1935 - Stack, J. W. Early Maoriland Adventures of J. W. Stack - JAMES WEST STACK, MEMOIR, P 23-100

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JAMES WEST STACK

BORN AT PURIRI, THAMES, NEW ZEALAND, 27TH MARCH, 1835. DIED AT WORTHING, SUSSEX, ENGLAND, 13TH OCTOBER, 1919.

IN the year that King William IV died, an aged man, visiting a pioneer mission station at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, gave his blessing to a young child. The old man was Samuel Marsden, the Apostle of New Zealand, who had, for the seventh time, crossed the stormy Tasman Sea, constrained by a desire to bid a last farewell to his beloved Maoris and their white teachers. The young child was James West Stack, the subject of this memoir.

The years of Marsden's pilgrimage had covered the whole period from the very beginning of English history in Maoriland. Already four years of age when Cook first sighted New Zealand in 1769 he might have heard, in his Yorkshire village home, the news of the tragic fate of that boat's crew who, in December, 1773, were killed and eaten by the Maoris at Queen Charlotte Sound. James West Stack, born in a Maori pa five years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, when the New Zealanders were yet cannibals, was to see his native land develop into a great Dominion, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Mother country eighty years later, in the fiery trial in which two of his own grandsons gave their lives. Marsden had seen the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte; Stack was to be spared to see the close of the Great War.

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As the earlier part of the manuscript recollections of James West Stack contains frequent references to his father, a brief account of his career may fittingly be given at this stage.

James Stack came of a Danish family which settled in South Wales a thousand years ago, and afterwards migrated to North Kerry in Ireland. John Stack, James's father, was the last of the line to hold the involved family estate. Having incurred the anger of his family by marrying a penniless girl he exhibited his passionate nature by precipitately enlisting in the marines. After a period of active service he was bought out by relatives, and obtained a naval clerkship at Southsea, where James was born in 1801, the fourth of five sons.

Acting on the advice of his friend Captain Maitland 1 John Stack sent all his sons out to New South Wales where, at that time, every "free emigrant" received a grant of a hundred acres. Unable to make a living out of their land the brothers sought employment, James entering a merchant's office. Soon afterwards he came under the influence of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, who no doubt perceived in him a likely recruit for the mission enterprise across the Tasman Sea. In 1823 Marsden visited New Zealand for the fourth time, when he was rejoiced to find that his friends of the Wesleyan mission had established themselves at Whangaroa. It was at about this period that Stack, at Marsden's suggestion and fired by his

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enthusiasm, volunteered for service under the Rev. Samuel Leigh, for there was nothing of the narrow sectarian about the Apostle of New Zealand. At all events Stack landed at Whangaroa in the very early days of the Wesleyan mission, in his early twenties.

For several years the heroic little band at Wesleydale held on to their post, in constant peril from the violent and capricious savages by whom they were surrounded. James Buller states that in these early days at Whangaroa, Stack was the only member of the missionary party who was a Maori linguist. 2 The climax came in January, 1827, when the mission station was attacked by one of Hongi's raiding parties. In jeopardy of their lives, it was urgently necessary to send news of their plight to the nearest neighbours, the Church mission at Kerikeri. It was night, the distance twenty miles, and the Maori servant being afraid to undertake the journey alone James Stack accompanied him.

The narrow native tracks crossed and recrossed the creeks; plunged steeply into the dense shadows of the bush, where progress was obstructed by projecting roots and fallen trees; skirted treacherous swamps where the toetoe waved its ghostly white plumes; and crossed the open fern country. This hazardous journey, difficult enough to accomplish in daylight, was performed in darkness; and though the messengers did not leave Whangaroa until ten o'clock, Kerikeri was reached between four and five next morning. Though he is said to have been of a quiet and gentle disposition,

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Stack must have had the heart of a lion, for he appears to have immediately set out on the return journey with recruits from Kerikeri. After proceeding for some miles the relief party met the Whangaroa missionaries who, with wives and children, had fled from their home the morning after Stack had set out for assistance.

The Wesleyan missionaries returned to Sydney, but after a brief absence Stack was back in New Zealand, arriving at Paihia on 8th October, 1827. As a result of his favourable report we find him, within a year of the sack of Wesleydale, launching a new enterprise on the Hokianga, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs.

* * * * * *

In 1831, after three years of pioneering work at the new station, Stack felt it incumbent upon him to visit England, for the purpose of personally laying before the committee in London certain matters of importance concerning the mission. In the absence of evidence no good purpose would be served by speculations as to the nature of his report, the outcome of which, however, was a difference of opinion between the committee and himself. Doubtless in this matter each party acted in good faith, but the controversy was so serious that Stack severed his connection with the Wesleyans and shortly afterwards joined the Church Missionary Society. While preparing for Holy Orders prior to- his return to New Zealand, an over-zealous clerical friend expressed astonishment that one who could speak to the Maoris in their own tongue should not instantly return to proclaim the

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Gospel rather than tarry to receive episcopal ordination. This foolish remark preyed upon the ardent young missionary's sensitive conscience, and he could find no peace until the C. M. S. consented to send him back to New Zealand without further delay.

In October, 1833, James Stack received instructions to proceed overseas, and on the 6th of the following month he was married to Mary West, of Islington, a beautiful nineteen year old girl. On 27th November they embarked on the Sovereign, arriving on 26th May, 1834, at Sydney, where Stack's brothers still resided, and where he doubtless renewed his friendship with the now ageing Marsden.

* * * * * *

At about this time three men were travelling into the interior of New Zealand, making their way afoot from the Firth of Thames through the dense forests to the broad Waikato River. The mission, hitherto centred in the Bay of Islands, was extending its borders, and William Williams, A. N. Brown and John Morgan were looking for suitable locations whereon to establish outpost stations. On 27th August they were at Mangapouri, at the junction of the Waipa and Puniu rivers. Here Williams records in his journal their meeting with the chief Awarahi and his party. This was the turbulent chief whom James West Stack refers to in the first chapter of his narrative, and it is therefore interesting to note that Williams portrays him as "a young man, with much vivacity in his manner, and his appearance is prepossessing."

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The chief promised to have a house erected for the missionary if he would stay there, "but with respect to myself," added Awarahi, "I am a man of war, and to war I must go at present."

To this station Stack and his young wife were appointed. During the journey from the Bay of Islands, as they travelled up the valley of the Thames they turned aside to the Maori pa at Puriri, and there, on 27th March, 1835, James West Stack was born. 3

At Mangapouri, where they were joined by Rev. James Hamlin and his family, and where upwards of a year was spent, they were, from the first, beset by difficulties and perils. Within a few weeks of their arrival Hamlin refers in his journal to the threatening attitude of the natives when their avaricious demands for blankets and other articles had to be refused. Sometimes they displayed childish petulance. "I had a slate sent to me," writes Hamlin, "the object of which was to ask for some tobacco, with a threat that if I did not give some, the person who sent the slate would break the two slates that had been given to him, at his earnest request, in order that he might learn to write. I told the person who brought the slate, to take it back again; I did not understand such language." Later on Mr. Hamlin writes: "Mr. Stack had some unpleasantness with one of our

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chiefs, who wished to force some potatoes upon us that we did not want, and took an iron pot out of the house to pay for them." Next day, however, the repentant chief "brought a pig as an acknowledgement of his offence."

The missionaries were not entirely without encouragement. A girls' school was conducted daily by Mrs. Hamlin and Mrs. Stack, who displayed great heroism as the difficulties began to thicken. In general, Hamlin's comment is, "With respect to the spiritual state of the natives in this part of the island, all I think that can be said of them is that 'darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the minds of the people.'" 4

For some time it must have seemed apparent that the wiser course would be to seek a more promising field of service. Just before Christmas occurred the decisive event related by Stack in his recollections. In the Hocken Library, Dunedin, may be seen the original MS. Journal of James Hamlin, already referred to, containing the still legible record of the happenings at the Mangapouri mission station a century ago. It is with peculiar veneration that one handles this historic volume, and reads the account of Awarahi's murderous attack, written on the very day of its occurrence, and while its perpetrator was still prowling about the mission premises.

