The Journal of Pacific History Inc

'To Save the Girls for Brighter and Better Lives': Presbyterian Missions and Women in the South of Vanuatu: 1848-1870 Author(s): Margaret Jolly Source: The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jun., 1991), pp. 27-48 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25169050 . Accessed: 04/09/2011 01:19
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To Save the Girls for Brighter and Better Lives7

PresbyterianMissions and Women in the South of Vanuatu: 1848-1870*

MARGARET JOLLY
IT HAS OFTEN BEEN ARGUED IN RELATION TO THE PROJECTS OF DEVELOPMENT AGEN

states that the effect of European cies in post-colonial I examine What of women. been the 'domestication' made by Boserup and Leacock in the colonial

has expansion capitalist here is the claim earlier

in a long process that this is but the latest phase were In the Pacific, Christian missions early beginning period.1 and many were colonisation of Western in the process crucial agents zealously to the 'domestication' of indigenous novel women.2 dedicated Promoting of women's for salvation

models

was often part of broader missionary projects domesticity But quite how far such projects accomplished their and conversion. ? cultural background, the in terms of the missionaries' aims bears closer study and the to the realisation life in the colonies, Christian of family impediments or resisted to to which transformed local women attempts adopted, degrees them. 'domesticate' Here one I examine interactions between ous women in three southern from of Tanna ? islands 1848 to 18 70. The considered Presbyterian ? of Vanuatu missionaries Aneityum and indigen and Aniwa, and circumscribed by There is now a

region time and place,

but the processes

study is tightly are far more general.

at the Universities to seminars of Essex, Sydney, is based on an earlier one, delivered This paper to in those seminars for I am La Trobe and the Australian National University. participants grateful Macquarie, a in working To Helen criticism and comments. through the special thanks for research assistance Kavapalu are dealt with more book, Engendering Colonialism: fully inmy forthcoming Presbyterian mission journals, which to the Australian Women and History in Vanuatu, than was possible here. My thanks University, Macquarie Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian of Anthropology, Research and the Department Council, name assumed at independence in 1980 is the work. Vanuatu of for National University, my ongoing support in the colonial period as the New Hebrides. for the islands known i See Barbara inDeveloping Societies (London The Domestication ofWomen; Discrimination 1980); Esther Rogers, women and 1970) and Eleanor Leacock, (London 'Montagnais Boserup, Women's Rote in Economic Development the Jesuit program inM. Etienne and E. Leacock for colonization', (eds), Women and Colonization: Anthropological on we can see the Perspectives (New York 1980), 25-42.1 here query the view that impact of capitalist expansion women model was accepted only in part and was The missionary in terms of a simple model of domestication. or wage as indentured women into paid work ? labourers opposed by contrary colonial forces which brought on as domestic servants, and later teachers, nurses and office workers. plantations, 2 Colonialism I take to include the complex process of foreign cultural intrusion, and not just the formal a rule is but one aspect of a annexation of territory power. This formal aspect of colonial metropolitan by than inwhicn missionaries, traders and other settlers are of equal if not greater consequence colonizing process colonial officials. 2 7 The Journaltf Pacific History, 26:1 {1991 ).

28 burgeoning missionaries are rich colonial have literature on women sources on

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missionary in various

in the Pacific3 projects colonial situations.4 The

and on the impact texts of missionaries

of

history the crucial argued for the Pacific, and in particular transformations of domestic life, often rendered eternal by anthropologists and historians still eludes us however alike.5 What is a sense of the interaction between missionary and local projects and in particular women women and indigenous in this process. the relation of European Diane

for writing of changing

and especially for the unwritten history, Elsewhere Martha Macintyre and I gender relations. in colonisation role of Christian missions throughout colonial

the 'object lesson of a civilized Chris for example discusses Langmore in the work of four missions tian home' in Papua from 1874 to 1914. operating in the pro She distinguishes from celibate domestic communality conjugality motion of this ideaL The London Missionary laid (LMS) and Methodists Society stress on the and the family abode as a model home for great missionary couple men had a suit to find themselves Protestant local people. missionary perforce able partner for wives were considered crucial to the work of their husbands and a comfortable in and ordered home. Such ideals were regularly compro creating ? mised in of supplies of Ufe in Papua the unpredictability by the realities remote the effects of tropical climate on precious regions, furnishings, long sep at school and most the toll of arations absent from older children appalling, But women such as Fanny Lawes sickness and death amongst infants especially. seen as devoted were not to their husbands and Lily Bromilow wives but as just to the mission mothers itself.6 a and high Anglicans celibate ideals afforded Catholics By contrast, pursuing not of the isolated nuclear model The mis community. family but of Christian sion stations of the Sacred Heart were typically less cosy, being made of bush

s See and Sharon W. Tiffany (eds), Mission, Church and Sect in Oceania, James A. Boutilier, Daniel T. Hughes no. 6 (Ann Arbor ASAO Monograph 1978); Niel Gunson, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South (Melbourne 1978); David Hilliard, God's Gentlemen: A History of theMelanesian Mission 1849-1942 Seas, 1797-1860 (eds), Family and Gender in the Pacific: Domestic Contra (St Lucia 1978); Margaret Jolly and Martha Macintyre 'A neglected force: white women mission dictions and the Colonial Impact (Cambridge 1989); Diane Langmore, aries in Papua, 1874-1914', Journal ofPacific History, 17 (1982), 138-57; idem, Missionary Lives: Papua, 1874-1914, lesson of a civilized Christian Pacific Islands Monograph 1989); idem, The Series, no. 6 (Honolulu object Reluctant Mission: The Anglican Church inJolly and Macintyre, home', Family and Gender, 84-107; David Wetherell, in Papua New Guinea (St Lucia 1977). 4 See, and colonization', in wives: Tongan women e.g., Christine Ward Gailey, 'Putting down sisters and 'Christian woman, Patricia Grimshaw, Etienne and Leacock, Women and Colonization, 294-322; pious wife, women in nineteenth in roles of American conflicts faithful mother, devoted missionary: century missionary women and "the wives, Hawaiian idem, 'New England missionary Hawaii', Feminist Studies, 9 (1983), 489-522; Paths of Duty: American cult of true womanhood" *, in Jolly and Macintyre, Famuy and Gender, 19-44; idem, 'Bond-slaves of Satan: (Honolulu 1989); Annette Hamilton, Missionary Wives in Early Nineteenth Century Hawaii in Jolly and Macintyre, women and the missionary dilemma', Family and Gender, 236-58; Toni Aboriginal ' in the north', Hecate, 12 and white missionaries "Pure and clean and true to Christ'*: black women Scanlon, and imports in Fiji', Pacific of housekeeping (1-2) Pollock, The (1986), 83-105; Nancy early development Studies, 12(2) (Mar. 1989), 53-82. 5 See, and man Tanna: Jean Guiart and the anthropological attempt e.g., Ron Adams/Homo anthropolopcus as to understand the Tannese', Journal ofPacific History, 22 ( 198 7 ), 3-14. For a critique of treating the domestic see eternal Family and Gender, Iff. Jolly and Macintyre, 6 See Missionary Lives, 65-82. Langmore,

