Abstract: This essay demonstrates that the key prophetic matakite dreams and visions of at least the nine nineteenth-century East Coast Māori seers appear to have been (and should continue to be) fulfilled surprisingly by the coming of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to New Zealand. There are lessons for current and future Latter-day Saint leaders and missionaries to reflect on this little-known history on the nineteenth-century Māori conversions to the restored Church.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See Robert Joseph, “The Lord Will Not Forget Them! Māori Seers and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand,” in Remembrance and Return: Essays in Honor of Louis C. Midgley, ed. Ted Vaggalis and Daniel C. Peterson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2021), 323–68. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/remembrance-and-return/.]

Blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yes I say, blessed be the [Page 66]name of my God who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land.

Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth.

Alma 26:36–37

Introduction

Māori historically and culturally believe they are a branch of the ‘House of Israel’ but in a ‘new land’ as noted in the above Book of Mormon reference.1 By implication, Māori believe they have a right to, as well as all of the associated responsibilities of, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This includes its priesthood and attendant blessings by virtue of their direct House of Israel lineage (whakapapa), by entering into gospel covenants (ngā kawenata) and by keeping the commandments of God (ngā ture o te Atua). It was no surprise then that when the first Anglican Christian service was preached by Reverend Samuel Marsden to Māori in 1814, Māori eventually flocked to the Anglican Church, one of the precusors to the restored Church of Jesus Christ, in large numbers.

The Wesleyan Methodists followed the Anglicans in 1823 and the Catholics in 1838. Māori conversions to these and other Christian churches increased rapidly when parts of the Bible were translated into Māori in 1827 and 1834, with the first full Māori Bible (Te Paipera Tapu) completed in 1868. The New Testament was very popular among Māori; many chiefs traveled long distances to obtain copies from the sectarian missionaries. Consequently, Māori became very familiar with the Bible to a point where the sectarian missionaries complained that they found it difficult to find something new in the Bible to converse with them about.