"About six o'clock this evening," states the Journal entry for 18th December, 1835, "as I sat at writing, I heard a gun fired close to Mr. Stack's house, and in a short time a second and a third,

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etc. After the third was fired off Mr. Stack came running into my house, with his face white as a sheet, saying Awarahi was shooting him and Mrs. Stack, at the same time asking me to run out... On seeing Mrs. Stack with her child in her arms, inside my fence, I went towards Mr. Stack's house, where I saw Awarahi coming round the fence in a terrible rage.... After Awarahi was a little cool, he sat down; and called for his slaves to go and fetch the neighbouring tribes to come and strip the house, as he said he had upset the pa, and had driven away Mr. Stack. 5 On the following day, "Went and examined the house, and found four balls through the bedroom... and through the partition into the sitting-room, about the height of Mrs. Stack's head as she sat on the sofa.... Awarahi asked why Mr. Stack did not come back to his house. I therefore thought it nothing less than a determination to murder." The Hamlins entertained their colleagues during Christmas week, and on 28th December Stack records in his Journal, "Mrs. Stack and I returned to our forsaken dwelling this afternoon, with no very pleasant feelings."

For a few months longer the missionaries held on bravely to their post, but it was evident that the position was becoming untenable, encompassed as they were by savage tribes at constant war with each other, and among whom cannibalism was rife. On 8th April, 1836, a journal entry reads, "The

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fight (taua) 6 returned from Maketu having, it is said, upset the pa, killed a hundred natives and ate them.... 7 The principal chief of the pa was this day carried through our settlement already roasted, going to be carried to Kawhia." On 13th July "Awarahi returned from Rotorua with a red garment about him, and a man's left arm in his hand, apparently cooked."

At length the missionaries removed from this scene of carnage to other locations which gave more promise of success. Stack, with his wife and child, returned to the Bay of Islands, while Hamlin and his family shortly afterwards travelled across to Manukau, and remained there for some time. Stack appears to have joined him for a brief period, but from about February to November, 1837, he and his wife and child were residing at Paihia. Some months after the abandonment of Mangapouri Hamlin revisited the site, when he found the houses had been burnt to ashes, the fences and buildings demolished, and the school-house pulled to pieces. This station was never re-occupied.

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The Stacks appear to have moved on to Tauranga in 1839. A thumb-nail sketch of the missionary at about this period is seen in the Journal of Rev. Richard Taylor, and supplied by his granddaughter, Miss Harper. Under date 21st October, 1838, Taylor writes that he had been to Paihia, to Kororareka, and to the Mairs. 8 "In the evening the Columbine weighed anchor for the East Cape and Capiti (Kapiti), having Mr. Hadfield, accompanied by Mr. Henry Williams... also Mr. Clark, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Stack, together with a number of natives. The deck was so crowded I could hardly make my way along it." Mr. R. G. C. McNab, in an unpublished Life of Octavius Hadfield, mentions that amongst those on board was Tamihana Rauparaha, who was accompanying Hadfield to Otaki. In after years Tamihana and the younger Stack were to meet in London, and together return to New Zealand.

To this and the succeeding period little need be added to James West Stack's own story of his boyhood years. In the early days at Tauranga, when the trio of missionaries included the Revs. A. N. Brown and James Wilson, horrors were still to be seen similar to those experienced at Mangapouri. Brown, in his Journal, 25th October, 1838, records that the Waikato natives were taking part in a cannibal feast at Otumoetai, and that "when Waharoa and his party took Maketu pa they sent the enquiring natives at Otumoetai, as a present (and the greatest insult they could offer) a basketful of human flesh; and the fight (taua) that have

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JAMES STACK, 1801-1883

JAMES STACK, 1801-1883

James Stack was one of those intrepid pioneer missionaries, the thought of whom is heart-stirring. To quote his son's words, he was one of "the brave men and women who followed the pioneer missionary Samuel Marsden to New Zealand, and who there, by God's help, changed cannibal New Zealand into Christian New Zealand, thus making it the fair home for their children that it is today."

Early in 1830 the Minerva was wrecked on the northern coast of New Zealand. The captain, Peter Bays, in A Narrative of the Wreck of the Minerva, says: "I am convinced that no hypocrite would suffer himself to be literally buried alive, shut out from all society, and forsake home, friends, and all the domestic comforts of an English fireside, to go and spend a solitary life among uncivilised and heathenish savages."

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MRS. JAMES STACK, 1814-1850

MRS. JAMES STACK, 1814-1850

In 1833 Mary West, then a beautiful girl of nineteen, married James Stack. After a dozen years in New Zealand, facing with dauntless courage, toil, privation and danger, she returned to London, where she died at the early age of 36. In after years her son, James West Stack, in a letter to a friend, writes: "Yes, mothers! God only knows what some of them had to endure. I speak feelingly for, as you know, I for one was born in a cannibal village of a mother only twenty years of age, who lay on a bed of fern and had no English comforts of any sort about her in the tent which she occupied. I am thankful that I was spared from seeing any indignities put on her by the natives, and that I was unaware at the time that my father might have been killed before our eyes."

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now returned, amused themselves by walking round the enclosure and shaking at them a hand which had been cut from one of the poor victims just murdered at Tumu."

During this and the succeeding few years the figure of James Stack occasionally flits through the pages of contemporary books, reports and journals, and some of these references make us better acquainted with the elder man, besides giving glimpses of family life, as seen by others, on these early mission stations.

In 1839 John Carne Bidwill walked across the North Island, and recorded his adventures in Rambles in New Zealand (London, 1841). He relates that, owing to an epidemic of influenza amongst the Maoris, and the disturbance caused by tribal wars, he had been unable to engage any natives to attend him from Tauranga to Rotorua. "I should have been entirely stopped," he says, "had it not been for the great kindness of the missionaries, who persuaded some of the lads attached to their establishment to go with me. To one of these gentlemen in particular, Mr. Stack, I shall always feel under obligation, as he assisted me greatly to his own inconvenience, the natives being so generally ill, that when I took away the lads belonging to his household, it was impossible for him to get any more to supply their places, which in ordinary times would have been easy." Ernest Dieffenbach's account of his visit to Tauranga is referred to in a footnote to James West Stack's recollections, 9 as is Bishop Selwyn's brief stay at Waiapu in the following year. 10

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In 1842 Stack proceeded to the East Cape where, after acting for a time as locum tenens for the Rev. W. Williams at Poverty Bay, he established a new station. The conditions of life in these lonely outpost stations, with a young family to care for and protect, must have imposed a continuous strain upon the missionary and his wife during that period. In 1844 Rev. G. A. Kissling, then Stack's nearest neighbour, reported that the Rangitukia natives were "turbulent, and extravagant in their demands; they give Mr. Stack, who resides here, a great deal of trouble and anxiety of mind." He adds that "an individual of the Manutahi pa" had grossly insulted Mr. Stack and had, "in a rage, nearly killed his own daughter." In spite of all this Kissling is able to state that he and Stack had baptised nearly a hundred and fifty adults in this neighbourhood. Stack himself, in December, 1844, reported that at the annual examination 344 of his natives could read the Scriptures, and that in addition there were 315 grown-up natives and 97 children in "the alphabet class."

Bishop Selwyn's references to Stack in his "Visitation Journal" 11 indicate that, by the close of 1842, the missionary's health was already affected by the strain of his exacting life, although he was then but forty-one years of age. Early in 1845 he complained of failing strength, but continued to carry on his work, and apparently not without encouragement, for at the close of the year

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he reports that ninety-four communicants were present at the Lord's Supper at Rangitukia.

In 1846 Kissling was compelled by ill-health to vacate his station at Kawakawa, near Hicks Bay, and remove to Auckland. The lion-hearted Stack now undertook the ardous responsibilities of both stations, but his work in New Zealand was almost done. A few months later his impaired health gave way under the strain, and in November, 1847, after a brief stay at Sydney, he returned to England with his family, arriving in London in May, 1848.

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Subsequent records afford but fleeting glimpses of the elder Stack. In the early stages of the Maori War, William Jenkins, missionary to the natives at Motueka, arranged for a party of friendly chiefs and chieftainesses to visit England, with the hope that their report of the greatness and goodness of the country might convince their fellows, on their return, of the hopelessness of continuing the war. Accompanied by Jenkins the party arrived at the East India Docks on 19th May, 1863. On the following day Stack met them and conducted a service on board their vessel the Ida Zeigler. "They were visited," says Jenkins, "by an old New Zealand missionary. He had found them out and had held service in the Maori tongue. His name is Stack. He is a very sincere man, and feels much for the welfare of the New Zealanders." Stack gave Jenkins all the assistance in his power to further this laudable enterprise. Unfortunately it was not successful in its object, and the party

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returned to New Zealand in 1864. At the Hocken Library, Dunedin, may be seen a large, skilfully executed painting by James Smetham, depicting the Maori party at John Wesley's house, London. A reproduction, with accompanying letterpress, appeared in The New Zealand Methodist Times for 19th January, 1935.