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comfortable and iron, and without furnishings as in the austere mission less stations of aesthetic decorations. There, marginally on communal stress was the Anglicans, and self suf great commensality placed and dining rooms were usual and on many Communal living quarters ficiency. were cultivated and farm animals domesticated. missions In gardens vegetable ? was a stress on self reliance the SHM stations there particular through crafts saw mills, But for both Catholics and tanneries. and carpentry shops, forges was an alternative, even the mission model of Anglicans community preferable, In the words of the Church. the family, the broader of Nav family Archbishop materials rather than timber and the world the true idea of the as Protestant Christian home'.7 But celibate couples revealed women. what this true idea of home meant for missionary sisters rather Though were also auxiliaries, than wives, women in Catholic and Anglican communities albeit slightly more and autonomous ones.8 separate account Lives in Papua from 1874 to 1914 is met of Missionary Langmore's iculous and sensitive, but is expressly limited to the 'object lesson' provided by to this lesson the missionaries and does not address the responses by 'the host to discern local responses from the European mission peoples'.9 But it is possible accounts and even to catch glimpses of the relations between ary European women and local women. missionary The empirical than Langmore's ? scope of this essay is far more modest being concerned with Presbyterian missions in three small islands at an earlier period. the study on the first generation of European missionaries in Van By focusing uatu we can the stark differences between idealised projects appreciate imported from Europe and their practical realisation in the colonies, between missionary arre, the celibate orders which had communes 'given as much and daily experience. is a study of European missionaries and not of missionary effort in gen to establish eral The early efforts as in in Vanuatu, Christian missions Papua, on other 'South Sea islanders' ? New Guinea and the Solomons, relied largely in men and women the Cook Islands, Rarotonga from Samoa, and the particular men 50 of these Polynesian Islands.10 About and women died in the Loyalty rhetoric This it was

7 Ibid, 82. 8 See ibid, 82-8, 4Aneglected 163-84; Langmore, 142, 156. force', 9 Langmore, Missionary Lives, xviii. ? io The at in Vanuatu were Christian missions very first attempts establishing organised through the LMS ? Williams was killed on by John Williams, George Turner and Henry Nisbet. Their presence was short lived arrival at in 1839, and Turner and Nisbet on Tanna and their wives spent only a few months in Erromanga 1842-43 before abandoning it in the face of severe were Samoans and Rarotongans landed at opposition. Tanna in 1845, but encountered to resistance and moved from where for some years they tried to Aneityum, a foothold on Tanna. This was not regain only by Ta?mese hostility but by disease, hampered including malaria and an epidemic of in 1852. Samoan teachers and men trained in Samoa had also tried to smallpox Erromangan on establish themselves Island teachers, as elsewhere Efate and Aniwa. were in Melanesia, the Erromanga, ? efforts and as such suffered of sickness, demoralisation and vanguard of Christian problems incomparable loss of life. See J. Graham Miller, Live: a History Church Planting in theNew Hebrides to 1880, Book One of (Sydney See also G. S. Parsonson, in the New Hebrides, 1975), 24, 36-7,40. 1839-1861', MA 'Early Protestant Missions of Otago 1941 ) and M. H. Campbell, 'A century of Presbyterian (Dunedin thesis, University Mission education in the New Hebrides', MEd of Melbourne (Melbourne 1976). thesis, University

30 mission stations in the

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south here,

of Vanuatu not

before

1856. their

I do not crucial

consider

the

considering European-indigenous process. the LMS missionaries were ac Turner and Henry Nisbet Although George to establish a mission on their wives in an unsuccessful attempt by companied Tanna in 1842-43, it was not until the arrival of Presbyterian missionaries after were women 1848 that the specific of missionary contributions highlighted. were all associated These missionaries with the various Presbyterian churches ? the Relief the Reformed Church of Scotland and the Church, Presbyterian over from the United Church of Nova Scotia (which took Secession Presbyterian sionising three famous consider couples ?Jessie especially and Margaret Whitecross and John Geddie, Paton and were in the southern missionaries and central working as islands in this early the ill-fated Johnstons, and Mathesons, Gordons, period, as Thomas are dis well But these three couples Powell and Joseph Copeland.11 in tinctive and relatively and in successful sojourns having long producing accounts in journals, of their voluminous letters and later narratives. experiences were on The Geddies resident from 1848 to 1872, the Inglises on Aneityum from 1852 to 18 79, and Paton on Tanna from 1858 to 1862 (where his Aneityum first wife Mary died in 1859) and from 1866 to 1881 on Aniwa with his second wife, Margaret. sources for the are the diaries, letters and life of this history My main writing more the stories of these three couples. The differences between programmatic, letters and the of the public autobiography and published genre prosyletising more corre intimate and practical of the daily journal and private reflections ? are success are claims about mission spondence interesting particularly public Also of interest is the often at variance with the daily record of lived experience. women treatment in the writings of events of missionary and their different For both the Geddies and the Patons we have letters and journals from husbands. there are sometimes both husband and wife, and although concur, they usually views or emphases.12 divergent
h From the late 1860s, missionaries were sponsored in Victoria churches (1866), New by Presbyterian South Wales ( 1868), New Zealand ( 1882) and Tasmania ( 1882). It should be noted that ( 1869), South Australia ? the missionaries themselves were often still from Scotland or Nova Scotia e.g. Paton, Cosh, Gordon, Watt and Milne. As Miller notes this of Scottish Presby faith of the smaller branches Reformed 'loyal, Bible-based terianism left a definite mark on the character of the island church' (Live, 148), and no less on the Presbyterian churches of Australia and New Zealand 12These are not our onlv sources on this time and a full survey of relevant not permit place. Space does literature but see e.g. They Came for Sandalwood: A Study of the Sandalwood Trade in the South Shineberg, Dorothy West 1830-1865 (Melbourne 1967); observations e.g. ' Capt. John Erskine, by British naval officers, Pacific, .in Her Majesty's Ship 'Havannah (London 1853); P. D. Journal of a Cruise Among the Islands of theWestern Pacific.. in 'Private journal of a four months cruise through some of the "South Sea Islands" and New Zealand Vigors, National H.M.S. Australian "Havannah" ( 1850); ',mf, Dept of Pacific and Southeast Asian History, University 1873); Jottings During the Cruise ofH.M.S. 'Cura?ao'Among the South Sea Islands in 1865 (London Julius L. Brcnd?cy,

missionaries Polynesian I am because expressly

to diminish

but significance in the mis relations

Church

of Scotland). We and John Inglis, Charlotte her husband John. Other

will

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FOR BRIGHTER

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How women, Charlotte mother

did

and how Charlotte

see the situation women these European missionary it? This is evoked clearly did they try to change on the Geddie missionary commenting Harrington, Geddie,

of indigenous in the words of work of her

our dear lady's heart ached for the condition of the From the very beginning treated as beasts of burden by cruel men, without hope of self-respect, women, extreme. How she worked to gain their confidence and to save the degraded in the for brighter and better lives.13 girls and better Uves meant of patterns re-orienting Saving the girls for brighter to in relation shelter and food, and domestic work, changing practices clothing, and children and husbands and wives. the farniUal relations of parents reforming ? is dense with contradictions contradictions The history of this project and local models, between ideals and the reaUty of European European and between the aim of improvement domestic Ufe in the colonies, European which and that of domestication and devaluation rela impUed marginaUsation between
tive to men.

