Comments on: Marriage, Tattoos, and Baptism Among the Maoris: Missionary Instructions, 1888

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:25:26 +0000

I’ll go look, but I don’t think I have it. As I recall (from 35 years ago) it started off with how the priesthood was restricted to Levites in Old Testament Days and then went into Pharoah and the seed of Cain, the whole Ham business and everything. The Levite part, true doctrine. The rest, false. It did have a statement from, I think, David O. McKay that one day Blacks would have the priesthood (also true doctrine). I only taught it once but it made me uncomfortable and was so relieved when the revelation was announced the last month of my mission.

Of course, the Maoris were always OK.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:17:55 +0000

That’s what I mean by hearing half a conversation! That’s what it sounds like to me, David, — sure hope I can find more.

As for the ward budget, if fines were imposed the bishop might be GLAD ward members sinned differently than he did!

Agreed, Grant. There may well have been justification for more local autonomy in 1888, when it may have taken many months for round-trip letters between New Zealand and Salt Lake … but by the time we were serving that should have died away. I don’t suppose you still have your mimeographed copy of that extra discussion?

By: David Y.

David Y. — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 20:57:06 +0000

We cannot impose fines for sins.

Wait, seriously? Someone asked the mission president whether they could levy fines on someone for having sinned? Wow — talk about a creative solution to ward budget woes!

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:18:47 +0000

It does seem like the President was trying to adapt and respect the local culture and still hold on to gospel principles (although I’m not so sure about threatening with that “Ananias and wife” business.)

It also makes one wonder what unofficial “policies” there may have been in the mission or any other. In Brazil, there were rare cases of Elders teaching new converts (or prospective converts) to take all their saints and go smash them in the back yard (as graven images, I guess). I heard a few Elders talk about it, but never saw nor participated. And how do these unofficial (and inappropriate) policies get started? And who wrote that mimeographed extra discussion in our mission all about why blacks couldn’t have the priesthood? -Full of false doctrine, of course.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:49:03 +0000

One idea that I think was rather forward-looking is 18, about not giving a new name with baptism. That is addressing the standard but culturally insensitive practice of giving a “Christian” name to converts whose own names were incomprehensible to Christian missionaries. It happened everywhere Europeans sent missionaries, and we did that, too, in the LDS Indian Missions of the 1850s (I don’t know specifically about Mormon practices in other times and places).

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:23:53 +0000

President Paxman certainly held some distinct beliefs and understandings of Maori culture. I wonder how many of them would hold up under scrutiny with almost 125 years of hindsight. They seem to have a practical slant to them, so perhaps more than I would imagine.