According to a portrait in Morley's History of Methodism it would appear that, in later life, Stack revisited New Zealand, accompanied by a daughter. Strangely enough, however, no other record of such a visit seems to have survived, nor do the members of the family have any knowledge of it.

The Rev. James Buller, in Forty Years in New Zealand (London, 1878) thus refers to Stack: "At the ripe age of seventy-eight he is abundant in vigorous labours among the navvies in Portsmouth, where he resides." In response to an enquiry addressed to the Portsmouth daily papers, a lady wrote on 19th October, 1934: "My mother, who is now ninety-one years old, has often mentioned Mr. and Miss Stack as her good neighbours when she lived in Edmonton Terrace.... He used to place religious literature on a table in front of the house, hoping that marines and civilians passing by would take and read. He also used to go down to the dock-yard gate and preach to the men as they were coming out." These are just the kind of things one would expect him to be doing, and in this connection we have the remembrances of his granddaughter, Mrs. W. A. Scaife. "When T went to England in 1880," she writes, "I stayed a week with my grandfather at Southsea. He was of a very strong character, exceedingly calvinistic

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in his views, and full of 'abhorrences' of one sort and another; and a fanatic in preaching. An old man of eighty years, he used to walk to Portsmouth every morning to bathe, and hold service in the open air with the seamen. Many of his sailor friends to whom he introduced me spoke with loving regard of him and his services. He lived in poverty. He possessed the true missionary spirit of the age in which he lived." Another granddaughter, Mrs. Frank Coxon, says, "He was of so generous a nature that he would give the coat off his back to any poor fellow he met who moved his compassion. For this reason one of his daughters always accompanied him during his later years." James Stack died at Southsea on 18th April, 1883.

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The previous pages, in outlining the career of the elder Stack, have shown the setting in which the events of the son's early life took place. Those events are recorded in the Recollections, the earlier parts of which follow this memoir. The later portions of the Recollections will appear in succeeding volumes, the present material, including the memoir, comprising about one-third of the whole.

Some indication may well be given here of the MS. material which is still available for future publication. This includes the story of Stack's voyage from Sydney to England in the 'forties, and of his four years' residence in London where, after the unexpected death of his mother in 1850, he entered the service of the Church Missionary

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Society. Resolving to follow in his father's footsteps, he was accepted by the C. M. S. for training as a catechist, and designated as assistant to Dr. Maunsell. During his residence in London Archdeacon William Williams arrived from New Zealand, accompanied by Tamihana Te Rauparaha, with whom Stack struck up a friendship, and the two returned to Maoriland together in the Slains Castle. Another interesting personality he met in the Homeland was William Ronaldson, a fellow-student at the C. M. S., who had already had an adventurous career in New Zealand, and who was to return and spend his life there to a patriarchal age. The account of the voyage to the antipodes is full of incident, including a mutiny. There follows a racy description of Port Chalmers and Dunedin in the early days of the settlement; a visit to the chiefs Taiaroa, Topi and Karetai; the continuation of the voyage to Wellington, where the vessel narrowly escaped shipwreck in Palliser Bay; and a visit to Tamihana at Otaki.

The material in reserve contains Stack's full account of his years of service under Dr. Maunsell; his appointment by Bishop Harper to the pastoral charge of the Canterbury Maoris; his marriage; his return to Canterbury and the story of his first few years there. Moreover, there are in addition the Journals of Mrs. Stack, of equal interest with her husband's. These contain accounts of visits to Waiheke Island; Tauranga; the hot lakes district, including excellent descriptions of the famous Terraces; Poverty Bay, where she spent a considerable time with Archdeacon (afterwards Bishop) Williams; Wellington, Nelson, Dunedin, and the

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newly discovered Otago goldfields. This brief catalogue will give some indication of the literary riches the Stack manuscripts still hold in reserve for succeeding volumes.

It may be added that Stack wrote his Recollections from a half to three-quarters of a century after the events referred to. That his memory, notwithstanding this, is to be trusted, is evident from the fact that only very rarely is his recollection at fault concerning any verifiable occurrence.

A new era in James W. Stack's career commences in 1854 when he was in his nineteenth year, and when as a catechist, in company with Carl Sylvius Volkner, he joined Dr. Robert Maunsell at the Waikato Heads. At this time the location of the mission was about to be changed for a spot nine miles higher up the river, and into this toilsome occupation the young fellow threw himself heartily. He had feared that he might not be able to attain to the standard expected by Dr. Maunsell, whom he had heard described as stern and austere. Having proved his mettle, however, he found a good friend in the older man, whom he learned to love and respect. Maunsell soon found that his young assistant was made of good stuff, and as early as 4th April 1854, after describing the difficulties under which the work was being carried on, he writes: "I find,, however, that young Stack enters with good spirit into his work."

Later in the same year Maunsell gives a word picture of the new site at Kohanga. "It is," he writes, "situated on a little tongue of land projecting out and causing a bend in the fine, wide Waikato River, so that we seem, as it were, to

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stand sentinel, looking north-east along the banks to the distant mountains and varied scenery; and facing westward, catch a peep of the mouth of the river and the roaring sea."

The high hopes with which they occupied the new station were disappointed. The soil proved to be poor in quality, and do what they would, proved unproductive. Many hardships, fully shared in by the missionary and his catechists, were uncomplainingly endured. It was Stack's ambition for the school that it should be enabled to grow its own vegetables. Finding it impracticable to do anything with the stiff clay of the hillsides he and his students drained, with incredible labour, a flax and raupo swamp. Each boy's share of drain-digging was marked out, but Stack apportioned to himself double the portion given to the strongest of his students. As a result of the persistent effort of four years, the ground brought forth potatoes "smaller than marbles," while cauliflowers developed into "most absurd looking plants, resembling Prince of Wales feathers." Despite difficulties, disappointments and hardships, however, Stack and his fellow-helpers and students appeared to have lived happily and healthily on the banks of the Waikato, and in his recollections he provides a very interesting and spirited account of this period of his life.

Though living in isolation, and deprived of most of the amenities of civilisation, the mission station was not entirely without contact with the outside world. A young English barrister named Francis Dart Fenton, having come out from England for the benefit of his health, had made his

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camp higher up the river at Tuakau. The two young men found they had a good deal in common, and a life-long friendship was forged. The new arrival came under the notice of Governor Grey, and in later years was known as Judge Fenton of the Native Land Court.

One Saturday afternoon there was a stir in the mission station, and cries of "He poti! he poti manawao!" (A boat! a man-of-war's boat!) To Stack it seemed incredible, the native canoe being the only kind of craft seen on the river at that time. He ran down to the beach, however, and there it was, sure enough, a man-of-war boat as the Maoris had said. This unexpected event proved to be a visit from Captain Drury, 12 with officers and a boat's crew from H.M.S. Pandora, then lying at anchor in Manukau Harbour. The boat, accordingly, must have been brought out of Manukau Heads, over what is regarded as a very dangerous bar, then south in the open sea some twenty-five miles, over the bar of the Waikato River, and upstream to the mission station.

A visit to their nearest missionary neighbours involved a canoe trip up the river to Taupiri, where Rev. B. Y. Ashwell was established. Usually, however, they had plenty to occupy them at their own mission station, and amongst other undertakings Stack tells the story of the building of their church at Kohanga. This is supplemented by Mrs. Stack whose Journal, years later, records a sad visit, in the post-war years, to the abandoned site, where they find the church almost hidden by rank vegetation, and rotting away.

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The Governors, Grey, and his successor, Gore-Browne, were not unknown at Kohanga, their arrival being heralded by the cry, "Ko te Kawana E! Ko te Kawana!" Another distinguished visitor was Bishop Selwyn, "Ko Pihopa E! Ko Pihopa tenei!" being the excited signal of his canoe appearing in sight round the bend in the river.

In 1858 there was a very memorable meeting with a "wahine pakeha," a recent arrival from England, a sister of Commissary-General Humphrey Jones, C.B., of the British Army. Miss Jones had come down the river from Mr. Ashwell's station, on a visit to the Maunsells. With Stack it appears to have been a case of love at first sight. He said nothing on the subject during this visit, but three years later they were married by Bishop Selwyn at old St. Stephen's, Auckland.

* * * * * *

Early in 1859 the young catechist was called upon to make a momentous decision. Quietly and unobtrusively as he had been carrying out his duties on the lonely outpost station, people in the outside world had been taking note of him. Bishop Harper, who had attended an important Church conference in Auckland in 1857, now required a qualified missionary to undertake the pastoral care of the Canterbury Maoris. His choice fell upon James West Stack, to whom the invitation came as a great surprise. Although the acceptance of this offer would have more than doubled his salary he refused at first to entertain the suggestion, and this throws some light upon the manner of man he was.