made

women were that women's convinced Uves were firmly missionary but by wholeheartedly Christian and better not just by becoming brighter Both in Britain what has been called the 'cult of true womanhood'.14 embracing there was a radical shift in notions and in North America, of family and fem in agriculture transformations and in ininity which accompanied capitalist These

the household had been both farms and in artisanal industry, dustry. On peasant a unit of estates consoUdated and consumption. But as agricultural production a new in the urban centres, and mills and factories sp?t developed developed
Norma McArthur, and prehistory: the late phase on Aneityum', PhD thesis, Australian National 'Population (Canberra 1974); Matthew 'Vegetable kingdoms: ' taro irrigation and Pacific prehistory', Spriggs, University PhD thesis, Australian National 1981 ); idem, "A school in every district?": the cultural (Canberra University on of conversion south Vanuatu', Journal of Pacific History, 20 (1985), 23-42. All of this geography Aneityum, we must exercise particular of missionary care efforts provides context and some outside assessment (though with the claims and counterclaims of missionaries and sandalwood traders since they were often at logger heads). There is little 20th century ethnography which illuminates these events. Although successive studies by Lindstrom on 20tn and Bonnemaison offer different Guiart, Brunton, Wilkinson, Humphreys, viewpoints since the mid-19th with the Tanna, few credit the extent of social transformation of century century, exception de la Soci?t? des Publications Jean Guiart, Un Si?cle et Demi de Contacts Culturels ? Tanna, Nouvelles-H?brides, no. 5 (Paris 1956); Ron Brunton, The a Oc?anistes, origins of the John Frum Movement: sociological expla inM. R. Allen nation', (ed.), Vanuatu: Politics, Econom?a and Ritual in Island Melanesia 1981), 357-78; (Sydney 'A study of a political and religious division on Tanna, New Hebrides', PhD thesis, University of Julia Wilkinson, in Tanna', and politics 1976); Lamont Lindstrom, Cambridge (Cambridge 'Achieving wisdom: knowledge doctoral dissertation, of California La Derni?re ?le (Paris 1986); 1981); Joel Bonnemaison, University (Berkeley and Ron Adams, In the Land of Strangers: A Century of European Contact with Tanna, 1774-1874, Pacific Research 9 (Canberra a weaves 1984). Bonnemaison of oral and Monograph together superb synthesis documentary in his accounts are women more than a passing reference. study, La Derni?re ?le. But in none of these accounts The dramatic in the lives of women over transformations are not the course of a century only not but expressly as both hidden and evocation of a female elided, witness Adams's acknowledged 'private sphere *Homo anthropologicus\ 14. There are no recorded memories ana reflections on this intact', early regrettably mission from these southern islands. period by women is Charlotte Letters of Charlotte Geddie and Charlotte Geddie Geddie, (Truro, Canada 1908), 7, Harrington 15. m See Grimshaw, 'New England wives', 21-2; and idem, Paths ofDuty. See the superb study by missionary Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780-1850 (London 1987).

32 between the worlds

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and commerce and that of domestic employment In urban middle in class families work and familial such particular, were as two worlds inhabited by the two separate spheres increasingly portrayed ? men associated with the public world of work, commerce and instru genders women with the private world of the home, mental and rationality, compassion of paid nurture. emotional The indissociable from spheres was, moreover, to the Hall point Davidoff and Catherine an women as pure and in constructing of religion image of bourgeois centrality was woman to maintain a class 'a nursery of virtue', pious. The middle holy the ravages of commerce household and corruption outside.16 Insofar as against she took part in public should be one of social reform or com life, her mission notes Patricia Grimshaw the parallel of passionate prominence philanthropy. women in the 'second great awakening' and the social reform movements of ? in reforming in temperance 19th century America slum dwellers, early in rescuing and in freeing slaves. Similar sentiments movements, prostitutes, and New York State to more attracted middle class women from New England in Christian mission in Hawaii.17 exotic frontiers These members historical transformations to the work in Britain and North America the essential of Presbyterians inVanuatu. also provide were not They described by intimacy.15 idealised practice Protestantism. evangelical of separate Leonore

background of Birmingham and Manchester, of the high bourgeoisie as those from New as and Hall, nor from families Davidoff wealthy England were to Hawaii, sent missionaries Grirnshaw. which They by portrayed typically to class backgrounds in Scotland and Canada, more marginal from lower middle centres and commerce. these of capitalist these new urban industry Though Scottish

humble class origin and a different had a rather more Presbyterians of the relation between Church and State, family and public construction life, a view of the home as the ideal This was an ideal shared for women. place they not available to the majority who perforce class and peasant women of working to survive. The devout middle had to work in factory or field for their families the home as not only fatal work outside class perceived such strenuous physical to run to homes. and the capacity but to religiosity good Christian femininity, was thus basic to their ideal of Christian civilisation. domesticity Wifely came from farms or small like their husbands, These missionary women, towns in Scotland the daughters of large and and Nova Scotia, and were typically devout families, ers or artisans, ing households comfortable, their mothers and looking if not prosperous. were Their fathers were at home either were farm for the solely typically employed women after children. The missionary maintain

15Davidoffand Hall, Family Fortunes, 149ff. 16 Ibid., 76fT. i' Grimshaw, 'New England missionary wives',

21.

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economy. was born in the uplands of Galloway, where her father was a Jessie Inglis a farmer and and prosperous well-known leading elder of the Reformed Presby in small Scottish her primary education terian Church. She completed schools, inManchester'.18 and then went on to 'one of the best ladies schools According to her husband, she left school at 14 'a precocious and girl both physically to in and returned home Jane Martin, help her mother, mentally'19 bringing up nine years later in 1844. He until her marriage children the younger opined better than that found in most It was for her an admirable training ? boarding schools. She became a thorough expert in domestic economy, both theoretical and practical. Itwas a family training that went far to fit her for the place she was called to fill as a missionary's wife.20 Maoris the mission to the training fitted her first for service with Zealand and then after eight years (in 1852) in Vanuatu. While interested in that she too was strongly issues and the acknowledging theological that her view was of herself first as work of mission, spiritual John Inglis suggests a wife and next a duties were her first duties'.21 'her household missionary, was also to domesticity in the lives of Such a primary commitment apparent admirable in New Geddie from an even more This

period rather well educated, as those crucial to domestic

having

developed

reading

and writing

skills as well

Paton. Charlotte came and both Mary and Margaret Geddie in Nova Scotia. She was the urban background comfortable a from the town of Antigonish. of Dr Alexander Macdonald, daughter physician in Scotland, Her husband John, had as a young though born in Banff boy mig rated with his family to Pictou in Nova Scotia. Partly due to the influence of his devout parents (his father was an elder in the church), John Geddie early vowed to mission himself service. Despite his weak constitution, he prepared himself ? and plastering for this vocation and consistently learning printing, building Charlotte since their in Charlotte, marriage in an equally way by being a appropriate preparing to her at 17, zealous homemaker. she was, on her marriage According daughter, to or go afar in the quiet duties of a country manse, herself equally ready 'bury off to the heathen'22 to heathen be imparted where such 'quiet duties' might elementary 1839, had been herself
women.

medicine

from his father-in-law.

less about Mary Ann Robson, who became Mary Paton. She was the of a 'well-known and highly esteemed from Berwickshire. daughter gentleman' She too had a devout Presbyterian and an intellect cultivated family background know
John Inglis, In theNew Hebrides: Reminiscences 1850 till 1887 (London 1887), 262-3. 19 Ibid, 263. 20 Ibid 21 Ibid 22C Geddie, Letters, 14. i? Life and Work, Especially on the Island ofAneityum,

