John had planned on calling into several islands on the way back to Raiatea, but the layover in New Zealand had cost him precious time, and he had to get back before the trade winds died down.
On June 6, six weeks after setting out from Sydney, Captain Henry navigated the Endeavour through the reef and into the harbor at Raiatea. Shouts of delight could be heard as the locals recognized John, Mary, and John Jr. standing on the aft deck. Some of the children swam out to the ship while men jumped into their canoes and paddled out to help them ashore.
That night John held a meeting in the chapel and told everyone about the ship and the things he had seen and done while he was away. In return the locals and Lancelot updated John on events on the island in his absence. Most importantly, John wanted to hear news from Aitutaki. He was not disappointed. Two other Raiatean Christians had visited Papeiha and Vahapata and had returned with good news. At first Papeiha and Vahapata were not welcomed on the island. The people of Aitutaki described them as “two logs of driftwood, washed on shore by the waves of the ocean.” They had little time for the missionaries’ strange message. But the missionaries did not give up. They continued visiting homes on the island and talking to anyone who would listen. Sometimes they were beaten or robbed and were even delivered to the marae with a promise that they would be cooked and eaten if they did not leave.
Then a breakthrough occurred. The chief’s father was a strong believer in the island’s gods. When his daughter became ill, he made all of the right sacrifices and waited for the gods to cure her. When she died, the old man began to think about why he worshiped idols with ears that could not hear and eyes that could not see. He invited Papeiha and Vahapata to talk with him, and as a result he became convinced that their message was true. He ordered his son to destroy all of the maraes on the island. Hundreds of others began to listen to the two Raiatean men, and soon their hut was piled with discarded idols as people embraced the gospel.
John was overjoyed. His plan had worked better than he had hoped. Instead of white people trying to explain the gospel to Polynesians, the Polynesians themselves were doing a much more effective job of passing the good news along to one another.
After hearing about the exciting things happening on Aitutaki, John wanted to visit there right away. However, he realized that his first priority was to help Andrew Scott establish crops of sugar cane and tobacco on the island and then send the Endeavour to Sydney loaded with the first harvest.
During this time John settled his young son, John Jr., into the new boarding school run by the LMS on Moorea, where he studied alongside the late King Pomare’s son and heir to the Tahitian throne. (John had learned that King Pomare of Tahiti had died during the time he was away.)
Finally, on July 4, 1823, John, six Raiatean men, and Robert Bourne, the missionary who had come to Polynesia from England with John on the Harriet and the Active, set off for Aitutaki aboard the Endeavour. The Raiateans had volunteered to be dropped off at other islands in the Cook group that had not yet heard the gospel. During the five-day voyage to Aitutaki, John wrote instructions for these new missionaries on how to go about their work. “They will watch you with rats’ eyes,” he wrote, “to find little crooked places in your conduct. Therefore be particularly circumspect in all of your conduct. Beware of showing the least anxiety over their property. Beware of pride of heart: do not at all treat them with contempt, but compassionate them, remembering what hath made you to differ from them.” John then addressed their behavior toward one another. “Be one in your words. Be one in your actions. Be one in your hearts. Be not obstinate one with another. If God grants us our desire, you will have to baptize, but do not be hasty. Let a little time elapse, and be diligent in observing. Do not be in haste to prepare laws. You can make known to the chiefs all that has taken place in our islands, and it is with them to desire and propose them. Everything is food in its season. Children are not fed with hard food.”
Finally John told the Raiatean men that no matter what happened to them, they should remember four things. First, the church at Raiatea had chosen them and sent them out. Second, God was leading them to wherever they ended up. Third, Christ Himself promised to be with them to the end. And four, God could transform other islands in just the same way He had transformed their own island.
On July 9 the island of Aitutaki came into view on the horizon. Several hours later John was standing on the beach being enthusiastically welcomed by the local population. Papeiha and Vahapata were there, too, and they escorted John to see the new chapel they had just built. The building was two hundred feet long and had a thatched roof. The walls were plastered the same way John had plastered the walls of his house back on Raiatea. John was amazed at the progress the two Raiatean missionaries had made, and that night more than a thousand people gathered in the chapel for a dedication service to officially open the building.
During the service John described how Christians in England raised money to send people like him and the other LMS missionaries out to preach the gospel. When they heard this, the Christians on Aitutaki lamented to John, “We have no money. How sad it is that we cannot imitate our English brothers in giving.”
“You might have no money, but you do have something to buy money with,” John responded.
This was a new concept to the islanders, and someone in the congregation asked, “What is it we possess that we can buy money with?”
“Pigs” John replied. “You have many pigs. If every family on the island set aside one pig for ‘causing the word of God to grow,’ when a ship came, those pigs could be sold for money instead of cloth and axes. You would then have money to use to help spread the word of God.”