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"It was not money I was working for," he said afterwards; "as long as God fed me and clothed me I was content. I shrank from the idea of leaving all my old friends at Auckland, and going among perfect strangers. And I could not endure the thought of being disloyal to the Society who had educated me and employed me for so many years, and treated my father and his children so well."

Communication in those days between Auckland and Canterbury was both slow and infrequent. Many weeks, and even months might elapse between the despatch of a letter and the receipt of its reply. After making his decision Stack dismissed the matter from his mind, and it came to be generally understood that he was to be ordained by Bishop Williams and stationed, still in the service of the C. M. S., at Opotiki. Bishop Harper, however, was not content to take no for an answer, and in the fulness of time an appeal was received by the C. M. S. committee at Auckland, urging them to use their influence to persuade Stack to reconsider the invitation. Though reluctant to lose a young missionary of such promise, they realised the need of the southern Maoris, and prevailed upon him to accept the position, promising him that he should be at liberty to rejoin the C. M. S. at any time should he desire to do so. In his perplexity he adopted the course that many great and good men have taken, before and since. "Going into the church at night," he says, "I waited before God, who heard, and taught me what to do. All my doubts as to the right course vanished. I chose the path I was least naturally inclined to take."

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One of the results of this turn of events was most unlooked for and tragic. Bishop Williams ordained, instead of James West Stack, Carl Sylvius Volkner. He it was who was stationed at Opotiki instead of his friend, and he it was who became in 1865 the first martyred missionary in New Zealand.

Stack made his long and tedious voyage from Auckland to Lyttelton (Port Cooper as it was then called) on the Lord Ashley, which he describes as "a miserable auxiliary screw steamer." 13 The journey was, however, associated with at least one pleasurable event, for it was on board this vessel that he again met Julius von Haast, and the acquaintance thus renewed ripened into a close and enduring friendship, temporarily interrupted only, may be, by the death of Sir Julius in 1887.

At New Plymouth they found Maori and Pakeha in conflict, and many Taranaki settlers and their families proceeded in the Lord Ashley to seek refuge at Nelson. At Wellington transhipment was made to a full-rigged vessel from England crowded with emigrants bound for Canterbury.

Stack was not very favourably impressed with his first view of the port of Canterbury. "What!" said one of the emigrants in his hearing, "do you call that a town? It looks more like a cartload of boxes chucked out on a hillside." Turning his back on Lyttelton, a stiff climb of nearly a thousand

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feet brought him to the top of the port hills, and gave him a commanding view of the scene of his future labours. Looking backward he could see the harbour and peninsula, presenting a more pleasing prospect from this eminence. Inland, at his feet stretched the Canterbury plains, bounded by their snow-clad mountain barrier; northward lay the long surf-beaten line of the forty-mile beach. "The plain below us," he says, "looked like a great flax swamp, and stretched away south as far as the eye could reach."

Christchurch had not yet completed its first decade as a settlement, and Stack says that, hot, dusty and tired, he reached the straggling township without being aware of it. Friendless in a strange place, unable to find suitable lodgings, and depressed by the monotonous, tussock-covered roads and outskirts of the settlement (in after years transformed into a beautiful garden city of the plains) he set out with the least possible delay to become acquainted with his native flock on Banks Peninsula.

At Lyttelton Mr. Latter, 14 the agent to whom his luggage was consigned, and whom he had met ten years before in London, introduced Stack to his son-in-law, Mr. Robert Rhodes, 15 with whom he crossed the harbour, and whose hospitality he

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often subsequently enjoyed. For several weeks he remained on the Peninsula, passing on from Port Levy to Akaroa Harbour and Little River, living with the Maoris in their villages, as was his custom.

It was during this visit that he made the acquaintance of the Cholmondeley family, whose home at Port Levy, he says, "was a lifelong haven of rest to me." Mr. H. Heber Cholmondeley, of Governor's Bay, wrote in August, 1934, in his eighty-eighth year, that he remembered Canon Stack on his first arrival amongst them in 1859. On a glorious day in January, 1935, it was my privilege to meet, in his home at Governor's Bay, this genial, active, broad-shouldered viking of a man. From where we sat, with the Port Hills on our left, Banks Peninsula on our right, the houses at Lyttelton, miles away, clinging to the steeply rising shores, we looked across the placid blue waters of the harbour, straight out to sea between the sentinel Heads, while my host, who was one of Stack's oldest friends, recalled the far-off days when the young missionary, on his pastoral visits to his flock, scaled the hills--still but little changed on this side--and plunged into the dense forests which then clothed all that part of the peninsula eastward of Mt. Herbert.

If the missionary was disappointed with his first sight of the early English settlements, he was charmed with the natural beauty of the peninsula, and strongly tempted to establish himself at the Maori village of Wairewa (Little River), overlooking Lake Forsyth. "The woods," he writes, "were vocal with the songs of the korimako and tui and other birds. Wild pigeons and parrots

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abounded. These the natives snared in great numbers, and used for food. The lake swarmed with every sort of water fowl, and eels of a large size were very plentiful. I never was in a place where the Maoris possessed such a varied bill of fare."

After full consideration a decision was arrived at that the twenty-acre glebe at Tuahiwi, near Kaiapoi, some sixteen miles north of Christchurch, set aside by the Government for Church endowment when the Maori reserves were allotted, would be the most suitable place for the headquarters of the mission; and here, soon after his arrival, Stack was duly installed by Bishop Harper.

As time went on he gathered about him a few congenial friends. One of the earliest and best of these was the Rev. George Cotterill, later Canon Cotterill. Despite a considerable disparity in age they had much in common, and Stack refers appreciatively to their frank discussions of topics raised by the writings of Darwin, Huxley and Tyndall. It is evident that their views on religion and science were in advance of the average churchman of their time, "being convinced in our own minds," Stack says, "that the Book of Nature was as truly a revelation of God as the Bible itself; and that these two books must be compared one with the other before the truth about Him could be known."

Not long after Stack had entered upon his duties, he accompanied Bishop Harper on an adventurous journey overland from Christchurch to Invercargill. The interesting: story of this pioneer expedition is related by him in his pamphlet

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Through Canterbury and Otago with Bishop Harper in 1859-60, published at the Akaroa Mail office. On his return he diligently resumed his pastoral work at Kaiapoi, and then again visited Banks Peninsula. He recalls, in his Recollections, the difficulties encountered in travelling from one Maori village to another, traversing the often half-obliterated native tracks through the dense bush. A few years previously some pioneer explorers had been lost for days in this rough country.

* * * * * *

A year passed by after this manner, when one day Stack received news that Miss Jones, the young lady whose acquaintance he had made at the Kohanga mission station in 1858, was on the eve of returning to England. Alarmed, he at once wrote asking her to become his wife. The answer was not received until a lapse of six weeks, although it had been despatched without delay. "Though kindly worded," he says, "it did not contain a decisive answer. But it made me hopeful, and I wrote again." His second letter met with success, and before the close of 1860 he was on his way northward to claim his bride. On the eve of his departure, 23rd December, he was ordained by Bishop Harper at Trinity Church, Lyttelton.

Landing again at New Plymouth on his way, he once more found himself within the war zone, and in company with Commissary-General Jones paid a visit to Waitara. While they were there two of the regimental cooks, having ventured out

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A fine example of the "moko" or facial tattooing of the old time Maori.

A fine example of the "moko" or facial tattooing of the old time Maori. The illustration is reproduced from a sketch by Canon Stack. and represents a Maketu chief. This ia the type of native that Stack would be most familiar with in his boyhood. The pattern of each chief's ''moko'' was peculiar to himself, and on occasion. when transferred to paper, represented his signature to a document.

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This carving is on the panel beneath the window of the very house--that of the chief Raharuhi-- visited by Stack and referred to by him on pp. 142-144. The photograph is reproduced by permission of the Dominion Museum, where the house is now set up. It may be interesting to compare the carving of the panel with that on the chief's face. The term 'carving' may rightly be applied to both examples, for the tattooing of the. Maori was a very different process to that involving merely the puncturing of the skin. See footnote to p. 174.

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MRS. JAMES WEST STACK, 1829-1919

MRS. JAMES WEST STACK, 1829-1919

Miss Eliza R. J. Jones came out to New Zealand with her brother in 1857, and married J. W. Stack in 1861. Prior to her marriage she travelled extensively. She kept a journal during her journeys, and these records, fortunately, have survived the chances and changes of near fourscore years.