We

ofMissionary

from

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a few months of arrival on Tanna, She died within by 'a superior education'.23 from 'ague and fever',24 diarrhoea and pneumonia, only days after giving birth to a later.25 Writing after her death, John Inglis son, who died a few weeks baby her Ufe on Tanna noted in the mere months she had 'coUected' a of that three 'to sew and sing'.26 Margaret class of eight women, whom she was teaching as is also portrayed both through Whitecross second wife, Paton, John's having, a similar desire to educate and personal local conviction, family upbringing women in She came from a 'good' family in the joys of domesticity. Edinburgh at school and in the and again had the advantages of a 'female education' family.27 The class evoked character of the Presbyterian famous husband missions John Gibson most is perhaps Paton. Although clearly in his

in the case of her

to stress his he is prone from a cottar autobiography impoverished origins a a peasant oats and barley and working family, his father, though cultivating on the estate of a Scottish handloom laird, was not desperately poor. He had a resources to refuse to become the period of labourer during sufficient waged a decent he made Paton's childhood consoUdations. Uving in agricultural During as a weaver, in the manufacture of hosiery for local Torthorwald specialising merchants. cation was well endowed Paton's for him to pursue his edu enough family at the Dumfries and then the Free Normal After Academy Seminary.28 a some time as a teacher he became to the poor in the slums of missionary was the to his work at Green Street mission of the Central promotion Glasgow. and the celebration of ideals of hard work, thrift and temperance, to a and holy family Ufe. Paton compared weU-regulated the poorer in Vanuatu his mission with that he had already undertaken amongst ? to the of heathenism the darkness classes of Glasgow comparing exp?citly around Green Street.29 in the slums and alcoholism barbarism of poverty, misery was also to that class women The darkness of the lot of poor working analogous in the state of savagery of women and heathenism. Presbyterian female piety as crucial where. Christian missions of darkness and Ught characterises every iconography was the Ught to that of bringing The dominant of conversion trope women had no doubt that heathen darkness. These missionary Presbyterian were were in particular and the the agents of that iUumination, bringing they to the The darkness of their women and Aniwa. of Aneityum Ught benighted The
23 See Adams, In the Land, 95. 24 This was in these terms. Her husband's malaria which was in this period usually described presumably a of the periodic nature of the attacks suggest malaria rather than other diseases descriptions inducing high temperature. 25 Gibson Paton, Missionary to theNew Hebrides. An Autobiography, James Paton, ed. (London 1889), John 129-30. 26 In theNew Hebrides, 262. Inglis, 27 Whitecross the New Hebrides, James ed. (London Paton, Letters and Sketches from Paton, Margaret 1894). 28 Paton, In the Land, 78-80. Missionary, 27, 40ff. See also Adams, 29 Ibid, 53ff.

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as for class women back home, was first of aU linked to the situation, working as assessment of the indigenous situation of women work they did. Their is intimately 'debased' or 'degraded' linked to the observation 'downtrodden', the home, that they did hard manual work outside that they were 'beasts of burden'. Captain The Cook Presbyterian had earher missionaries said of the men were not alone in such descriptions: of Tanna,

these seem to exceU in the use of Arms, but do not seem to be fond of labour, they ... but never would put a hand to assist in any work we were carr(y)ing forward theWomen do the most laborious work, what I judge most from is their mak(e)ing of them they make pack-horses. Ihave seen a woman carrying a large bundle on her back, or a Child on her back and a bundle under her arm and a feUow struting before her with nothing but a club, or a spear or some such like thing in his hand ... I cannot say the women are beauties but I think them handsome enough for the men
and too handsome for the use that is made of them.30

Whereas for

for Cook

this was

a matter

of distant it was cause

in th? southern that women, islands of particularly and Tanna, worked hard ? in the work Aneityum, extremely especiaUy taro was cultivated in both of cultivating taro.31 For instance on Aneityum dry women most fields and irrigated plots and did of the work of planting, weeding and harvest. Women and fed domestic also gathered shellfish, pigs. They regu enormous loads of tubers, bush products, wood, water and children. larly carried did most of the cooking, wove mats for clothing and sleeping, and made They thatch for houses. They, with the help of older siblings, were the main nurturers men were not idle. of children. On Aneityum in yams, grown They cultivated as a taro ter and also constructed fewer numbers and irrigated crop, prestige Aniwa races. sea out canoes and went cut timber for They hoUowed deep fishing. They and constructed the frames of houses.32 They did some cooking and hauling of on occasion. wood But and water. also carried and nurtured children They women a did share of aU work. Matthew Spriggs argues that in disproportionate women were this period on Aneityum since men the exploited appropriated them in com of their labours ? tubers and pigs ? and circulated products an to men as feasts with other men ? accrued value petitive activity which prestige.33 But itwas not this fact which led to the Presbyterian view that women's work was a There this missionary Uterature is throughout 'degraded'. presumption or that manual in the taro fields or beyond the home, physical work, especiaUy was in itself to women. Paton observed for Tanna degrading
so James C 1967), 504-5. si Spriggs, 32 Inglis, In ss Spriggs, Beaglehole (ed.), The Journals 30-3. 33ff. onHis of Captain James Cook Voyages ofDiscovery, Vol. II (Cambridge

the early Protestant There is no doubt

missionaries

and adjudication for intervention.

idle outrage,

'Vegetable kinedoms', theNew Hebrides, 24. 'Vegetable kingdoms',

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I used to explain to them that this was how Christians helped and treated their wives and sisters, and then they loved their husbands and were strong to work at home;
and that as men were made stronger, they were intended t? bear the heavier bur

in all labours out of doors.34 and especially This was a presumption which was dear to the hearts of Europeans of this class and period, cultural value for ni-Vanuatu. but it was a foreign There is much that physical and work capacity 'out of doors' were in the past evidence strength dens, and continue it is doubtful view
water.

to be in Vanuatu. for both women and men attributes important or Tannese came to share women that Aneityumese, Aniwan as 'beasts pigs, evidence of burden' fishing, because they heavy and were loads hard at work herding and carrying of firewood

So the cul and

of

themselves crops,

tivating There

missionary to the home away energies work within of the it, and from raising taro to raising children. As inmany parts to train women these Presbyterian missions instituted in world, special schools in the European domestic work wives were Wherever missionary way.35 long was to instruct women set up schools whose main established in purpose they women tried to redirect women's from work domestic clothes. in the sewing, and of skills, especially laundry, ironing starching in her boarding Charlotte established The routines Geddie school for by on were girls Aneityum typical: ? on On Monday they wash Tuesday starch, fold and beetle36 the plain clothes. On iron. You would be surprised to see how well they do the clothes. they Wednesday
They out make and bake the bread, sweep, dress the children, etc. etc. Some of them can

is abundant

that missionaries

in particular outside

sew very neady; but the younger

of materials.37

ones know Scotia made Her

little about

it, as we have been very long

Her

letters back home

to Nova

sent, in preference to transform only industry 16 September came in boxes obliged writes the of

to finished indigenous local women.

constant to be pleas for materials seems to have been not intention clothing. attire which she saw as indecent but to encourage on in her letter to Mrs Waddell This is obvious

