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The Māori Latter-day Saint Historical Narrative: Additions and Amendments
Abstract: Selwyn Kātene has again assembled twelve essays written by the descendants of famous Māori Latter-day Saints. This volume flows from a revival of interest in the ground and content of the faith of early Māori Saints that began in the late 1990s. In various ways the essays in this volume add to and amend what has previously been known about what began unexpectedly on Christmas Day in 1882, when the first group of Māori joined the Church of Jesus Christ. Not only did the Māori have Seers who opened the way, some of those elite Māori men, who had been initiated into Māori esoteric knowledge of divine things, also found that their temple endowment fit rather snugly with their previous initiation ceremonies. Unlike other Christian missionaries, Latter-day Saint missionaries did not see the Māori as primitive heathens, and Māori saw in the restored gospel crucial elements of their own deeper understanding of divine things. Latter-day Saint missionaries were seeking to liberate Māori from the soul-destroying vices brought to them or enhanced by British colonization, while relishing the most noble elements in the Māori world.
Review of Selwyn Kātene, ed., By Their Fruits You Will Know Them: Early Maori Leaders in the Mormon Church, vol. 2 (Wellington, New Zealand: Steele Roberts Publishers, 2017). 295 pp. N.Z. $39.99 (hardback).
Like Turning the Hearts,1 which was the first volume in this series, By Their Fruits consists of twelve essays written by the descendants of early Māori Latter-day Saints who set out what can now be known [Page 200]about each on their own journey of faith. There is a fine “Foreword” to this anthology by Whatarangi Winiata, a distinguished Anglican2 scholar. He begins by acknowledging that
In 1881 the prophet Paora Potangaroa told a gathering at Te Ore Ore marae in the Wairarapa that a new and great power would come from the direction of the rising sun. Later that year, the first Mormon missionaries arrived from the United States of America in the east; within two years, hundreds of Maori in the region were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Within ten years, one in twelve Maori, or roughly 3000, belonged to the Mormon Church. Five years later approximately 4000 Maori had committed themselves to the Book of Mormon. (p. 7.)
He then explains that, beginning in 1882, Latter-day Saint missionaries
moved humbly through [Māori] communities, conversing in te reo Maori with little concern for land or colonization but with an intense interest in whakapapa [genealogy], a concept fundamental to all Maori. Rather than judging Maori as faithless heathens,...
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Abstract: Selwyn Kātene has again assembled twelve essays written by the descendants of famous Māori Latter-day Saints. This volume flows from a revival of interest in the ground and content of the faith of early Māori Saints that began in the late 1990s. In various ways the essays in this volume add to and amend what has previously been known about what began unexpectedly on Christmas Day in 1882, when the first group of Māori joined the Church of Jesus Christ. Not only did the Māori have Seers who opened the way, some of those elite Māori men, who had been initiated into Māori esoteric knowledge of divine things, also found that their temple endowment fit rather snugly with their previous initiation ceremonies. Unlike other Christian missionaries, Latter-day Saint missionaries did not see the Māori as primitive heathens, and Māori saw in the restored gospel crucial elements of their own deeper understanding of divine things. Latter-day Saint missionaries were seeking to liberate Māori from the soul-destroying vices brought to them or enhanced by British colonization, while relishing the most noble elements in the Māori world.
Review of Selwyn Kātene, ed., By Their Fruits You Will Know Them: Early Maori Leaders in the Mormon Church, vol. 2 (Wellington, New Zealand: Steele Roberts Publishers, 2017). 295 pp. N.Z. $39.99 (hardback).
Like Turning the Hearts,1 which was the first volume in this series, By Their Fruits consists of twelve essays written by the descendants of early Māori Latter-day Saints who set out what can now be known [Page 200]about each on their own journey of faith. There is a fine “Foreword” to this anthology by Whatarangi Winiata, a distinguished Anglican2 scholar. He begins by acknowledging that
In 1881 the prophet Paora Potangaroa told a gathering at Te Ore Ore marae in the Wairarapa that a new and great power would come from the direction of the rising sun. Later that year, the first Mormon missionaries arrived from the United States of America in the east; within two years, hundreds of Maori in the region were converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Within ten years, one in twelve Maori, or roughly 3000, belonged to the Mormon Church. Five years later approximately 4000 Maori had committed themselves to the Book of Mormon. (p. 7.)
He then explains that, beginning in 1882, Latter-day Saint missionaries
moved humbly through [Māori] communities, conversing in te reo Maori with little concern for land or colonization but with an intense interest in whakapapa [genealogy], a concept fundamental to all Maori. Rather than judging Maori as faithless heathens,...