Early letters offer unique window into New Zealand

Early letters offer unique window into New Zealand history

A collection of recently published letters from French missionaries in New Zealand is set to offer a unique window into the early history of European settlement here.

The letters, written between 1839 and 1842 by Marist missionaries sent to spread the faith across New Zealand and the Pacific, come from the Vatican’s archives in Rome. Published as Lettres Reçues d’Océanie, they took 16 years to transcribe. Some 2,000 of the 7,000 pages are letters from missionaries in New Zealand, describing everything from financial troubles to local customs and moral dilemmas.

Problem is, they’re all in French. Researchers at the University of Waikato are now working on providing a summary translation of the New Zealand letters, and thanks to the University’s summer research scholarship scheme the project should be complete in early 2010.

The project coordinator and senior lecturer in French at Waikato, Dr William Jennings, says the letters represent an exceptional source of information about the very early contact period in the Pacific. “It would be interesting to know just how many thousand pages there are about early New Zealand history. Here we’ve got another 2,000 pages, which will boost our knowledge of this period considerably.”

Summer research scholarship student Kate Logan spent ten weeks over the summer translating and summarising around 200 of the letters, some of which were up to 50 pages long. She says one major preoccupation of the Marists was money.

“The letters talked about money not being sent over from France, and there was a lot of tension over what the missionaries saw as Bishop Pompallier’s extravagance,” she says. “They wanted money for building churches and cemeteries, and providing better health and education for the local Maori. They also had to pay for guides and transportation for their missionary work with Maori, and they needed to buy food.”

Most of the letters came from missionaries posted on the North Island, mainly in Kororareka (Russell) at the Marist mission headquarters, although there were two priests based in Akaroa. “They were really miserable,” says Logan. “According to their letters, the local French settlers weren’t coming to their services, and there wasn’t a lot of Catholic sentiment. And they said there weren’t enough Maori to convert.”

Logan says some of the letters showed that the missionaries wrestled with “unholy thoughts”. “They were writing to the head of their religious order, but I was still surprised that they would reveal this.”

Logan, who graduates from Otago next month with a degree in law, an honours degree in history, and a diploma in French, says the summer research scholarship project combined both her interests: history and French. “It was nice to do something a bit different, and it was good for my French, even though some of the writers used really long sentences.”

Dr Jennings says he’s now looking for another advanced French student to complete the translation work next summer. “There’s already huge interest in the material from historians and anthropologists of early New Zealand,” he says. “"It was great to have someone of Kate's ability and experience to make a start on the letters, and it will be absolutely perfect to have another student to focus on completing the project this summer."

ENDS

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