7, 79n1, 94, 97, 100, 102, 178, 180, 225 Violence, 2, 14, 30, 52, 98, 101, 110, 170, 215 W Waikato, 111–112, 118n6, 123, 125–132, 163n16 Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 153

 INDEX 

War, 78, 111–112, 114, 119, 121, 125–132, 141–143, 147, 163n16, 202–203, 207, 221, 230 Western Sydney, 64 Whakapapa, 12, 43–45, 111n1, 189, 194, 196–197, 209 See also Genealogy, lineage Whakataukı ̄, 13, 15, 18, 208 Whanau, 44n22, 64, 170, 196, 202, 205–206, 211 See also Family Whenua, 12, 15, 44, 87, 160, 170, 184, 208 Whiteness, 4, 46n25, 146 White people, 1, 4–5, 7, 12, 14, 16, 25n2, 28, 38–41, 46–52, 118, 127, 130, 146, 190, 193, 200, 207

White supremacy, 2–3, 14, 109–110, 133 Wilderness, 6, 44, 153–154, 156–171, 235 Wisdom, 3, 6, 12–13, 15–16, 19, 30, 32, 49n30, 63, 144, 154, 176, 180, 213, 229, 232, 236 Won-tok, 226–228, 231, 233 Worldview, 62, 71, 169, 221, 231–233, 235 Worship, 3, 30, 79, 96, 100–101, 103 Y Youth, 5, 93–102

245