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of the camp for the purpose of collecting firewood, were returning laden, when they were observed and pursued by two Maoris armed with tomahawks. The cooks were unarmed, and throwing down their burdens they ran for their lives. One was struck down, but his mate was saved by concealing himself in a clump of tall thistles, thus gaining sufficient time for his rescue by soldiers from the camp.

While in New Plymouth he found that his old friend, and his father's friend, Rev. James A. Wilson, had, with great courage and chivalry, been acting as chaplain for the fighting men of both races.

The journey from Lyttelton to Auckland occupied more than a month, and the marriage took place on 28th January, 1861. Bishop Selwyn, who officiated, was, says Stack, the life of the party at the wedding breakfast.

* * * * * * *

The opportunity may now be taken of telling something of the previous history of the lady who was to be the missionary's helpmate and comrade for well nigh sixty years.

Eliza R. J. Jones was born in Edinburgh, on 19th February, 1829, of a Welsh father and a Scottish mother. Eliza's father was the head of a Welsh family of ancient lineage. His death occurred in 1841, and that of his wife in 1843, after which the daughter lived with relatives in various parts of the United Kingdom for about fourteen years.

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In 1856 a brother, Humphrey (afterwards Commissary-General Jones, C.B.) returned from military service in the Crimea, and shortly afterwards received orders to proceed to New Zealand. Having recently lost his wife he requested his sister to accompany him, and to this she gladly acceded. They arrived at Auckland in the Dinapore on 5th August, 1857.

Miss Jones kept house for her brother until his remarriage a few months after their arrival in New Zealand, after which she interested herself in parish work under Rev. G. A. Kissling, and travelled about the country a good deal.

In February, 1858, she joined a party of friends and native attendants in a pleasure cruise to Waiheke Island in a large Maori canoe. Shortly afterwards she accompanied a party of friends on an expedition to the Waikato, where they were entertained by the Ashwells at their mission station on the bank of the river. In July of the same year she went round the coast, by cutter, to Tauranga, where she was the guest of Archdeacon Brown. From there she went on to Mr. Chapman's station at Maketu; and to the thermal regions, viewing of course, amongst other natural wonders, the Pink and White Terraces. October saw her back at Maketu and Tauranga. It was decided to travel overland on the return journey to Auckland. Quite a large party set off, and Miss Jones was placed under the care of Mr. C. S. Volkner, then a catechist, who was to conduct her safely to the Ashwells. Before continuing the journey to Auckland a visit was paid to Dr. Maunsell's mission station lower down the river, and it was there that the "pakeha

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wahine" first met the young catechist whose bride she later became.

In March, 1859, in company with Humphrey and his wife, Miss Jones set out on a lengthy coastal journey to Napier, Wellington (where they were present at the consecration of Bishop Williams), Nelson, and back to Auckland via Taranaki. In July yet another journey was undertaken, by schooner to Poverty Bay, at the invitation of Rev. (afterwards Bishop) and Mrs. W. L. Williams, and there she remained, happily and usefully employed, for about a year. Soon after returning to Auckland the young lady became engaged to James West Stack.

During a period of about three years prior to her marriage Miss Jones, who was a gifted writer, kept a journal, of which a typewritten copy is extant, contained in three large volumes. All of the journeys that have been mentioned, as well as a visit to Dunedin and the Otago goldfields, are fully described. This material comprises a most entertaining and informative story which, when published, will be read with great interest.

* * * * * * *

Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Gorst was married at about the same time, 16 and the two couples visited the Waikato in company, where the Rev. James W. and Mrs. Stack were given an enthusiastic reception and "send off" by their Maori friends.

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Returning to Auckland for a short time they witnessed, and Stack assisted at, the consecration of John Coleridge Patteson as Bishop of Melanesia During a visit subsequently paid to the new prelate who was found surrounded by his island boys Stack was impressed by the diffidence and modesty with which a man of such attainments expressed his views.

On their way to Canterbury the missionary and his wife broke their journey at Wellington, where they were entertained by the Bishop and Mrs. Abraham. While at Wellington they fulfilled a promise to visit Tamihana Rauparaha at his sheep station opposite the island of Kapiti, formerly the stronghold of his notorious father. After an enjoyable stay with Stack's interesting Maori friend they penetrated inland to the valley of the Rangitikei, where at "Westoe" they received a warm welcome from Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Fox Here on the Sunday the guest preached in the little wooden church, to a congregation composed of the neighbouring gentlemen farmers and their employees. So pleased were Fox and his friends that the Stacks were invited to remain and minister to them. Gratifying as was this overture, they had of course no thought of deserting the Canterbury Maoris.

Turning southwards again to Wellington they completed their memorable chain of visits by a brief stay with Archdeacon and Mrs. Hadfield. Their host was able to tell them much of interest concerning the transformation of the Maoris since his arrival about twenty years earlier. His mission station had been established at the earnest request

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of Tamihana, then a young man of about twenty years of age, who had become heart-sick of the ceaseless warfare of his savage father, the chief Te Rauparaha.

On their arrival at Lyttelton the young couple were met by the Latters, and at Christchurch the Buller family insisted upon the Stacks sharing their parsonage until the home at Kaiapoi was ready, which could not be the case for several weeks. The Rev. James Buller, then ministering to the European settlement, had been of the earliest of the Wesleyan missionaries, having arrived at Hokianga in 1836.

Amongst the belongings brought down from Auckland was an American buggy, and in this the journey was made to Kaiapoi. The road was rough and heavy, and there were lengthy delays at two stages of the journey before they could be ferried across the Waimakariri River. After the second crossing, at Kaiapoi, there followed a mile and a half of loose sand to be ploughed through, while the last stage of the journey was over a rough cart track, full of holes, where the wheels of the buggy sometimes sank up to the axles. At last, at close of day, they arrived at their tiny weatherboard house, standing amid tall tussock grass, and enjoyed the first meal under their own roof.

They had found the drive a monotonous one, but next morning, when they were able to take stock of their surroundings, they were charmed with the beauty of the prospect. They were in a

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curve of the Maori Bush, and the lofty forest trees were growing to within fifty yards of the cottage. To the north was Mt. Grey, the Waipara Hills and Motunau Point. Eastward, though out of sight, could be heard the roar of the surf on the Forty Mile Beach. Mrs. Stack records in her Journal that the green parroquets would often settle by scores on the fences.

They named their home St. Stephen's, in memory of the chapel in which they had been married at Auckland. The house had unfortunately been built upon a ridge of gravel, and to (their lasting regret a flower garden, trees, and even a lawn were out of the question.

One of their first enterprises was to establish a school for Maori girls. What difficulties had to be faced, doubtless no one but themselves could have told. In 1935, at Tuahiwi, Mr. Te Aritaua Pitama presented me to his grandmother, a vivacious old lady of eighty or more, and the only surviving member of that school. She could still recall the pranks of herself and her fellows, many of whom would no doubt have often in those days heard from their parents the story of Te Rauparaha's raid on Kaiapohia, so disastrous to their tribe, and then recent enough to be still fresh in the memory of the older people.

Their nearest neighbours were a mile and a half distant, but, happily employed in their work and good comrades as they were, they never felt lonely. Close friendships, moreover, were soon formed with Dr. W. B. Tripe and Rev. (afterwards Archdeacon) Benjamin Dudley, both residents of Rangiora. The one officiated at the birth of the

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The illustrations on this page are copies of original sketches by Canon Stack. The one above shows the tiny cottage at Tuahiwi to which he brought his bride in 1861. The rough cart track leading to it, he says, was full of mud holes, and the wheels sank up to the axles. The tall tussock grass grew right up to the walls of the house. To the south and west, however, were hundreds of acres of native forest. Eastward, at a distance of only two miles, was the forty-mile beach, the breakers upon which might be seen in very stormy weather. The sketch below shows the building enlarged by the addition of a school. The disastrous fire of 1870 destroyed the whole property. The site may be seen on the right side of the road from Kaiapoi to Oxford, near St. Stephen's Church, which was built in after years.

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Stacks' children, and the other at their baptism. Another of their friends at this time was the son of the Christchurch Wesleyan minister. This young man became well known in later years as Sir Walter Buller. He was employed in subdividing amongst the natives entitled to share in it, the Maori Reserve of 2,640 acres at Kaiapoi.

Every Sunday morning the clergyman and his wife set off for the sandhills, where stood the Maori church, and there they remained until evensong. "Morning service began at half-past ten," writes Stack in his Recollections, "and lasted a little over an hour, when the congregation came out and sat about the sandhills, smoking and talking for half an hour. About twelve o'clock the bell rang, and all the people went back into the church. Bible classes were formed for those who could read, and instruction in the Church catechism given to those who could not. Before separating the congregation was catechised on the sermon I had preached at the morning service."