1851, where of clothing

to divide

'Tell your out here, who can make

of patchwork the small quantity which from Nova Scotia. She was regretfully despatched it 'into very small pieces to keep the girls busy'.38 Elsewhere she little girls to save all their little pieces for their little dark sisters she laments nice little garments for themselves'.39 When unmade

s* Pat?n, Missionary, VoL I, 158. 35 'New England missionary wives', 35ff.; Gailey, Compare Grimshaw, 'Putting down*, 314, and Langmore, Missionary Lives, 165. 36 'Beetle*, a rather uncommon clothes with a mallet if not archaic word, refers to the process of flattening to prior ironing them. 37C Geddie, Letters, 29. 3? Ibid, 26. 39 Ibid., 36. This is common in descriptions of indigenous of the infantilising language quite symptomatic women. to But itmay also reflect the tendency in the language of those with Scots diminutives proliferate to For the Latter observation I am ancestry. Wendy Cowling. grateful

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coarse shirts and trousers for onto cloth was received her 'girls' moved making and patching old clothes. for women 'Our sitting men, dresses, caps and bonnets room she wrote.40 is like a dressmaker's shop', a 'female industrial wrote about school' in their John Inglis similarly setting up first year on Aneityum the women. Here Jessie with a view to educating Inglis the 25 years of its operation and throughout took in seven young women, the numbers varied from 10 to 16. In return for their parents providing them with and and instructed them in dothing, and general household work. John notes 'dressing sewing, washing, of principal with approval that they were chiefs or of typicaUy the daughters to aU women, such skills were ultimately influential famiUes. Though imparted an in sewing and domestic exceUence skills were for important qualification women in the new of the Church. hierarchy Almost every young woman on our side of the island was for a longer or shorter period in this school, and the results were most beneficial. In after years, the most of food, Jessie suppUed them with shelter of clothes'
our teachers' wives were drawn out of these young women's classes.41

also them reading and writing and coached them IngUs taught a close of the gospels. Indeed her husband John reports orising parts between the young women's desires for clothing and the development skills in memorising scripture. Jessie On one occasion
given as a prize

inmem relation of their

a
to

a to be made lady in Paisley sent out piece of cloth

the woman who excelled in committing Scripture

into a dress and

to memory.

Mrs. Inglis prescribed as the task for the competition the first six chapters of the Acts. But instead of one she had six who repeated these chapters, every one of them without missing a word; and she had to provide six dresses instead of one.42 to women's of clothing added substantially work, and may in the patterns of colonial shifts ongoing economics. important amplified own report the introduction the missionaries' of clothing about By brought in the prevailing of barter and was even associated in with patterns changes in this early period. digenous cash-cropping The introduction have to her sisters on 1 June 1854 reported Geddie that local writing a considerable of cloth from the steamer HMS Torch. got people quantity While the island, this vessel changed its fuel source from coal to wood surveying and local people cut a large quantity of timber for which they got cloth in return. 15 November for cloth in barter was by her report more 1856, this demand By Charlotte had generalised: They are very anxious for clothing and are willing to work for it. The greater part of the Christian natives have given up the use of tobacco and intend to work for and to sell to the foreigners for clothes. Formerly the foreigners would not give them
o Ibid., 42. i Inglis, In theNew Hebrides, 2 Ibid, 81. 80.

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now they will find it for their own interest to pay anything but tobacco for work, but them in clothing.43 is probably efforts. missionary preceded that from the middle of 1848 reports Dorothy Shineberg a there was at Paddon's stations and beach outlets sandalwood in sharp upturn ? the demand twill and the old favourites for drapery scarlet calico, blankets, and caps. This may have been because for iron and other comforters the demand had been hardware satiated cloth was a prestige and because it good before a 1849 tobacco for Christian From converts.44 became sup necessity quickly ? cloth as the major item of trade in all the islands except Aneityum planted ? to the fact that here mission successful in influence was unusually testimony This inflated missionary rhetoric since desire for cloth

and in banning tobacco. clothing encouraging was on the other side of Meanwhile Aneityum Jessie Inglis using this desire for for the cultivation It grew wild on Aneityum, of arrowroot. cloth as an incentive a Arrowroot had been made but she introduced for its manufacture. technique in mission in Polynesia, and she learnt from a Rarotongan establishments was not the more woman how to do it. Her preferred method sloppy style of the a root and the unpeeled LMS where the bulb was merely washed grated, but more the skin, labour-intensive involved washing, which scraping technique it and straining the arrowroot the root again, then washing through fine grating a pure white cloth. This elaborate women's work) (all procedure produced arrowroot and Australia in England, Canada which was then sold to consumers a stress the in Presbyterian journals pound.45 Advertisements shilling and the associated fact that itwas made and whiteness, only by purity apparently accumulated Christian this trade, the Aneityumese natives. money Through to the Bible, catechisms and which was used and later, when buy clothing were no distributed free, to buy them. hymnals longer a defence of Steel writing On the basis of such Presbyterian Robert experience, as an incentive some years later of clothing the introduction the mission justified as to to trade. He saw the introduction of clothing stimulating people dispose of as the for the import of other British local food and produce, and also impetus wear He claimed want because that a trade manufactures. clothing.'46 they 'They in the heathen in useful the Christian articles distinguished islands, whereas and shot were the only sale islands tobacco, hatchets, muskets, knives, powder able things. The 'useful' articles of trade included unmade cloth, shirts, trousers, one coats, caps, straw hats and bonnets. handkerchiefs, query might Although ? more useful not his standards of usefulness hats and bonnets being manifestly
43C Geddie, Letters, 47. 44 They Came, 149-50. Shineberg, 45 Indis, In theNew Hebrides, 277. 46 Robert Steel, The New Hebrides and Christian Missions with a Sketch of the Labour Traffic: Notes of a Cruise Through the Group in a Mission Vessel (London 1880).

for one

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converts no the centrality of clothing for Christian for trade. Still Shineberg's doubt enhanced the propensity analysis of the effects trade might make us cautious of his grander claim that more of the sandalwood were sold on islands with missionaries than in all the other manufactured goods islands of the group.47 than steel knives As well clothing that native and that It is felt to be desirable
than shirts the with

and axes ?

as also

being served

versus marker of the Christian distinguishing to mark distinctions between local Christians. 'generally receive payments for their services

the heathen, Steel in reports

teachers

clothing',48 better
special

that they and their wives

as an example trousers, to and the have

should be attired somewhat

rest... alpaca The or teachers cloth wear coats for

people generally or fustian serge

Crimean

occasions.49

in the patterns of work and the habits of changes to reform domestic tried architec space. Domestic clothing, was seen as a ture in the southern islands of Vanuatu of the savage symptom state of the were or mean: Mar as people. Dwellings typically described rough Paton tells us that she first mistook Whitecross the houses of people for the garet one room huts constructed houses of pigs.50 houses were from Indigenous to the wooden This single room supports, with thatched roof stretching ground. was used a household was pre for cooking, by eating and sleeping. Segregation served not between the conjugal couple and their children but between husband and wife ? in both eating and sleeping patterns. out of local The houses which the missionaries constructed, though made were as the foundation materials and themselves conceived of quite primitive, civilised family life. They often had frames of local timber, walls of lime (burnt from local coral), internal woven thatched roofs, and floor coverings partitions, of local mats or coral over the dirt floor. had at least two rooms ? thus They a a segregating public space for eating and sitting from private space for sleeping. rooms were When and children added, parents slept separately. normally so that the smoke from the fuel stoves Kitchens were usually separate structures, out of the house. Such of the period was structures were a roomed kept multiple matter to the local Paton of consternation Whitecross people. Margaret reported to their two-roomed two new rooms that when a added house they (including the locals called it the 'Great House'.51 separate study for her husband John), was to attention the ravages of the heat, hurri Scrupulous paid rninirnising canes and disease. vaunt The writings of the missionary husbands the advan
? Steel The New Hebrides, 51. Compare ? Steel, The New Hebrides, 58. 49 Ibid. 50M. Paton, Letters and Sketches, 21. 5i Ibid., 59. Shineberg, They Came, 145-62.