The crowd seemed delighted by the idea, and the next morning John awoke to the squealing of pigs. He stumbled out of his hut to see what the commotion was. He quickly learned that families up and down the island were cutting a notch in the ear of one of their pigs to denote that the animal had been set aside to sell for money that was to be used to help spread the gospel. John was deeply touched by their earnestness.
John discovered that there were a number of people from Rarotonga among the new Christians on Aitutaki. He told them about his desire to go there and begin evangelizing. The people warned him to be careful. Rarotongans had a reputation for treachery and were not to be trusted. They liked the taste of human flesh and had no fear of guns, attacking directly in the face of gunfire. Recently they had attacked a ship that stopped at the island and had killed three of the vessel’s crew and a woman passenger.
The reports of the treachery and brutality of the people of Rarotonga did not deter John. He continued to talk with the Rarotongan Christians, and eventually it was agreed that several of them, along with Papeiha and two lesser chiefs from Aitutaki, would accompany John to Rarotonga.
As the group leaving for Rarotonga gathered on the beach to be transported out to the Endeavour, cries and shrieks and bellows suddenly filled the air. The sounds were unlike anything John had ever heard. A group of women burst onto the beach, their bodies smeared in blood that flowed from cuts and scratches all over their bodies. When John stepped forward to ask them why they had mutilated themselves, they told him it was their way of showing sorrow at saying good-bye to their friends who were accompanying him to Rarotonga. John realized that despite the advance of Christianity in Aitutaki, there was still much to be done in teaching the people how to live as Christians and lay aside many of their old harmful ways.
Once the group had been bid farewell by the people of Aitutaki, they were paddled out to the Endeavour and climbed aboard. Soon the sails were billowing in the wind and the ship was headed south in the direction of Rarotonga.
Chapter 8
Rarotonga at Last
Rarotonga proved difficult to find in the wide blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The island was not on any regular shipping routes and so did not appear on the map John had with him. After eight days of searching, they spotted another island, which the Rarotongans aboard ship said they thought was Mangaia.
The reputation of the Mangaians was not much better than that of the Rarotongans, and John urged everyone to be cautious. “We are not going to land,” he told them. “Papeiha, take two men with you and paddle toward the shore, but do not land. Urge the chief to come back to the ship with you, and we will talk to him.”
Papeiha took the canoe they had brought with them from Aitutaki and did as John suggested. Eventually he managed to coax the chief onto the Endeavour. The chief, however, could not relax. As Papeiha and John talked to him, his muscles were taut and his eyes darted around the ship. John could understand this behavior when the chief explained that this was the first ship the island’s residents had seen since Captain Cook sailed by on his ship, which was also named the Endeavour, over thirty years before.
After a long conversation, the chief agreed that four of the missionaries from the ship, two married couples, could stay on Mangaia and teach the people how to read and write and live at peace with one another. Soon after they arrived on the island, the missionaries found out just how much the people of Mangaia needed the particular message of living in peace with one another. Despite the chief’s introduction, the islanders tried to strangle the men and rip the clothes off the women as soon as they landed. The missionaries, however, managed to break free and escape to the ship.
Back on the ship everyone agreed it was too dangerous to try to go ashore again, so the Endeavour weighed anchor and sailed away. However, John determined to send two single men back to Mangaia in a few months. Perhaps by then the people might be willing to listen to what they had to say.
The next island to appear on the horizon was Atiu, where three months before two native missionaries from Moorea had been sent to share the gospel message. Things had not gone well for them. They were half-starved and stripped of all their belongings, including the booklets containing portions of the Gospels in Tahitian they had brought with them.
As the ship dropped anchor off the island, a large double canoe made its way out from shore. On board was the chief of the island, Roma-Tane. He was a tall, slender man with long, wavy black hair and was dressed in a white shirt and a length of brightly patterned fabric wrapped around his waist. This was known as a lava-lava and was worn by many of the Polynesian men.
Roma-Tane climbed aboard the ship, where John and the Polynesian missionaries aboard warmly welcomed him. One of the chiefs from Aitutaki then took Roma-Tane aside and began to talk to him about the Christian God. “We have demolished the maraes on our island and burned the great idols. The small idols from our island are in the hold of this ship. They are being taken to Raiatea, the home of the teachers who came to Aitutaki. There the people will see for themselves that the people of Aitutaki have indeed left their old ways and their old gods and embraced the Christian God and His Son, Jesus Christ.”
Upon hearing this, Roma-Tane looked surprised. The chief from Aitutaki led him belowdecks to the hold to see for himself the old idols. Holding one of them up, the Aitutakian said, “See, it is made of wood. From a tree we carved this god, and from the same tree we made fire to cook food and eat. Why is it then that we say this idol carved by human hands is more powerful than the wood burned to cook food?”
Roma-Tane’s face lit up. He seemed to grasp what he was being told. The following day he asked to become a Christian.