When the time drew near for the next pastoral visitation of the Maori villages on Banks Peninsula, Mrs. Stack expressed a wish to accompany the missionary. Unwilling to subject her to the rough though well-meant hospitality of his flock, he yielded reluctantly to her earnest desire. "It had been my practice from the beginning of my work amongst the Canterbury natives," he explains, "to accept their hospitality on all occasions, and make them feel, whenever I visited them, that I did not think myself superior to them in any way, or unwilling to share their privations or mode of life.... If I had refused to accept their

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kindly meant entertainment on the ground that their houses were dirty and foul-smelling, and their bedding soiled and full of fleas, and their food coarse and repulsive to my European palate, I should, have hurt their feelings... and 1 could never have gained their real affection and confidence, which it was my wish to secure."

On the eve of this visit the missionary and his wife entered into a compact that whatever happened during their visitation nothing should be said or done to make their Maori friends feel that their guests failed in any way to appreciate the hospitality shown to them. In the sequel they found a bed had been provided, with clean blankets and sheets, but with pillows and bed ticking "black and shiny from the oil which oozed out of the mutton bird feathers with which they were filled." Next day the chief begged their acceptance, as a special mark of respect and good will, of several mutton birds which had been carefully treasured for two years, for just such an occasion, in a poha tihi, or kelp bag. "They looked like parboiled ducklings, and were covered with large clots of what looked like congealed whale oil, which smelled very offensive to English nostrils." Throughout the visit, however, their compact was loyally and heroically kept, as it also was on a subsequent visit to the Peninsula, when Mrs. Stack had an even more disconcerting experience, duly related in a succeeding part of the MS. recollections.

The later visit, just referred to, was made more enjoyable by a brief stay with the Rev. William Aylmer, the Vicar of Akaroa, and his family.

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Here, too, they met Mr. and Mrs. James Rattray, son-in-law and daughter of the Aylmers, whose hospitality they afterwards enjoyed during a visit to Dunedin. From Akaroa they rode to Pigeon Bay, and stayed for a week or two with Mrs. Sinclair, whose kindness Stack had already experienced before his marriage. Although Mrs. Stack did not regret her earlier adventures on the Peninsula, and always maintained the most solicitous regard for the welfare of the Maoris, it was tacitly understood that she would not again accompany her husband to the native villages in the outlying parts of his domain.

The earliest native church at Kaiapoi had been accidentally burnt, and for some years the services had been held in the house of the chief, Pita te Hori. In 1865 the foundation stone of the new St. Stephen's was laid by Sir George Grey. The jubilee of its completion was celebrated in 1917, when the Maoris held a festival week. The Lyttelton Times of 1st October in that year stated that Stack's friends in England contributed £100 towards its cost. Referring to the jubilee, the report states, "Although the little church with its cross-tipped spire cannot lay claim to much architectural beauty it is a precious, hallowed sanctuary to the Maoris, who hold in reverence the memories of the stalwarts of the tribe who, in the early days, worshipped within its walls under the fruitful ministry of Rev. J. W. Stack, for whom there is still deep, affectionate regard in the hearts of the natives."

* * * * * * *

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Canon Stack's MS. Recollections extend only to the early years of his residence at the native reserve near Kaiapoi, probably until towards the mid 'sixties, when he would be about thirty years of age. Fortunately those thirty years constitute, from a historical point of view, the most interesting period of his life, but it is, nevertheless, to be regretted that comparatively little information relating to his later years can be gleaned, other than the main outlines. For another thirty years and more he ministered to Maori and Pakeha in Canterbury, and after that lived for two decades in retirement in Italy and England.

Speaking generally, the value of unostentatious men such as Stack is not recognised during their lifetime, hence much important information, such as letters and other manuscript material, is not preserved. Too often executors commit the tragic error of permitting written papers, of great potential value, to be consigned to the flames. In the case of Stack, the difficulty of providing an adequate memoir is increased by the fact that it is over thirty-five years since, in 1898, he left New Zealand; hence, although his death took place only about fifteen years ago, there are but few people in New Zealand who can contribute personal recollections.

In spite of all this, however, some written and printed material, and some personal recollections are fortunately available, quite sufficient in fact to acquaint us not only with the main events of this later period, but to give us glimpses of the man himself, the spell of his personality, and of his work for posterity.

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A glimpse of their life at this time is seen in the Journal of Mrs. Stack, who tells the story of a visit to Otago in 1861. At Dunedin they were the guests of Major Richardson, the Superintendent of the Province. An interesting trip to the newly discovered gold diggings at Waitahuna followed. Mrs. Stack, who was the first lady to make the venturesome journey, gives a racy account of this. Returning to Dunedin they were entertained by the Rattrays. "After our rough experiences since leaving Wellington," Mrs. Stack says, "it seemed quite strange to be surrounded again by the luxuries and refinements of an English gentleman's home."

Mrs. Stack also tells something of the educational activities of the mission at Kaiapoi. After referring to her class of youths, whom she was teaching to read and write, she continues: "Two old tattooed men bought English spelling books at a shop in Christchurch, and begged to be allowed to join my class; but after a week they both gave up in despair. They said they put their books every night under their pillows, but it was no use, nothing of the contents ever got into their heads, and they concluded they were too old to learn."

* * * * * * *

Reference has already been made to Stack's life-long friendship with Sir Julius von Haast. Happily a sheaf of interesting letters, extending from 1867 until 1885, has survived, and the writer of this memoir is greatly indebted to Mr. H. F. von Haast, by whom the correspondence had been

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commendably preserved amongst his father's papers, for permission to use it.

The first of these letters from Stack to his friend the geologist and explorer was occasioned by correspondence which had been carried on between Charles Darwin and von Haast. The outcome provides a striking tribute to Stack, showing as it does that, even as a young man of thirty-two, he was well qualified to be consulted as an authority on Maori ethnology.

Darwin to von Haast

The questions submitted by Darwin illustrate his methods of work, and his close attention to detail in prosecuting his investigations.

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QUERIES ABOUT EXPRESSION.

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This list of questions differs slightly from that in Darwin's printed work.

Stack to Von Haast

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In course of time Darwin's questions, or at any rate some of them, were answered, and transmitted by von Haast to the naturalist.

Darwin to von Haast

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* * *

The sequel may be related at once. A letter from Stack to von Haast, dated 13th February, 1873, after an absence from home, contains the following paragraph: "Judge of my surprise and satisfaction on my return the other day, to find Darwin's last work, with the author's compliments inscribed, lying on my table. For this honour I have to thank you, my kind friend, and I do so most sincerely."

In Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions he states that replies were received from thirty-six observers, residing in Australia, New Zealand, Borneo (Rajah Brooke), Malay, China, India, Ceylon, Africa, Tierra del Fuego, North America. In such circumstances it was no small achievement on the part of Stack that his replies should have been singled out for such special commendation. In his book Darwin writes: "In regard to the Maoris of New Zealand the Rev. J. W. Stack has answered only a few of my queries; but the answers have been remarkably full, clear, and distinct, with the circumstances recorded under which the observations were made."

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In reply to Question 2 Stack relates an incident which he must have set down with some reluctance, for consideration for the feelings of others was always one of his marked characteristics. Having a keen sense of humour, however, the picture conjured up would be irresistible. The following is a quotation from Darwin's book: "The Polynesians blush freely. The Rev. Mr. Stack has seen hundreds of instances with the New Zealanders. The following case is worth giving, as it relates to an old man who was unusually dark coloured and partly tattooed. After having let his land to an Englishman for a small yearly rental, a strong passion seized him to buy a gig, which had lately become the fashion with the Maoris. He consequently wished to draw all the rent for four years from his tenant, and consulted Mr. Stack whether he could do so. The man was old, clumsy, poor, and ragged, and the idea of driving himself about in his carriage for display amused Mr. Stack so much that he could not help burstings out into a laugh; and then the old man blushed up to the roots of his hair. "

Expression of the Emotions, published in 1872, was one of the more important of Darwin's works, growing out as it did of the Descent of Man. Its sale on the first day of publication was 5,267 copies.

It may be of interest to note that, in the year in which Stack was bom, Darwin visited New Zealand with FitzRoy in the Beagle, and that when Stack's father, with his wife and child, were sheltering with the Hamlins from the murderous

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assault of the chief Awarahi, Darwin was calling at the mission stations at the Bay of Islands.

* * *

A letter, dated 20th July, 1867, contains an interesting note relating to the moa, concerning which there was considerable controversy as to the length of time during which it had been extinct.