As well

some effecting these missionaries as

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to find an elevated of cross ventilation, and of the need tages of the verandah, site not only to catch the breezes, but also to avoid mosquito-ridden swamps and was not to waves But the mission home tidal just satisfy the foUowing hurricanes. own and health, but to be a missionaries' for domestic order, cleanliness longings To quote Margaret Whitecross model for the local people. Paton,
We must not let ourselves 'down' because we are among savages but rather try to Uft

them up to our Christian

one's work and on Ufe

level in all things. One's Home

and character.52

has so much

influence on

saw as the of these domestic grandeur in conformity but much with a shifted later housing establishments,53 patterns ? new notion in separate and eating houses, for of segregated spaces sleeping never the domestic instance.54 Moreover, although approaching furnishings, Few ni-Vanuatu emulated what they domestic and accoutrements of the early missionary homes, equip equipment to include ment the introduced European alongside slowly goods changed ? as weU as bamboo shellfish knives and vessels, wooden platters, indigenous and coverings, there were and blackpalm scrapers, pandanus mats increasingly and caUco.55 iron pots and glass bottles, steel knives and scissors, as intervention and such a cause for missionary Food was never clothing nature of the indigenous domestic critical of the Umited diet, space. Although to promote women the use of European did not do much these missionary the suppUes of them, even for their own households, because alternatives, partly were local ingre restricted. report, used many Jessie IngUs, by her husband's and goat's meat, these in her cooking ? dients taro, fish, pork supplementing and sugar could be procured with bread, cake and pastries when suppUes of flour from the mission occasioned But there was one food practice which vessel John Williams.56 the practice of feeding new born babies with concern, great namely how infants on described tubers or fish. Charlotte Geddie food ?

pre-masticated had in the past been fed 'aU kinds of trash', but that since her efforts Aneityum were and were infants (i.e. breast milk) getting only their proper nourishment much healthier than before.57 the in infant feeding was part of a wider of reforming process Intervening The missionaries relation of parents and in particular mothering. and children, ? two contradictory mothers the first views of ni-Vanuatu osculated between were were caUous and indifferent, and that they that they the second indulgent lacking mothers to infant feeding, in discipline. The first was attested by incorrect to from heat, cold their children properly protected failing keep by and

52 Ibid., 61. 55 Steel The New Hebrides, 49. 54 'Sacred spaces: churches, men's Compare Margaret Jolly, in Vanuatu', Family and Gender, 213-35. Jolly and Macintyre, 55 They Came, 146, 148, 149-50. Shineberg, 56 Inglis, In theNew Hebrides, 272-3. 57G Geddie, Letters, 34.

houses

and households

in South

Pentecost,

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The missionaries that infan rain, but most by infanticide. spectacularly alleged female infanticide, was widely practised. John Inglis reported ticide, in particular to male a differential and female children in an incident evidenced attitude birth to her third daughter after his arrival when a woman in suc gave shortly was a not a son, she was and cession. On learning that the baby daughter alleged which to the 'Oh kill it, kill it'.58 In the census women, surrounding in 1853, John Geddie was struck by the disproportionate number of of boys, and also by the overall scarcity of children. Thus out of a population he reported that there were 600 more males than females. He alleged that 3,800 the sexes was both widow between in the cause of the disparity strangulation to have cried out he took adulthood,
Infanticide

and female
has prevailed

infanticide.59
on this island to a great extent. Parents have been accus

to put their children to death in order to be relieved from the trouble of new born infant was either taken to the bush and left to bringing them up. The there, or eke itwas laid down on the shore at low tide to be carried away by perish tomed
the returning waves. Great numbers of infant children were put to death in one or

other of these ways, There seems or the mother

especially

children

of the female was

sex.60

in the case of the father practised on dying, and given the practice of widow strangulation Aneityum It does seem that more the first often the second. female than male implied Norma McArthur 20 and 25%. But killed ? estimates between infants were kill an infant because both parents were alive they would whether when of is highly unlikely. The practice of infanticide overburdened did feeling clearly a lack of not love. This is evident not only in the parental indul imply parental of which the missionaries but also in reports of parental gence complained, grief. on notes that the death of a child could cause such Thus Charlotte Geddie grief the part of a father that it could threaten the life of the mother. She reports aman little doubt that infanticide who was did die
threat.

chief principal but the Geddies

threatening succeeded

to kill his wife in restraining

if his child died.61 The him from carrying

infant out his that sev She local that,

on some occasions, it does not suggest Whatever motivated infanticide in general were callous or indifferent the Aneityumese Indeed on parents. eral occasions the degree of parental lamented Charlotte Geddie indulgence. to too much wrote time with that she did not allow her own children spend as them everything asked for,62 and suggested gave they people they

5? Inglis, In theNew Hebrides, 21S. 59 But see McArthur, 12-13. This is an excellent and very intricate account of 'Population and prehistory*, the demography of Aneityum, which looks both at the effect of female infanticide and widow on strangulation the sex ratio in the population at contact, and also at the disastrous of a series of epidemics, effects which left Aneityum severely depopulated by the late 19th century. 60 Geddie, Misi 1975 Gete:John Geddie Pioneer Missionary to theNew Hebrides, R. S. Miller ed (Launceston J. 153. [1848-57]), 61C Geddie, Letters, 26-7. 62 Ibid, 28.

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especiaUy with young children, nature Given the asymmetrical

to the parents never attempted them. discipline a criticism of child care, this was especiaUy of

mothering. are are five or six years old, I The poor mothers perfect slaves to them, until they have been speaking a good deal to the women about their children and the sin lately, of giving in to them always. They say what can we do, if we deny them, they wiU scream until we are to give way to them. I told them they must be firm, and obUged when their children saw that there was no use in persisting they would soon desist. I think that some of them are trying to act upon my advice.63 But Even more and wives. violence in need of reform. itwas not only the mothering that was thought relation was the relation of husbands dreadful for the missionaries perhaps Uterature is fuU of laments to the missionaries about the horror of male

in the physical and men apparent and worst of aU widow female suicide, strangulation. as the culmination saw widow of a marriage relation which They strangulation was based on male is compelling evidence brutaUty and female servitude. There a gruesome of violence wives. Geddie towards women, provides particularly so account his wife that 'her skuU was fractured, of a husband badly clubbing came away, otherwise and her body was of her brain portions dreadfuUy This woman recovered mangled'.64 but he reports other cases of murder of suicide after several weeks of disobedient at the mission, nursing and several instances wives, at the abuse or iU-treatment

The missionary towards women, tal cruelty of husbands,

women who had suffered physical by hands of their husbands.65 How widespread such violence was is hard to estab was As of widow the practice lish. What was routine, however, strangulation. Charlotte Geddie Harrington 'the of widows after wrote, immediately strangling In trying to prevent the death of the husband was universaUy the practised'.66 the male Mr Geddie was on one occasion relatives with surrounded deed, by But more while the rite was performed.67 clubs, and rendered powerless uplifted that the and other situational evidence of this incident interventions suggests resistance often Several was from not just the widows from from the male kin but from the female kin and indeed themselves.

and the letters of Charlotte the journals of John Geddie to stop widow So 1849-50 for the years Geddie report attempts strangulation. to a on 20 November a failed He went 1849 John Geddie reports attempt.68 an 'unwelcome was a married man was plainly viUage where dying but nearby to ?stop the widow in his attempts from visitor' and was impeded in various ways entries
63 Ibid, 33. 64 Geddie, Aitsi Gete, 188. J. 65 Ibid, 83-4, 66 This was only true of Aneityum. strangled 67C Geddie, Letters, 15. 68 Geddie, Aim Gete, 60. J.

On Tanna

by

contrast

only

the widows

of high-ranking

men

were

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Some denied the dying man had a wife, others said she was at a being strangled. even tricked Geddie into distant village, and some native confidantes believing on this occasion was the wife. Geddie's entreaties that another woman present the strangulation had already been secreted since the woman 1850 away, strangled and then buried at sea, beside her husband. On 15 January a local convert Waihit, was more but on this he, or more successful, correctly to be saved. it was clear that the woman did not want occasion herself 'The and cried out that if they did not put her widow herself was bent on strangulation to death On she would this occasion it was not Geddie's strangle herself.69 to kill the relatives entreaties but rather the threats of Waihit if they killed the woman that saved the widow's life. Geddie was pleased that this was effected by a 'native' rather than himself, and commented that 'the horrid optimistically a check of strangulation has now received from which it will never system failed to prevent
recover'.70

for several years.71 continued strangulation the religious centrality of the practice. We do not find surprising given or much in the way of description of the practice from the mission explanation an anonymous aries' own accounts, but observer from Aneityum in reporting a sailor who worked the same period for the sandal (circa 1854 and probably was not so reluctant to record and wood trader Paddon) the rite: interpret Immolation his Practised or was on this island it Existed in full force up to the year ... I was one of the 1852 ... at this time of my life and wanderings Party that a female a to get strangled... Rescued and took the said woman to the Isle of going Pines in 1853 and I believe this act put a stop to it.. . that his to say in Public... The for Contemplation is carried out in this wise... 3 days after the death of Ceremony This is not
the where relations husband his ... corpse .. . she the Woman his his .. ready in her . and ... his ... best escorted to be namely to the house of.. ready be . her husbands near by her her relatives nearest ... she disposed a flax accompanied tied above . .. of she

But

in fact isolated

cases of widow

carries a small quantity

out wears of raaw on her flax neck

of each kind

[of] food on her back...

100 corpse

it is a flat sinnet made

feet on in it.. . this knees she and falls her

thighs

... the very fine might on her the approaching

laments his goodness receiving the food she has brought for him on his big journey and then rises to her feet; and says she is ready to go with her husband undoing the cords and putting the bight around her Neck... and holds out the ends in each hand
... the ends is taken on women each other affairs, a mat... woman these other by end... Stranglers . . when woman will have pull a . . . and away... and taughting till life a . .. and up is Extinct... perhaps At this 3 or state 4 of

. . and her up in begins laugh. tying a 2 corpses is laid side side under by . . or in a thicket at hand... or else a house is made fore them above stage ground. . . .with . . . the food and covered at hand the bark of a tree thrown close up being for burial. this Cry is done. . . the

...

the relations

of this unfortunate

female

his feasted

...

by the friends of the

69 Ibid., 65. 70 Ibid 7i For instance

on

17 Mar.

1857,

ibid., 230.

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ceremony.

It is common

for

a man

to have

more

than

one wife marry

... on the

...

again

in this instance the 1st wife gets strangled while the 2nd or 3rd may the readers of these pages will bear inmind this is all voluntarily done
and her friends ... that the husband... to avoid no desire have it in they not be and he may solitary... by

any way...

of the woman part for she goes with

will lead us to think this act of Devotion... himself when his body transmigrates... ... that had no religion.72 and believe they on the more comment of the ritual suggests what meaning perfunctory Inglis's on the death of her The wife was strangled this 'act of devotion' really implied. him to the land of the dead, to be his that her spirit might husband, accompany servant in this world.73 there as she had been on be taken as 1852 might of the practice Aneityum beyond persistence in the necessary of these indigenous beliefs continuation spiritual simple and wife in death, or itmay be that the remaining heathens of husband unity in the the force of indigenous traditions chose this as a way of demonstrating The the face of introduced be Christian values. a male often But although cruelty performed widow ultimately adjudged that the act was to and to be against women, by close female intervention, motives ? strangulation might we must also kin, and that to be desired

missionary prior beyond a belief as to the women's can perhaps only speculate an honourable was union with their husbands fate, perhaps or a widow was an not to be tolerated, because because perhaps they anomaly at a husband's death.74 real and intolerable experienced grief We strangled. that spiritual so in these

acknowledge some women,

as an attempt maintenance

see the intervention of the early missionaries several ways we might at their work towards the of redirecting women, 'domesticating' new forms of work, of of the home with the introduction clothing and finally of the maternal and housing, and intensifying of reforming relation, at and wife. These relation of husband the conjugal and celebrating civilising at different results and evoked had different responses tempts domesticating to redirect women's added new work often merely from local women. Attempts did become did. Clothing work which women duties to the pre-existing domestic oc and looking after this new cloth probably routine for Christian converts, of the old cloths ? than the working casioned more work for women pandanus mats had little influence until architecture of domestic and tapa. Novel models huts. later, and then only by instituting and widow Infanticide strangulation of eating and sleeping the separation ? were at least as stopped effectively

much

72 of the Pacific, by a European setder in the New Hebrides Anonymous, History (Cambridge University and spelling as in original Library nd). Punctuation 75 In the New Hebrides, 31. Inglis, 74 I am to Anne on her for this suggestion about grief, based in grateful insights into widow Chowning part in Sengsene, New Britain. Compare Anne Chowning 'Culture and biology among the Sengseng of strangulation New Britain*, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 89 (1980), 7-32.

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as have persisted But other although they might private practices. ? mothers to feed their infant children in continued continued practices public to their this essential the mission taro, believing pre-masticated growth. Despite on maternal still shared child care with fathers, mothers nurture, ary emphasis public acts, a wide circle of kin and affines. Men continued in acts of siblings and domestic violence success of this intervention. The partial despite missionary some in the lives may be seen as making improvements project of domestication of women, also imparted a new model of male dom but the Christian missions on a devaluation as domestic of women and a ination, predicated beings older celebration There project was of men one as aspect of domestication, women were public beings. of missionary effort which seemed at variance with the The

missionary ? was literacy This also meant

namely teaching for the most part enthusiasts crucial to

local women

to read

and write.

about women's

education

and imparting the word of God. understanding thought new to in themselves, acquiring speak, read knowledge learning in the local language. These Protestant and write missionaries laid enor early mous stress on in the local language. John commented attaining fluency Inglis that a thorough condition' of a knowledge

was an of the indigenous language 'indispensable success. Traders he observed might be able to get missionary's must 'broken sandalwood but the missionary be able to English', along with was seen to 'like a native'.75 This condition with equal force to the apply speak women. So John Inglis says of his wife, Jessie, missionary the very first she set herself, as a duty to acquire a knowledge of the native ... She never to the natives in broken English or thought of speaking language [sic] or sandalwood English as it is called.76 pigeon From in husband and wife the local between learning complementarity Paton revealed in the case of the Patons. Margaret Whitecross language emerges that after she and her husband John had been struggling with the tense markers in Aniwan realised the form: for some months, they simultaneously I put my Baby in her [Nurses's] arms, and flew out by the back, the shortest cut to similar
the Church, where John and some of the Natives were

way, rushing home, hammer in hand to make known his discovery, and we both shouted to each other in the same breath ? Ka is the sign of the Future.77 and articulating ideas that even the language in hemming, for passive instruction sewing rarely just embroidery or but also occasions for debate and discussion, albeit about accept patchwork, or the moral able topics such as the duties of parents and children of last sermon.78 But as well as her afternoon classes Charlotte Geddie Sunday's sewing with classes were
75 122. Ingiis, In theNew Hebrides, 76 Ibid, 267-8. 77M. Paton, Letters and Sketches, 67. 78C Geddie, Letters, 31.

working.

Imet

him,

on

the

Such was

the concern

46 gave her mornings These classes were to

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and ciphering (arithmetic). reading, writing at one end of with the boys typicaUy segregated, being taught the church and the girls at the other. as weU as local men. in The schools succeeded local women educating many a Uterate ?lite of local teachers and laid the foundations of a They also created new Church Thus both the Geddies and the chose pupils from hierarchy. IngUses the more influential famiUes initially, and then when the pressure of prospective too great favoured scholars became those from teacher's famiUes. educating even the women of influential famiUes became Uttle more however, Ultimately, was than the wives of Church leaders or teachers. Women's re?giosity certainly these early Protestants, but there was stiU no prospect that a by encouraged woman a teacher or a become to be might preacher. Although encouraged woman and articulate in some measure, educated the role of the indigenous in the Church, was to be an like that of the European missionary women, auxiUary to the husband. to local people great stress being laid on getting Despite speak in to read to lead prayers and even dehver sermons, the attempt church, scripture, to encourage local idioms for Christian and to articulate God's word in concepts was reserved local for men.79 This was most plain in the case of John languages and Jessie Inglis. John paints a picture of them as a cosy companionate couple, texts of the Reformed sharing the reading both of scripture and the canonical Church ? and Livingstone. MiUer, Moffat Presbyterian Cunningham, Jessie was at the stance taken said to have been outraged another, unnamed, by missionary to her husband. But wife ? that she left such reading she read namely although never and was her husband's editor and proofreader, theology, Jessie Inglis wrote was herself for the press.80 Her husband claimed 'she anything always kept so that she had no time to write it'.81 busy making history, was not a missions the result of Presbyterian Thus, simple and successful an ideaUsed The missionary domestication of local women. couple provided model of a world divided into gendered domains ? the domestic and the pubUc. But local people in a this model only emulated partial way. Women though to the of Uterate education and coUective Ufe in the Church were exposed sphere to in that world. Uke their white counterparts relegated being auxiUaries Clearly teaching were not the these missionary of European 'homes', nor the only models couples in the indigenous colonial agents who effected changes relations of men and only women. The domestic of traders, planters, and later colonial establishments were But missionaries rather different models officials presented of domesticity.

of

79Niel Gunson warns against accepting the husband, since in other missionary comm. 1989). (pers. acknowledged 80 Inglis, In theNew Hebrides, 286. 81 Ibid, 286.

as the sole of translation the public definition accomplishment but this was not always situations wives assisted their husbands,

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in one place a long time, learnt lan they stayed local far more with and interacted guages, people.82 In the and women had been too, the lives of men system, seg indigenous the home but itwas not on the basis of a division between work outside regated nor of women and work within, for nurturing the responsible being exclusively unlike the separate spheres of the European the Moreover, ideal, where 'family'. here collective is seen to transcend or eclipse the domestic, domain public public concerns were was call domestic. Ancestral what we might essentially religion on the sacralisation based and celebration of human rather than its kinship a transcendence union with a primordial Politics was inex by spiritual deity. in the coalitions and conflicts of kin-based collectivities and tricably grounded in an overarching marital alliances rather than struggles realm of a corporation or a state to a aspiring beyond rationality kinship.83 In conclusion, women what of the way inwhich these white missionary related to ni-Vanuatu to them? The and local women texts are women, missionary to savages and heathens, saturated with derogatory references and this although seen to to ni-Vanuatu with women force are the men, may be apply particular more influential because of the language of the colonial era women as well as children and ado grown matronising infantilising. women lescents are spoken of as 'girls'. These white Presbyterian unhesitatingly women as if were that they should guide ni-Vanuatu believed their own they exempt. language used is like much and Thus children. their own stress on Despite paradox. mothering, of their own children, either by actual loss typically deprived to in death or else families or boarding schools back by their removal adoptive home. They often lament that this is the hardest burden of the mission field,84 and even acknowledge that they are seeking surrogate children among the local It is in this context that we have to understand the heartfelt population. partly and intimate with established local women. Charlotte Geddie friendships they wrote in the devastating of the loss of her friend Mary, measles mournfully on in 1861. epidemic Aneityum But herein these women were My good,
much every a

not

The

lies an interesting

intelligent
day. She

and useful Mary

was an affectionate

is gone

too ?

oh, how
to me. Her

I do feel her death

husband (Lathela) the natives.

so

feels her loss very much,

were very happy couple,

poor fellow, he will not soon find one to fill her place. They
and much more enlightened than the rest of

daughter

They had lived long beside us and had daily intercourse with us and were so anxious to acquire knowledge. Mary has left us a fine little boy who I feel itmy duty to take
charge of. Not only ourselves but the cause owes much to Mary. She was the first girl

82 See also Jolly and Macintyre, Family and Gender, 85 'Sacred spaces', 220-3. Compare Jolly, 84M. Paton, Letters and Sketches, 16.

6ff.

48

JOURNAL

OF

PACIFIC

HISTORY

She did all who came to live with me, and the first female to embrace Christianity. that lay in her power for the cause.85 the Alas, we have no independent way of knowing how Mary herself perceived to Charlotte and indeed her relation Geddie. within cause, her unique position it, that in con of the sources, we have to be careful of the nature because Partly we do not create an women a in Vanuatu history of these Presbyterian structing to women black white of empowered passive suffering ministering image women to of colonial or women, recipients being passive relegate indigenous to be not in the white women Some recent histories appear just about projects. in the Now their viewpoint. this may be defensible from colonies but written as idle racist for the of white women of the depiction responsible bigots, light as some It is better than writing^ colonised women ruin of probably Empire.86 to do. Rather we should try to deal with the com feminist try anthropologists or as the essential not it as hostile of interaction, encounter, treating plexities a in colonial The study of women of sisterhood.87 history requires sympathy interest. and shared of both difference recognition

85G Geddie, Letters, 52. 86 This same contexts in Helen Callaway, ismade in two different Gender, Culture and Empire: argument 1987), and in Claudia Knapman, White Women in Fifi 1835 European Women in Colonial Nigeria (London/Oxford col and a critique see Jane Haggis, 1930: The Ruin of Empire? (Sydney 1986). For a comparison 'Gendering to white women or and the history of British studies approaches onialism colonising gender: recent women's 105-15. Womens Studies International Forum, 13:1-2(1990), colonialism', 87 For a more see Margaret of the problem consideration contemporary politics of difference: Jolly, The in Vanuatu , in G. Bottomley and M. de Lepervanche and decolonization colonialism (eds), Inter feminism, sexions (Sydney 1991).