Stack to von Haast

* * *

The next communication, on 18th April of the following year, contains important observations relating to the native race. The "Mr. Taylor" referred to would probably be Rev. Richard Taylor.

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Stack to von Haast

* * *

Of the life at Kaiapoi in these days Mrs. W. A. Scaife, Canon Stack's daughter, writes: "Before the mission station at St. Stephen's was destroyed by fire I can remember the slope in front of the house, and Maoris everywhere--old men and women, young men and maidens, children, and native dogs. Occasionally a dispute would arise over land or rent, when there would be smoking, talking, shouting, from dawn to dark. Even if

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but two persons were concerned in the matter at issue, the whole community felt bound to take part in the settlement."

* * *

Von Haast, as Director of the Canterbury Museum, was desirous of procuring a Maori house, and in the von Haast-Stack correspondence this matter is referred to more than once. On 10th March, 1870, the year in which the solid stone-built museum was opened, Stack writes: "With regard to the carved house, Archdeacon Leonard Williams 17 told me that there was one at Turanga (Poverty Bay) hardly inferior to the one in the Wellington Museum 18 which might be obtained for about the same sum. A letter addressed by you to the Ven. Archdeacon Leonard Williams, Turanga, Poverty Bay, would elicit all the information you require."

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The 5th May, 1870, was a black day in the calendar of the missionary and his wife, a disastrous fire resulting in the total destruction of their home. More than once in his Recollections he refers to this almost overwhelming misfortune. Though a good deal of the contents of his library appears to have been saved, doubtless much valuable material, amassed during many years by himself and his father, went up in smoke.

In January, 1935, there was still residing at Tuahiwi a white lady, Mrs. Rickus, a nonagenarian, who had lived most of her life in the neighbourhood and who, even after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, still vividly remembered the coming of Stack, and spoke of him with affectionate reverence. The ruinous fire of 1870, she recalls, was caused by the carelessness of a Maori attendant, who left the house unattended while clothes were drying around the open hearth fire. She adds that the messenger who was despatched with the ill news to the missionary found him at an insurance office, arranging for a policy over the property!

Stack to von Haast

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* * *

On 1st June of the following year the Maori House again comes up for discussion.

Stack to von Haast

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During the period 1861 to 1880 Stack acted as native interpreter, and he was also for some time an inspector of native schools. These duties necessitated a certain amount of travelling.

Stack to von Haast

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* * *

Throughout his life Stack took a keen interest in the native lands question. As an example of the problems constantly calling for solution, the following extract from one of his reports to the colonial government about this time may be quoted.

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In June, 1872, he wrote: "At present, instead of using their land, on which crops of sixty bushels of wheat and seventy bushels of oats can be raised year after year in average seasons, they are content to lease them at fair rental, probably for seven years, receiving perhaps the rent in advance, and long before that time expires rent it on a second lease at a lower re-rental, in order to get cash, till they are becoming gradually poorer, instead of benefiting by the improvements made on the land by the lessees."

In 1872 the missionary's labours were somewhat lightened by the appointment of an assistant, the Rev. George Mutu, who remained as his helper until Canon Stack, by reason of advancing years, transferred from the Maori work to a European parish.

* * *

In March, 1880, he was on a visit to the far south. Having been across to Stewart Island he returned to Invercargill, and writes from there on the 9th. He had found the sealers preparing to leave for the Auckland Islands. It seems that shore whaling still survived, for he furnishes von Haast with some particulars of whale skeletons shown him by Mr. Charles Traill, and adds that "it is impossible to procure a sperm whale skull, as the bones contain so much oil, it pays to cut them up to extract the oil." He continues: "I tried to get some of the sealers to promise to secure an elephant skin and skeleton for the museum, but I think it will be impossible to get one unless a bargain is struck with the head of the sealing party

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when they leave for the Aucklands. April is the month they start, and a letter to Mr. Traill, fixing price, etc., might secure one. I saw a specimen of the (elephant seal in the Otago Museum, and it certainly is one of the greatest curiosities there. How the beast can move such an unwieldy carcase is a perfect mystery. "

Reference may appropriately be made here to a communication from Mr. A. W. Traill, of Stewart Island, who, after the lapse of nearly sixty years, has a clear recollection of Stack at this period. Mr. Traill, the son-in-law of the pioneer missionary, Rev. J. H. Wohlers, was himself, as a young man. a teacher at the native school, The Neck, Stewart Island. He says that Stack at that time periodically visited the native schools at The Neck, Riverton, Colac Bay and, when possible, Mr. Wohlers's headquarters at Ruapuke Island. At The Neck those under instruction numbered about a hundred, and Mr. Traill, then a young beginner in mission work among the native people, still looks back with gratitude to the friendly advice and counsel received from the older man, and remembers the pleasure with which all looked forward to the visits. Mr. Traill adds: "Yesterday I asked an old Maori, hale and hearty though over eighty-five years of age, if he remembered Stack, Te Taka as they called him. "Yes," said my old friend, "I remember him well, and I remember some of the sermons he used to preach in Maori in those old times when he came to inspect the school."

* * *

After the fire in 1870 the family removed to Addington, a suburb of Christchurch, the orphan-

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age, then vacant, being placed at their disposal. In 1871 they went to reside at Miss Andrews's house at Kaiapoi until, in 1874, they built a house in Armagh street, Christchurch, residing there for the sake of their children's education. In 1880, partly owing to the loss of certain Government appointments through retrenchment, and consequent reduction of income, and partly for the opportunity it afforded of access to the Maoris on Banks Peninsula, Stack accepted the charge of the European parish of Duvauchelles Bay, where they remained for three years.

Stack to von Haast

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Tamate Tikao may not unlikely have been the father of Hone Taare Tikao, of Rapaki, who related to Mr. James Cowan most of the stories in Maori Folk Tales of the Port Hills (1923), and whose portrait may be seen in that booklet.

Several interesting stories concerning Moki are told by Canon Stack in his South Island Maoris (1898).

* * *

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Stack to von Haast

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In his Recollections Stack has something to say of his early acquaintance with the works of Dickens, who was in the full tide of his popularity when the young missionary was in London during the late 'forties and early 'fifties. The allusion in the foregoing letter is doubtless to Chapter I of Pickwick.

* * *

Stack to von Haast

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CANON AND MRS. J. W. STACK

CANON AND MRS. J. W. STACK

This portrait shows the old people in their home at Worthing, Sussex, England. Though by reason of strength they had exceeded the age of fourscore years, yet was their strength not labour and sorrow. It was during this period that Canon Stack set down his Recollections; and writing to his friend Mr. Heber Cholmondeley he said: "You will be glad to hear that Mrs. Stack, who is now 88, is very well... and spends every hour of the day doing something. She is bright and cheerful, and plays her old pieces on the piano for half an hour or more nearly every day."

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SIR JULIUS VON HAAST, 1822-1887

SIR JULIUS VON HAAST, 1822-1887

On the wall of the Museum at Christchurch is a tablet, erected by the Governing Body of Canterbury College, and bearing the following inscription:

"As an explorer, a geologist, and scientific collector he has bequeathed to his adopted country the results of an unusually active life-work. In recognition of the untiring zeal, ability and industry devoted by him to the public service, the College desires thus to honour his memory in this museum, which will be his lasting monument."

For a biographical sketch of Sir Julius von Haast see Appendix, pp. 268-70.

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Canon Stack's Notes on Maori Manufacture of Greenstone is not only a valuable treatise, but its writer has made it an intensely interesting chronicle. It is given as an Appendix to this book.

* * *

Stack to von Haast

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Stack relates a touching interview with one of his Maori flock on the eve of his departure for the Homeland in August, 1883. Koro's past had been one of peril and adventure; he had taken part in many a fight and cannibal feast; was a survivor of the sack of Kaiapohia half a century previously, and had been taken to Kapiti by Rauparaha as a slave. He became a Christian convert at the same time as Tamihana Rauparaha, through the instrumentality of a liberated slave from the Bay of Islands, and was one of the links in that wonderful chain of events which brought Octavius Hadfield to Otaki, and which eventually brought Koro his freedom. He afterwards became one of Stack's most trusted helpers, and the incident narrated by the missionary shows the affection in which he was held by his Maori friends. Koro said:

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The honour which Stack was so glad to see conferred upon his friend would doubtless be that of C. M. G. The hope that von Haast might receive promotion in the Order was realised in 1886, when he was created K. C. M. G.

* * *

The preceding letters assist us, as private letters frequently do, to come near to the real man, and they confirm our impression of an unusually attractive and amiable personality. The last two letters to be quoted are of special interest and of biological importance. They are both written from St. Matthew's parsonage (St. Albans, Christchurch), the first being dated 14th May, 1885.

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Stack to von Haast

Paora Taki {Native Assessor at Rapaki, aged about 70) to Stack

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The last letter of the series, dated 20th June of the same year, has reference to the old controversy as to the length of time since the moa became extinct.

Stack to von Haast

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* * *

The visit to England, referred to in the letter to von Haast dated 9th June, 1883, was undertaken that year, and on their return in 1884 the Stacks lived for a year at St. Albans.

In 1885 the missionary was appointed Vicar of Kaiapoi. He was then fifty years of age, and had served the Canterbury natives for a quarter of a century. In 1887 he became Vicar of St. Barnabas', Fendalton. Here, after so many frequent changes, he remained upwards of ten years, except for a break of a year or so when, in 1895, he and his wife visited Italy to see Mrs. Stack's brother Humphrey, who had served in the Maori war as Commissary-General of the British Forces in New Zealand.

Writing of this period of his career Mr. T. H. Beckett, an old Fendalton parishioner, says: "He was a most lovable man, and of a kindly disposition. He had a beautiful speaking voice, and it was a treat to hear him reading the lesson or prayers." In after years a memorial stained glass window, the gift of the family, was dedicated to his memory. The subject, very appropriately, is

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the patron saint of the Church, St. Barnabas-- "Son of Encouragement." In his dedicatory address Archbishop Julius referred to Canon Stack as one of the first Maori scholars in New Zealand, and stated that he spoke with great eloquence in the native tongue.

During his lengthy residence in Canterbury Canon Stack contributed many interesting papers to the Philosophical Institute, dealing with such subjects as Notes on Colour Sense of the Maori, Notes on the Weka Pass Rock Paintings, Maori Literature, An Account of the Maori House at Canterbury Museum, Notes on the Word Moa in the Poetry of New Zealand, The Disappearance of the New Zealand Lizard. In the 'nineties, or earlier, he made a list of place-names on Banks Peninsula, and deposited it with the Survey Office, Christchurch. In his publication dealing with this subject (Place-names in Banks Peninsula, 1927) Mr. Johannes C. Andersen quotes Stack as one of his authorities.

Kaiapoi (Kaiapohia) was a famous Maori pa, and had been for many years the chief fortress of the Ngai Tahu tribe. In The Sacking of Kaiapohia Stack had related the thrilling story of the siege and capture of this stronghold by the notorious chief Rauparaha and his war party from the North Island in 1831. On 20th October, 1898, he laid the foundation stone of the Kaiapohia Memorial Column, erected to commemorate Te Rakautahi, who founded the pa about 1700. 31

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Canon Stack's most important work is perhaps South Island Maoris. A Sketch of their History and Legendary Lore. This involved long and tedious interviews with old and sometimes reluctant chiefs, and laborious checking of the details of various narratives. His patient and long-sustained effort has, however, provided us with a literary bequest by which our knowledge of the ancestry of the South Island Maori is enriched for all time.

Mr. H. D. Skinner, M. A. (Cantab.), contributes the following estimate of Stack's place in Maori ethnology:

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* * *

Shortly after the laying of the foundation stone of the Kaiapohia Memorial Column Canon and Mrs. Stack bade their last farewell to New Zealand, to take up their residence with Humphrey Jones at Bordighera, Italy. There they remained until the latter's death in 1907, when they removed to England, settling at Worthing, where for the next twelve years or so they enjoyed a calm and mellow eventide, devotedly tended by their youngest daughter, Dorathea.

During their residence overseas the old people kept in touch with friends in New Zealand, but unfortunately very few letters appear to have been preserved. Writing to a friend at Kaiapoi (probably the late J. Lowthian Wilson) Canon Stack asks: "Had it ever occurred to you that New Zealand was colonised by exceptionally brave men and women? First, the Pakeha Maori who dared to live among the cannibals; second, the missionaries who not only dared to live among them, but who for twenty years rebuked the wicked and warned the erring to flee from the wrath to come; third, the New Zealand Company's colonists who

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braved the long sea voyages, and what seemed the separation from all held dear to them, for a lifelong struggle with the powers of nature to maintain their existence; fourth, the splendid example of Bishop Selwyn, the chief apostle of muscular and spiritual Christianity. Our New Zealand young men are the brave offspring of brave fathers and mothers. Yes, mothers; God only knows what some of them had to endure. I speak feelingly for, as you know, I for one was born in a cannibal village of a mother only twenty years of age, who lay on a bed of fern and had no English comforts of any sort about her in the tent which she occupied. I am thankful that I was spared from seeing any indignities put on her by the natives, and that I was unaware at the time that my father might have been killed before our eyes."

Stack's love for the Maori race was deep and enduring; he gave the greater part of his life and his best energies in their service. He loved their land, which was also his own native land. He loved her hills, fern-clad, or spangled with the starry white manuka blossom, and the hollows clothed with sturdy flax and the tossing plumes of the toetoe; her surf-beaten rugged coast and thousand beaches where the long Pacific rollers break upon the shining sands; most of all he loved her luxuriant forests, where tall trees, here and there crowned with red or yellow blossom, surmount the tangled undergrowth of shrub and vine and fern; all this had for him a perpetual charm and never failed to fill him with wonder and delight. Mr. Johannes C. Andersen, himself a forest lover, remarked, after reading the MS. Recollections,

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Writing, in his eighty-second year, to his friend Heber Cholmondeley, Stack's thoughts turn to familiar scenes. "I was very glad to hear the other day," he writes, "that the settlers round Nelson are planting indigenous trees and plants. There are none more beautiful in the world so far as I have ascertained. Nelson, too, has gone in for a home for wild birds at Collingwood. I only fear that some wretched collector may, in the so-called interest of 'science,' demand the slaughter of the last remnant of our fauna."

Again he writes to the same friend, "I do hope that you have found congenial occupation in the laying out of your grounds at Governor's Bay.... Kingsley said very truly that a passion for gardening was the only one man could yield to without any fear of injury to his moral character. Flowers and plants are the embodied thoughts of God, and the more we study them and admire their beauty the farther we look into the mind of God."

* * *

Early in 1918, when their revered missionary had nearly completed his eighty-third year, the Maoris at Tuahiwi received a last message from him, written with a firm hand in their own language. Translated, a portion of this letter reads as follows:

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Stack to his Maori flock at Tuahiwi

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The old man was now nearing the close of his earthly course. About this time he wrote to Mr. Cholomondeley:

Stack to H. Heber Cholmondeley

In view of his calm confidence, as he approached the borderland, in the retention and full

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enjoyment hereafter of the best that this life has to offer, it is interesting to note that his daughters claim to have convincing evidence of his survival. One of them writes: "Long years after his death I was listening to Bishop Stone-Wigg preaching a sermon, about the New Guinea mission, when out of a mist my father's dear face appeared, and a whisper came in my ear, 'Cassie, can you not do anything?' I reeled as I sat, but it was a beautiful experience, deep and true."

* * *

This brief memoir is a very inadequate tribute to the memory of one who deserves something more worthy. Those who may have essayed a similar task will be lenient in their judgment. A man of great natural charm and strength of character, James West Stack was so modest and unassuming that almost the only records of his life story that he has himself given us are contained in the MS. Recollections which he wrote primarily for his own grandchildren, without any thought of publication. These recount the graphic story of his life only until early manhood. There are, of course, his published works, which are valuable, not only for their historical and ethnological interest, but for the insight they afford of their writer's habits of study and observation, and for their value as entertaining examples of his literary skill.

There is unfortunately, however, but little else to be gleaned. A whole generation has elapsed since he left our shores. To the letters which happily survive, may be added a few printed

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records and still fewer personal recollections. An attempt has been made to piece this material together, and it is hoped that the result has, however inadequately, helped to show what manner of man he was. There is a general agreement amongst those still with us who knew him personally or by repute, that he was cast in no common mould. As an example the words of Archdeacon L. G. Whitehead, Warden of Selwyn College, Dunedin, may be quoted: "I was born near the Kaiapoi pa when Canon Stack was in charge of the Church there. One of the first recollections of my life is the mention of his name; both my father and mother spoke of him with the greatest reverence, leaving me with the impression that he was a man of almost superhuman gifts. This impression was by no means unjustified. A glance at the portrait of Canon Stack shows a high-minded man of great force of character."

The grand old man and his life partner passed to their rest within a few weeks of each other, Canon Stack on 13th October, 1919, in his 85th year, and his wife on the 2nd December, aged 90. The Vicar of Worthing, where they died and were buried, paid the following tribute to them: