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MIDDLE EAST TODAY

Political Participation in
Iran from Khatami
to the Green Movement

Paola Rivetti
 Middle East Today

Series Editors
Fawaz A. Gerges
Department of International Relations
London School of Economics
London, UK

Nader Hashemi
Center for Middle East Studies
Josef Korbel School of International Studies
University of Denver
Denver, CO, USA
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the
US invasion and occupation of Iraq have dramatically altered the
­geopolitical landscape of the contemporary Middle East. The Arab Spring
uprisings have complicated this picture. This series puts forward a critical
body of first-rate scholarship that reflects the current political and social
realities of the region, focusing on original research about contentious
politics and social movements; political institutions; the role played by
non-­ governmental organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the
Muslim Brotherhood; and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Other themes of
interest include Iran and Turkey as emerging pre-eminent powers in the
region, the former an ‘Islamic Republic’ and the latter an emerging
democracy currently governed by a party with Islamic roots; the Gulf
monarchies, their petrol economies and regional ambitions; potential
problems of nuclear proliferation in the region; and the challenges
­confronting the United States, Europe, and the United Nations in the
greater Middle East. The focus of the series is on general topics such as
social turmoil, war and revolution, international relations, occupation,
radicalism, democracy, human rights, and Islam as a political force in the
context of the modern Middle East.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14803
 Paola Rivetti

Political Participation
in Iran from Khatami
to the Green
Movement
Paola Rivetti
School of Law and Government
Dublin City University
Dublin, Ireland

Middle East Today

ISBN 978-3-030-32200-7    ISBN 978-3-030-32201-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32201-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
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publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
­institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Mikadun / shutterstock.com

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

This volume examines the unintended consequences of top-down reforms

in a semi-authoritarian country, the Islamic Republic of Iran. More specifi-
cally, this book looks at how the Iranian governments between 1997 and
2005 sought to utilise democratic gradual reforms to control independent
activism, and how citizens responded to such a top-down disciplinary
action. While the governments were largely successful in ‘setting the field’
of permitted political participation, part of the civil society that took shape
was unexpectedly independent and autonomous. Ironically, the govern-
ments helped create a civil society they had little control over.
Despite being carried out by a minority, the political work of indepen-
dent activists was not marginal: without them, in fact, the Green Movement
of 2009 would have not taken shape. General comments and observations
about the ‘reformist period’ in Iran tend to credit the government for the
cultural liberalisation that occurred in the public sphere and for the cre-
ation of a more tolerant political environment. In this book, I wish to
honour the work of grassroots activists and organisers. They have defended
and kept safe the spaces for political participation in Iran. They have made
sure that those spaces could exist, no matter how tight or small, working
resiliently government after government and generation after generation.
Therefore, while I engage with theories of political change, social move-
ments, and power, I ultimately see this book as being about political hope:
why and how do activists keep on organising, mobilising, and, above all,
participating in elections, in spite of violence and frustration? My answer
is that we need to look beyond the regime’s elites and structures, into
activists’ hopes—and lives.

v
vi PREFACE

At a time when scholarship on contentious politics in the Middle East

and North Africa is increasingly interested in exploring the social move-
ments and social non-movements that take shape at the margins of society,
this book returns to the ‘usual suspects’. I have worked in Iran’s capital
with overwhelmingly middle-class NGO (non-governmental organisa-
tion), student, and feminist activists, with whom I shared a common back-
ground as a university student first and as a university lecturer later. I do
not see this as a weakness. On the contrary, I hope to add a fresh perspec-
tive on how ‘usual’ social and political actors can be studied, for they
remain a crucial piece of the puzzle of state and social reproduction.
Looking at how the ‘usual suspects’ of political change shaped the state
through their actions, and how they have been shaped by the state in
return, this book examines what happens to them when hope spreads
through society. It investigates how, against all odds, hope survives and
takes unpredicted turns to resurface in a more or less distant future—once
hard times have yielded to a more favourable political context.
In this book, I attempt to explain how the Iranian state tried to disci-
pline political participation via reformism, and to disentangle how such a
project of political engineering ended up boosting hope for change and
creating unanticipated forms of political agency. I focus on a specific coun-
try during a specific period, but I hope my analysis will be useful to col-
leagues working on different countries and historical eras, for similar
dynamics can be observed and examined in other contexts too. I have
taken inspiration for this book by living through, observing, and partici-
pating in social movements in three different countries: Italy, Ireland, and
Iran. Certainly, I have found similarities between the three, and my experi-
ences have helped me think of activism in Iran ‘through’ Italy and Ireland.
This book has been in the making for far too long. If I was eventually
able to write it, it is thanks to the support of wonderful friends and col-
leagues in Iran, Ireland, Italy, and beyond. My biggest ‘thank you’ goes to
Francesco Cavatorta. Although I understand nothing about football—let
alone his favourite team, the unknown-to-most Parma AC—he has always
been present, supportive, and incredibly generous. His patience with my
sometimes convoluted thinking and passive form-dominated English is
simply limitless. I owe him so much more than I can say here. Heartfelt
thanks go to Shirin Saeidi, a true soulmate and a source of constant inspi-
ration, and Erika Biagini, who teaches me a lot about determination and
straight reasoning. Supervising Erika during her PhD was a learning
opportunity for me, and so is working with her today. I am greatly indebted
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 PREFACE vii

to Francesco, Shirin, and Erika, and to those friends and colleagues who
agreed to read early drafts of this manuscript: Arefe, Janne Bjerre
Christensen, Kaveh Ehsani, and Jillian Schwedler offered extremely gener-
ous and constructive comments. I am deeply grateful to them for the time
they dedicated to this book and their willingness to ‘think with me’. Their
criticism fundamentally improved the manuscript as well as the clarity of
my thought. After numerous reads and edits, needless to say, the errors
that lingered are my own.
I have been travelling to Iran since 2005 and I have benefitted from the
kindness of too many people to mention. Crucial to my work and my
emotional attachment to Iran are Arefe, Farid, and Pari, who have skilfully
guided me through the complexity of the world of activism in Iran and the
diaspora; Milad, who has always supported and helped me; and Farnaz,
Hamed, Mersedeh, and Roya, who are good friends and have helped me
with translations from Persian. I have been privileged to meet Mohammad
Khatami, who gave me an interview, and a number of other ‘big shots’,
who found the time to sit down with me. While I appreciated that, my
work was literally made possible by other, less well-known people, who
listened and talked to me, instilling doubts, offering interpretations, and
challenging my views. They opened their houses and offices to me,
patiently making sense of my precarious Persian and sometimes rambling
reflections. While I cannot name them here, I wish to extend my deepest
gratitude to them. I hope I’ve respected your voices and honoured your
fundamental role in my work.
I have been privileged to enjoy the support of the Irish Research Council
to conduct research for this book, as well as the support of the School of
Law and Government and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
(through the book publication scheme) in Dublin City University (DCU).
Gary Murphy, Iain McMennamin, and John Doyle have lent me support in
their official capacities as Heads of School and Dean of Faculty. I am grateful
to Maria-­Adriana Deiana, who shared book-writing tips and material with
me, and every single colleague in DCU’s School of Law and Government.
Among them, a special thank you goes to Walt Kilroy, who replaced me
as director of our MA programmes while I was on sabbatical writing up
this book. Maura Conway, Yvonne Daly, James Fitzgerald, Niamh Gaynor,
Diarmuid Torney, Gëzim Visoka, as well as all other colleagues in the
School, have supported me and offered advice during the years.
I would also like to thank the Department of Culture, Politics and
Society in the University of Turin for hosting me during one semester in
viii PREFACE

2018/2019. It would be difficult to list all those who, within this depart-
ment, left a mark on me, considering that the university is my Alma Mater
and the department is my ‘second home’. However, I wish to extend a
special thank you to Sandro Busso, who enjoys my highest esteem, Valeria
Cappellato, Rosita Di Peri, Enrico Gargiulo, Gianfranco Ragona, and
Elena Vallino. They have immensely enriched my life and my work with
their friendship and the many exchanges across the years. I am also grate-
ful to the Département de Science Politique at Université Laval for wel-
coming me during one semester in 2017/2018. There, Marie Brossier,
Aurélie Campana, Sule Tomkinson, Alessandra Bonci, and Pietro Marzo
have made my séjour productive and pleasant. While in Quebec City,
Francesco Cavatorta, Severine and their sons Raphaël and Alexandre alle-
viated my homesickness making me feel at home, as they did when I
arrived in Dublin in 2011, alone and a bit lost.
In the past decade or so, I have been able to count on wonderful col-
leagues and friends, who have joined me in formative and fundamental
conversations and in other more or less consistent exchanges, which have
stayed with me to this day. This has been possible thanks to modern tech-
nology and so-called social media, and thanks to the fact that I could travel
and meet them with no visa restriction (a privilege I have done nothing to
deserve). Last but not least, my thanks go to Fariba Adelkhah, Enrico
Bartolomei, Jean-François Bayart, Francesca Biancani, Koen Bogaert,
Marina Calculli, Estella Carpi, Katerina Dalacoura, Vincent Durac,
Masserat Ebrahimi, Béatrice Hibou, Shabnam Holliday, Angela Joya,
Laleh Khalili, Hendrik Kraetzschmar, Matteo Legrenzi, Mark LeVine,
Marilena Macaluso, Mohammad Maljoo, Serena Marcenò, Kamran Matin,
Shervin Malekzadeh, Stella Morgana, Arzoo Osanloo, Nicola Perugini,
Gabriele Proglio, Riccardo Readelli, Mahmoud Sariolghalam, Naghmeh
Sohrabi, Lucia Sorbera, and Maaike Warnaar.
Thank you Riccardo James Vargiu for enhancing my English. Thanks
to Alina Yurova, Mary Fata, and the editors at Palgrave Macmillan who
have worked to keep me focused on deadlines while supporting me.
Thanks to the book’s reviewers too, who offered intelligent and encourag-
ing comments.
Thanks to my very precious friends Beatrice, Hanna, Pina, and Simona
for believing in me throughout, and for much more. During the writing
process, Chiara has offered a listening ear while providing much needed
supplies such as comfort food, drinks, and wild dancing-and-singing ses-
sions. This book was written in three different locations. They outline a
 PREFACE ix

geography of love: Tehran, Dublin, and my hometown Chivasso. As a

high school student, I used to spend my afternoons studying in Chivasso’s
public library. It was such a great joy and privilege to be able to do the
same two decades later.
I dedicate this book to my mother Pinuccia and my sister Marta, who
have always encouraged me to be a free woman.

Chivasso, Italy Paola Rivetti

31 May 2019
 Acknowledgment

This book received financial support from the Faculty of Humanities and
Social Sciences Book Publication Scheme at Dublin City University.

xi
 A Note on Translation, Transliteration,
and Dates

All translations for Persian are mine unless indicated otherwise. I am using
the transliteration system adopted by Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh
Rahimkhani in their Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook (2018).
For purposes of readability, this book does not use any diacritics for the
names of individuals or organisations, except for ayn and hamza which are
represented by an opening quotation mark and an apostrophe respectively,
and which are dropped only at the initial position.
Anglicised forms for foreign words, such as shari‘a or Islam, and place
names, such as Mashhad or Tehran, found in the Oxford English Dictionary
Online have been utilised in this book. Names of political figures known
in the West have been used as found in the New York Times (Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, Hassan Rouhani, Mohammad Khatami, Ali Khamenei).
Names of authors whose work is referred or cited in this book are written
as indicated in the publications. To capture ezafeh, -e and -ye are used, with
the exception of first and last names of individuals (Hezb-e Kargozaran-e
Sazandegi-e Iran but not Mohammad-e Khatami). Where appropriate,
colloquial Persian pronunciations have been preferred (Hojjatolislam,
Ayatollah, hejab, Hezbollah, ku-ye daneshgah, Cheshmandaz-e Iran).
All dates are given as Western calendar dates. Iranian calendar dates are
calculated using Iran Chamber Society’s converter tool. Iranian dates are
used for sources, publications (both in-text references and lists of refer-
ences), and for temporal references during interviews, and are given with
their Western calendar correspondent.

xiii
 Praise For Political Participation In Iran From
Khatami To The Green Movement

Paola Rivetti’s fascinating study of the potential for revolutionary change in Iran
links social movement studies theory to political science debates about elite-led
liberalization and the potential for meaningful institutional reforms. While exam-
ining how government officials seek to utilize gradual reforms to deflate the revo-
lutionary potential of challengers, Rivetti brings forth the agency of citizens and
how they have independently imagined a trajectory for participation beyond what
the regime intended. Based on years of field research with activists and civil society
groups, this book offers a careful look at how regime-citizen relations have evolved
and how even micro shifts in those relations—changes that seem insignificant in
the near term—can create the potential for greater challenges down the road.
—Jillian Schwedler, Hunter College & The Graduate Center, City University of
New York

This is a groundbreaking book on the complex internal dynamics of Iranian poli-

tics that led to the emergence of a reformist movement and the election of Khatami
as president. Although reformist politics in Iran has proven its resilience during the
Green Movement protests and subsequent elections, there are clear rifts among
the grassroots whose agendas are diverging from the established formal leaders.
Rather than focusing exclusively on formal institutions and ruling political elites,
as most academic writings on Iran tend to do, this book questions how and why
grassroots organizers and activists have managed to create and maintain autono-
mous political spaces of participation despite relentless state repression and
attempts by reformist elites to co-opt and control their momentum. This is a major
contribution to understanding how social movements create spaces of autonomy
and popular counterpower from below.
—Kaveh Ehsani, DePaul University
In this remarkable book, Paola Rivetti sheds a light on how authoritarian reforms
have produced an independent activist milieu in Iran. During years of immersion
in the field, she has acquired an intimate knowledge of the activists’ life stories,
their fears and hopes. Through grounded analysis and patient observation, this
book transforms our understanding of the interaction between institutional poli-
tics and political contestation in authoritarian contexts.
—Frédéric Vairel, University of Ottawa
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 Contents

1 Reformism and Political Participation in Iran  1

Political Change and Participation   1
The Short-Circuit   5
Locating Political Participation and Reformism in the
Relevant Scholarship   6
Five Elements of Iran’s Dissonant Institutionalisation   9
Approaching Eslahat  11
Non-insularity  11
Power and Reformism: Contesting Governmentality  14
Securitised Research: Navigating Fieldwork in Iran  16
The Geopolitics of Political Participation  18
Searching for Political Participation  20
Book Content  23
References  25

2 Political Participation in Context: Reformism and Elite

Factionalism After the Iran-Iraq War 31
The Foundations of Factional Politics  32
Mobilising the Democratic Discourse: The velayat-e
motlaqeh-ye faqih and the Constitutional Reform  34
Mapping Iran’s Factions  39
The Rise of the Islamic Right and the Origin of Reformism
During the 1990s  41
The Decline of the Islamic Left  41
The Islamic Left’s Objections Against Marginalisation  45

xvii
xviii Contents

The Convergence of the Democratic Left and Right  46

Political Expediency and the Transformation of the
Islamic Left  51
The Reform Era (1997–2005)  51
The Reformists’ Discursive Frames and Factional Conflicts  52
Trends and Groups Within the Reformist Front  54
Two Phases of the Reform Era  57
Conclusion  60
References  61

3 Reformism As a Governmental Project: The ‘Reform

Discourse’ and Political Participation 65
The Power of Discourse, the Discourse of Power  66
Shifting Persuasions  71
Recurring Themes  80
National History, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Moderation  81
Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law  86
Civil Society and Participation  89
Conclusion  92
References  92

4 Civil Society: Crafting Consensus from Above,

Appropriating Reformism from Below 99
Theorising Civil Society As a Field 101
The Contours of Political Participation and the Morality
of Civil Society 103
International Civil Society and Its Domestic Configuration 103
Reclaiming Civil Society 107
Structuring Civil Society During the Reform Era: Political
Parties and NGOs 109
Two Phases of Civil Society-Government Relations
(1997–2005) 113
Building Subjectivities and Mentality 114
Reasons to Commit, Aspirations to Modernity, and Contention  116
Professionalisation: Independence from and Closeness
to the Government 122
Conclusion: Emerging Political Agency 129
References 130
 Contents  xix

5 The Formation of Residual Counterpower and Autonomous

Subjectivity During and After the Reform Era135
The Unintended Consequences of Top-Down Reforms 137
Surpluses of Participation During the Reform Era 141
Frustration and Disillusionment with Reformism 141
Marginalisation, Radicalisation, and Alternatives to
Reform: Student Activism During the Reform Era 146
Residual Counterpower and Activism Post-2005: Mobilisation
Strategies and Grassroots Organising, Networking, and
Campaigning 154
The One Million Signatures Campaign 156
Negotiating Strategies of Mobilisation After Eslahat 156
Women’s Activist Networks After the OMS Campaign 161
Conclusion 163
On-Campus Activism 164
Two Phases of Post-2005 Student Activism (2005–2009):
Phase One 164
Phase Two: The 2009 Election and the Revival of Student
Activism 167
Conclusion: The Potential and Limits of Residual Counterpower 169
References 171

6 Cycles of Hope, Eslahat, and the State177

Ordinary Discontent and Extraordinary Mobilisations in Iran
and Beyond: The Book’s Main Argument 177
Ordinary Discontent 177
Extraordinary Mobilisations 180
Resistance and Hope 182
Hope and the State in Post-2009 Iran 184
Cycles of Hope and Eslahat 187
Conclusion 189
References 190

Index193
 About the Author

Paola Rivetti is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations

in Dublin City University. She was awarded the 2018 Early-Career
Researcher of the Year Prize by the Irish Research Council. In 2018, she
also received the Dublin City University President’s Award for Research.
Her work has been supported by the Irish Research Council, European
Commission, Gerda Henkel Foundation, Goria Foundation, and the Italian
Ministry of University and Research. She has extensively published on
social and political mobilisations, Iranian politics, migration, and academic
freedom. She is co-editor of Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings:
Governance, Pluralisation and Contention (2018) published by Edinburgh
University Press, and Continuity and Change Before and After the Arab
Uprisings: Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt (2015) published by Routledge.

xxi
 Abbreviations

Bassij (Sazman-e Basij-e Mostaz’afin)

Behzisti State Welfare Organisation (Sazman-e Behzisti-ye Keshvar)
DAB Students for Freedom and Equality (Daneshjuyan-e Azadikhah va
Barabaritalab)
DTV Office for the Strengthening of Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat)
EC Expediency Council (Majma’-e Tashkhis-e Maslahat-e Nezam)
GC Guardians’ Council of the Constitution (Showra-ye Negahban)
IIPF Iranian Islamic Participation Front (Hezb-e Jebheh-ye Mosharekat-­e
Iran-e Islami)
IRGC Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-­e
Islami)
IRP Islamic Republic Party (Hezb-e Jomhuri-ye Islami)
JDK Second of Khordad Front (Jebheh-ye Dovvom-e Khordad)
JRM Association of the Combatant Clergy (Jame’eh-ye Ruhaniyyat-e
Mobarez)
KS Servants of Reconstruction (Hezb-e Kargozaran-e Sazandegi-e Iran)
MRM Assembly of the Combatant Clerics (Majma’-e Ruhaniyun-e Mobarez)
NGOs Non-Governmental Organisations
OM Organisation of the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution of Iran
(Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Enqelab-e Islami-ye Iran)
OMS One Million Signatures campaign (Yek Miliun Emza baraye Laghv-e
Qavanin-e Tabʽiz-e Amiz)

xxiii
 CHAPTER 1

Reformism and Political Participation in Iran

Political Change and Participation

Kaveh and Mohammad, activists from Tehran in their late thirties, do not
know each other but have a number of friends in common. Both were
active in Mir Hoseyn Musavi’s electoral campaign in 2009 in Tehran and,
after protests erupted in June 2009 upon the announcement of the
re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the Republic, both
became very active in attending, organising, and participating in the pro-
tests that came to be known as the Green Movement.1 Kaveh and
Mohammad enjoyed a certain degree of popularity within activist circles,
because they had already been politically active as university students.
They had a network they could mobilise and indirect access to other social
circles outside Tehran. The marches, demonstrations, and sit-ins lasted
into 2010, and were met with increasing state violence. In 2010, both left
for Turkey where they became asylum seekers and where I met them in
2011 and 2012. Kaveh and Mohammad’s words reflected the excitement
and enthusiasm that characterised the days of the mobilisation in the

1
The Green Movement (jonbesh-e sabz) was the name by which the popular protests
erupted in 2009 in several cities across Iran came to be known. The movement objected to
the re-election of Ahmadinejad at the presidency and deemed it to be fraudulent. Jonbesh-e
sabz was a contested name, however, because some activists considered it to be too con-
nected to the reformist elite and excluding all other political traditions and subjectivities
involved in the protests. See Holliday and Rivetti (2016).

© The Author(s) 2020 1

P. Rivetti, Political Participation in Iran from Khatami
to the Green Movement, Middle East Today,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32201-4_1
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and his work as theirs. On the 23rd March, 1858, in Dr. Symington’s
church, Glasgow, in presence of a mighty crowd, and after a
magnificent sermon on “Come over and help us,” we were solemnly
ordained as Ministers of the Gospel, and set apart as Missionaries to
the New Hebrides. On the 16th April, 1858, we left the Tail of the
Bank at Greenock, and set sail in the Clutha for the Foreign Mission
field.
Our voyage to Melbourne was rather tedious, but ended
prosperously, under Captain Broadfoot, a kindly, brave-hearted Scot,
who did everything that was possible for our comfort. He himself led
the singing on board at worship, which was always charming to me,
and was always regularly conducted—on deck when the weather was
fair, below when it was rough. I was also permitted to conduct Bible
classes amongst the crew and amongst the passengers, at times and
places approved of by the Captain—in which there was great joy.
Nearly thirty years after, when I returned the second time to
Scotland, a gentleman of good position, and the father of a large
family in the West, saluted me warmly at the close of one of my
meetings, and reminded me that he was my precentor in the Bible
class on board the Clutha! He was kind enough to say that he had
never forgotten the scene and the lessons there.
Arriving at Melbourne, we were welcomed by Rev. Mr. Moor, Mr.
and Mrs. Samuel Wilson, and Mr. Wright, all Reformed
Presbyterians from Geelong. Mr. Wilson’s two children, Jessie and
Donald, had been under our care during the voyage; and my young
wife and I went with them for a few days on a visit to Geelong, while
Mr. Copeland remained on board the Clutha to look after our boxes
and to watch for any opportunity of reaching our destination on the
Islands. He heard that an American ship, the Francis P. Sage, was
sailing from Melbourne to Penang; and the Captain agreed to land us
on Aneityum, New Hebrides, with our two boats and fifty boxes, for
£100. We got on board on the 12th August, but such a gale blew that
we did not sail till the 17th. On the Clutha all was quiet, and good
order prevailed; in the F. P. Sage all was noise and profanity. The
Captain said he kept his second mate for the purpose of swearing at
the men and knocking them about. The voyage was most
disagreeable to all of us, but fortunately it lasted only twelve days. On
the 29th we were close up to Aneityum; but the Captain refused to
land us, even in his boats; some of us suspecting that his men were
so badly used, that had they got on shore they would never have
returned to him! In any case he had beforehand secured his £100.
He lay off the island till a trader’s boat came off to see what we
wanted, and by it we sent a note to Dr. Geddie, one of the
Missionaries there. Early next morning, Monday, he came off to us in
his boat, accompanied by Mr. Mathieson, a newly-arrived Missionary
from Nova Scotia; bringing also Captain Anderson in the small
mission schooner, the John Knox, and a large mission boat called the
Columbia, well manned with crews of able and willing Natives. Our
fifty boxes were soon on board the John Knox, the Columbia, and
our own boats—all being heavily loaded and built up, except those
that had to be used in pulling the others ashore. Dr. Geddie, Mr.
Mathieson, Mrs. Paton, and I, were perched among the boxes on the
John Knox, and had to hold on as best we could. On sheering off
from the F. P. Sage, one of her davits caught and broke the mainmast
of the little John Knox by the deck, and I saved my wife from being
crushed to death by its fall through managing to swing her
instantaneously aside in an apparently impossible manner. It did
graze Mr. Mathieson, but he was not hurt. The John Knox, already
overloaded, was thus quite disabled; we were about ten miles at sea,
and in imminent danger; but the Captain of the F. P. Sage heartlessly
sailed away and left us to struggle with our fate.
We drifted steadily towards Tanna, an island of Cannibals, where
our goods would have been plundered and all of us cooked and
eaten. Dr. Geddie’s boat and mine had the John Knox in tow; and
Mr. Copeland, with a crew of Natives, was struggling hard with his
boat to pull the Columbia and her load towards Aneityum. As God
mercifully ordered it, though we had a stiff trade wind to pull
against, we had a comparatively calm sea; yet we drifted still to
leeward, till Dr. Inglis going round to the harbour in his boat, as he
had heard of our arrival, saw us far at sea, and hastened to our
rescue. All the boats now, with their willing native crews, got
fastened to our schooner, and to our great joy she began to move
ahead. After pulling for hours and hours, under the scorching rays of
an almost tropical sun, we were all safely landed on shore at
Aneityum about six o’clock in the evening of August 30th, just four
months and fourteen days since we sailed from Greenock. We got a
hearty welcome from the Missionaries’ wives on the shore, Mrs.
Geddie, Mrs. Inglis, and Mrs. Mathieson, and from all our new
friends, the Christian Natives of Aneityum; and the great danger in
which both life and property had been placed at the close of our
voyage, made us praise God all the more, that He had brought us to
this quiet resting-place, around which lay the Islands of the New
Hebrides, to which our eager hearts had looked forward, and into
which we entered now in the name of the Lord.
Mr. Copeland, Mrs. Paton, and I went round the island to Dr.
Inglis’s Station, where we were most cordially received and
entertained by his dear lady, and by the Christian Natives there. As
he was making several additions to his house at that time, we
received for the next few weeks our first practical and valuable
training in Mission house-building, as well as in higher matters.
Soon after, a meeting was called to consult about our settlement,
and, by the advice and with the concurrence of all, Mr. and Mrs.
Mathieson from Nova Scotia were located on the south side of
Tanna, at Umairarekar, and Mrs. Paton and I at Port Resolution, on
the same island. At first it was agreed that Mr. Copeland should be
placed along with us; but owing to the weakly state of Mrs.
Mathieson’s health, it was afterwards resolved that, for a time at
least, Mr. Copeland should live at either Station, as might seem most
suitable or most requisite. Till the close of the sailing season, his time
was spent chiefly in the John Knox, helping Captain Anderson in
loading and disloading the wood and house-building materials
betwixt Aneityum and Tanna; while I was occupied chiefly with the
house-building and preparatory arrangements.
Dr. Inglis and a number of his most energetic Natives
accompanied us to Kwamera, Tanna. There we purchased a site for
Mission House and Church, and laid a stone foundation, and
advanced as far as practicable the erection of a dwelling for Mr. and
Mrs. Mathieson. Thence we proceeded to Port Resolution, Tanna,
and similarly purchased a site, and advanced, to a forward stage, the
house which Mrs. Paton and I were to occupy on our settlement
there. Lime, for plastering, had to be burned in kilns from the coral
rocks; and thatch, for roofing with sugar-cane leaf, had to be
prepared by the Natives at both stations before our return; for which,
as for all else, a price was duly agreed upon and was scrupulously
paid. Unfortunately we learned, when too late, that both houses were
too near the shore, exposed to unwholesome miasma, and productive
of the dreaded fever and ague,—the most virulent and insidious
enemy to all Europeans in those Southern Seas.
At both Stations, but especially at Port Resolution, we found the
Natives in a very excited and unsettled state. Threatened wars kept
them in constant terror—war betwixt distant tribes, or adjoining
villages, or nearest neighbours. The Chiefs, at both Stations, willingly
sold sites for houses, and appeared to desire Missionaries to live
amongst them; but perhaps it was with an eye to the axes, knives,
fish-hooks, blankets, and clothing, which they got in payment, or
hoped for in plunder, rather than from any thirst for the Gospel, as
they were all savages and cannibals. They warily declined to promise
protection to the Mission families and the Teachers; but they said
they would not themselves do them any harm, though they could not
say what the Inland people might do;—not a bad specimen of
diplomacy, leaving an open door for any future emergency, and
neither better nor worse than the methods by which the civilized
European nations make and break their treaties in peace and in war!
Such promises meant and were intended to mean nothing. The
Natives, both on Tanna, and on my second home at Aniwa, believed
that they had kept their promise, if they inflicted no injury with their
own hands, even though they had hired others to do so. No Heathen
there could be trusted one step beyond what appeared to be his own
self-interest for the nonce; and nothing conceivable was too base or
cruel to be done, if only it served his turn. The depths of Satan,
outlined in the first chapter of the Romans, were uncovered there
before our eyes in the daily life of the people, without veil and
without excuse.
My first impressions drove me to the verge of utter dismay. On
beholding these Natives in their paint and nakedness and misery, my
heart was as full of horror as of pity. Had I given up my much-
beloved work and my dear people in Glasgow, with so many
delightful associations, to consecrate my life to these degraded
creatures? Was it possible to teach them right and wrong, to
Christianize, or even to civilize them? But that was only a passing
feeling! I soon got as deeply interested in them, and in all that tended
to advance them, and to lead them to the knowledge and love of
Jesus, as ever I had been in my work at Glasgow. We were surprised
and delighted at the remarkable change produced on the natives of
Aneityum through the instrumentality of Drs. Geddie and Inglis in so
short a time; and we hoped, by prayerful perseverance in the use of
similar means, to see the same work of God repeated on Tanna.
Besides, the wonderful and blessed work done by Mrs. Inglis and
Mrs. Geddie, at their Stations, filled our wives with the buoyant hope
of being instruments in the hand of God to produce an equally
beneficent change amongst the savage women of Tanna. Mrs. Paton
had been left with Mrs. Inglis to learn all she could from her of
Mission work on the Islands, till I returned with Dr. Inglis from the
house-building operations on Tanna; during which period Mr. and
Mrs. Mathieson were also being instructed by Dr. and Mrs. Geddie.
To the Tannese, Dr. Inglis and I were objects of curiosity and fear;
they came crowding to gaze on our wooden and lime-plastered
house, they chattered incessantly with each other, and left the scene
day after day with undisguised and increasing wonderment. Possibly
they thought us rather mad than wise!
Party after party of armed men, going and coming in a state of
great excitement, we were informed that war was on foot; but our
Aneityumese Teachers were told to assure us that the Harbour
people would only act on the defensive, and that no one would
molest us at our work. One day two hostile tribes met near our
Station; high words arose, and old feuds were revived. The Inland
people withdrew; but the Harbour people, false to their promises,
flew to arms and rushed past us in pursuit of their enemies. The
discharge of muskets in the adjoining bush, and the horrid yells of
the savages, soon informed us that they were engaged in deadly
fights. Excitement and terror were on every countenance; armed
men rushed about in every direction, with feathers in their twisted
hair,—with faces painted red, black, and white, and some, one cheek
black, the other red, others, the brow white, the chin blue—in fact,
any colour and on any part,—the more grotesque and savage looking,
the higher the art! Some of the women ran with their children to
places of safety; but even then we saw other girls and women, on the
shore close by, chewing sugar-cane and chaffering and laughing, as if
their fathers and brothers had been engaged in a country dance,
instead of a bloody conflict. In the afternoon, as the sounds of the
muskets and the yelling of the warriors came unpleasantly near to us,
Dr. Inglis, leaning against a post for a little while in silent prayer,
looked on us and said,—
“The walls of Jerusalem were built in troublous times, and why not
the Mission House on Tanna? But let us rest for this day, and pray
for these poor Heathen.”
We retired to a native house, that had been temporarily granted to
us for rest, and there pled before God for them all. The noise and the
discharge of muskets gradually receded, as if the Inland people were
retiring; and towards evening the people around us returned to their
villages. We were afterwards informed that five or six men had been
shot dead; that their bodies had been carried by the conquerors from
the field of battle, and cooked and eaten that very night by the
savages at a boiling spring near the head of the bay, less than a mile
from the spot where my house was being built. We had also a more
graphic illustration of the surroundings into which we had come,
through Dr. Inglis’s Aneityum boy, who accompanied us as cook.
When our tea was wanted that evening, the boy could not be found.
After a while of great anxiety on our part, he returned, saying,—
“Missi, this is a dark land. The people of this land do dark works.
At the boiling spring they have cooked and feasted upon the slain.
They have washed the blood into the stream; they have bathed there
till all the waters are red. I cannot get water to make your tea. What
shall I do?”
Dr. Inglis told him that he must try for water elsewhere, till the
rains came and cleansed the polluted stream; and that, meanwhile,
instead of tea, we would drink from the cocoa-nut, as they had often
done before. The lad was quite relieved. It not a little astonished us,
however, to see that his mind regarded their killing and eating each
other as a thing scarcely to be noticed, but that it was horrible that
they should spoil the water! How much are even our deepest
instincts the creatures of mere circumstances! I, if trained like him,
would probably have felt like him.
Next evening, as we sat talking about the people and the dark
scenes around us, the quiet of the night was broken by a wild wailing
cry from the villages around, long-continued and unearthly. We were
informed that one of the wounded men, carried home from the
battle, had just died; and that they had strangled his widow to death,
that her spirit might accompany him to the other world, and be his
servant there, as she had been here. Now their dead bodies were laid
side by side, ready to be buried in the sea. Our hearts sank to think of
all this happening within earshot, and that we knew it not! Every new
scene, every fresh incident, set more clearly before us the benighted
condition and shocking cruelties of these heathen people, and we
longed to be able to speak to them of Jesus and the love of God. We
eagerly tried to pick up every word of their language, that we might,
in their own tongue, unfold to them the knowledge of the true God
and the salvation from all these sins through Jesus Christ.
Dr. Inglis and I, with the help of the Natives from Aneityum,
having accomplished all that could be done for lack of lime and sawn
wood to finish the new Mission House on Tanna, made an agreement
with the Natives for knives, calico, and axes, to burn lime and
prepare other things for our return. We then hastened back to
Aneityum, that we might, if possible, get ready for settling on Tanna
before the Rainy Season set in. That was rapidly approaching, and it
brings with it discomfort and unhealth to Europeans throughout all
these Pacific Isles.
 CHAPTER VI.
LIFE AND DEATH ON TANNA.

Our Island Home.—Learning the Language.—A Religion of Fear.—

With or Without a God.—Ideas of the Invisible.—Gods and
Demons.—My Companion Missionary.—Pioneers in the New
Hebrides.—Missionaries of Aneityum.—The Lord’s Arrowroot.
—Unhealthy Sites.—The Great Bereavement.—Memorial
Tributes.—Selwyn and Patteson at a Tannese Grave.—Her Last
Letter.—Last Words.—Presentiment and Mystery.

Our little missionary ship, the John Knox, having no accommodation

for lady passengers, and little for anybody else, except the discomfort
of lying on deck, we took advantage of a trader to convey us from
Aneityum to Tanna. The captain kindly offered to take us and about
thirty casks and boxes to Port Resolution for £5, which we gladly
accepted. After a few hours’ sailing we were all safely landed on
Tanna on the 5th November, 1858. Dr. Geddie went for a fortnight to
Umairarekar, on the south side of Tanna, to assist in the settlement
of Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson, and to help in making their house
habitable and comfortable. Mr. Copeland, Mrs. Paton, and I were left
at Port Resolution, to finish the building of our house there, and
work our way into the goodwill of the Natives as best we could. On
landing there, we found the people to be literally naked and painted
savages; they were at least as destitute of clothing as Adam and Eve
after the fall, when they sewed fig-leaves for a girdle; and even more
so, for the women wore only a tiny apron of grass, in some cases
shaped like a skirt or girdle, the men an indescribable affair, like a
pouch or bag, and the children absolutely nothing whatever!
 At first they came in crowds to look at us, and at everything we did
or had. We knew nothing of their language; we could not speak a
single word to them, nor they to us. We looked at them, they at us;
we smiled, and nodded, and made signs to each other; this was our
first meeting and parting. One day I observed two men, the one
lifting up one of our articles to the other, and saying,—
“Nunksi nari enu?”
I concluded that he was asking, “What is this?” Instantly, lifting a
piece of wood, I said,—
“Nunksi nari enu?”
They smiled and spoke to each other. I understood them to be
saying, “He has got hold of our language now.” Then they told me
their name for the thing which I had pointed to. I found that they
understood my question, What is this? or, What is that? and that I
could now get from them the name of every visible or tangible thing
around us! We carefully noted down every name they gave us,
spelling all phonetically, and also every strange sound we heard from
them; thereafter, by painstaking comparison of different
circumstances, we tried to ascertain their meanings, testing our own
guess by again cross-questioning the Natives. One day I saw two
males approaching, when one, who was a stranger, pointed to me
with his finger, and said,—
“Se nangin?”
Concluding that he was asking my name, I pointed to one of them
with my finger, and looking at the other, inquired,—
“Se nangin?”
They smiled, and gave me their names. We were now able to get
the names of persons and things, and so our ears got familiarized
with the distinctive sounds of their language; and being always
keenly on the alert, we made extraordinary progress in attempting
bits of conversation and in reducing their speech for the first time to
a written form—for the New Hebrideans had no literature, and not
even the rudiments of an alphabet. I used to hire some of the more
intelligent lads and men to sit and talk with us, and answer our
questions about names and sounds; but they so often deceived us,
and we, doubtless, misunderstood them so often, that this course
was not satisfactory, till after we had gained some knowledge of their
language and its construction, and they themselves had become
interested in helping us. Amongst our most interested helpers, and
most trustworthy, were two aged chiefs—Nowar and Nouka—in
many respects two of Nature’s noblest gentlemen, kind at heart to all,
and distinguished by a certain native dignity of bearing. But they
were both under the leadership of the war-chief Miaki, a kind of
devil-king over many villages and tribes. He and his brother were the
recognised leaders in all deeds of darkness; they gloried in
bloodshedding, and in war, and in cannibalism; and they could
always command a following of desperate men, who lived in or about
their own village, and who were prepared to go anywhere and do
anything at Miaki’s will.
The Tannese had hosts of stone idols, charms, and sacred objects,
which they abjectly feared, and in which they devoutly believed. They
were given up to countless superstitions, and firmly glued to their
dark heathen practices. Their worship was entirely a service of fear,
its aim being to propitiate this or that Evil Spirit, to prevent calamity
or to secure revenge. They deified their chiefs, like the Romans of
old, so that almost every village or tribe had its own sacred man, and
some of them had many. They exercised an extraordinary influence
for evil, these village or tribal priests, and were believed to have the
disposal of life and death through their sacred ceremonies, not only
in their own tribe, but over all the Islands. Sacred men and women,
wizards and witches, received presents regularly to influence the
gods, and to remove sickness, or to cause it by the Nahak, i.e.,
incantation over remains of food, or the skin of fruit, such as banana,
which the person has eaten, on whom they wish to operate. They also
worshipped the spirits of departed ancestors and heroes, through
their material idols of wood and stone, but chiefly of stone. They
feared these spirits and sought their aid; especially seeking to
propitiate those who presided over war and peace, famine and
plenty, health and sickness, destruction and prosperity, life and
death. Their whole worship was one of slavish fear; and, so far as
ever I could learn, they had no idea of a God of mercy or grace.
Let me here give my testimony on a matter of some importance—
that among these Islands, if anywhere, men might be found destitute
of the faculty of worship, men absolutely without idols, if such men
exist under the face of the sky. Everything seemed to favour such a
discovery; but the New Hebrides, on the contrary, are full of gods.
The Natives, destitute of the knowledge of the true God, are
ceaselessly groping after Him, if perchance they may find Him. Not
finding Him, and not being able to live without some sort of god,
they have made idols of almost everything; trees and groves, rocks
and stones, springs and streams, insects and other beasts, men and
departed spirits, relics such as hair and finger nails, the heavenly
bodies and the volcanoes; in fact, every being and everything within
the range of vision or of knowledge has been appealed to by them as
God,—clearly proving that the instincts of Humanity, however
degraded, prompt man to worship and lean upon some Being or
Power outside himself, and greater than himself, in whom he lives
and moves and has his being, and without the knowledge of whom
his soul cannot find its true rest or its eternal life. Imperfect
acquaintance with the language and customs of certain tribes may
easily lead early discoverers to proclaim that they have no sense of
worship and no idols, because nothing of the kind is visible on the
surface; but there is a sort of freemasonry in Heathen Religions; they
have mysterious customs and symbols, which none, even amongst
themselves, understand, except the priests and sacred men. It pays
these men to keep their devotees in the dark—and how much more to
deceive a passing inquirer! Nor need we hold up our hands in
surprise at this; it pays also nearer home, to pretend and to
perpetuate a mystery about beads and crucifixes, holy water and
relics—a state of mind not so very far removed from that of the South
Sea islander, not disproving but rather strongly proving that,
whether savage or civilized, man must either know the true God, or
must find an idol to put in His place.
Further, these very facts—that they did worship, that they believed
in spirits of ancestors and heroes, and that they cherished many
legends regarding those whom they had never seen, and handed
these down to their children—and the fact that they had ideas about
the invisible world and its inhabitants, made it not so hard as some
might suppose to convey to their minds, once their language and
modes of thought were understood, some clear idea of Jehovah God
as the great uncreated Spirit Father, who Himself created and
sustains all that is. But it could not be done off-hand, or by a few airy
lessons. The whole heart and soul and life had to be put into the
enterprise. The idea that man disobeyed God, and was a fallen and
sinful creature,—the idea that God, as a Father, so loved man that He
sent His only Son Jesus to this earth to seek and to save him,—the
idea that this Jesus so lived and died and rose from the dead as to
take away man’s sin, and make it possible for men to return to God,
and to be made into the very likeness of His Son Jesus,—and the idea
that this Jesus will at death receive to the mansions of Glory every
creature under heaven that loves and tries to follow Him,—these
ideas had to be woven into their spiritual consciousness, had to
become the very warp and woof of their religion. But it could be done
—that we believed because they were men, not beasts; it had been
done—that we saw in the converts on Aneityum; and our hearts rose
to the task with a quenchless hope!
The Tannese called Heaven by the name Aneai; and we afterwards
discovered that this was the name of the highest and most beautifully
situated village on the island. Their best bit of Earth was to them the
symbol and type of Heaven; their Canaan, too, was a kind of
prophecy of another country, even a heavenly Canaan. The fact that
they had an Aneai, a promised land, opened their minds naturally to
our idea of the promised land of the future, the Aneai of the Gospel
hope and faith. The universal craving to know the greater and more
powerful gods, and to have them on their side, led them, whenever
we could speak their language, to listen eagerly to all our stories
about the Jehovah God and His Son Jesus, and all the mighty works
recorded in the Bible. But when we began to teach them that, in
order to serve this Almighty and living Jehovah God, they must cast
aside all their idols and leave off every heathen custom and vice, they
rose in anger and cruelty against us, they persecuted every one that
was friendly to the Mission, and passed us through the dreadful
experiences to be hereafter recorded. It was the old battle of History;
light had attacked darkness in its very stronghold, and it almost
seemed for a season that the light would be finally eclipsed, and that
God’s Day would never dawn on Tanna!
My companion Missionary, Mr. Copeland, had to go to Aneityum
and take charge of Dr. Inglis’s Station, during the absence of that
distinguished Missionary and his devoted wife, while carrying
through the press at home the first complete Aneityumese New
Testament. He succeeded admirably in taking up and carrying
forward all their work, and gave vital assistance in translating the
Old Testament into the language of Aneityum, for his was an exact
and scholarly mind. After their return, he similarly occupied the
Station of Dr. Geddie on another part of the same island, while he
sought re-invigoration in Nova Scotia on a well-merited furlough.
Thereafter, he was placed on the island of Fotuna; and there, with
Mrs. Copeland, he laboured devotedly and zealously, till at last she
died and his own health gave way to such an extent as compelled him
to retire from the Mission field. He found congenial employment in
editing, with great acceptance, the Sydney Presbyterian Witness, and
thereby still furthering the cause of the Gospel and of Missions.
A glance backwards over the story of the Gospel in the New
Hebrides may help to bring my readers into touch with the events
that are to follow. The ever-famous names of Williams and Harris are
associated with the earliest efforts to introduce Christianity amongst
this group of islands in the South Pacific Seas. John Williams and his
young missionary companion Harris, under the auspices of the
London Missionary Society, landed on Erromanga on the 30th of
November, 1839. Instantly, within a few minutes of their touching
land, both were clubbed to death; and the savages proceeded to cook
and feast upon their bodies. Thus were the New Hebrides baptized
with the blood of martyrs; and Christ thereby told the whole
Christian world that He claimed these Islands as His own. His cross
must yet be lifted up, where the blood of His saints has been poured
forth in His name! The poor Heathen knew not that they had slain
their best friends; but tears and prayers ascended for them from all
Christian souls, wherever the story of the martyrdom on Erromanga
was read or heard.
Again, therefore, in 1842, the London Missionary Society sent out
Messrs. Turner and Nisbet to pierce this kingdom of Satan. They
placed their standard on this same island of Tanna, the nearest to
Erromanga. In less than seven months, however, their persecution
by the savages became so dreadful, that we see them in a boat trying
to escape by night with bare life. Out on that dangerous sea they
would certainly have been lost, but the Ever-Merciful drove them
back to land, and sent next morning a trading vessel, which, contrary
to custom, called there and just in the nick of time. They, with all
goods that could be rescued, were got safely on board, and sailed for
Samoa. Say not their plans and prayers were baffled; for God heard
and abundantly blessed them there, beyond all their dreams. Dr.
Turner has been specially used of God for educating many native
teachers and missionaries and in translating and publishing edition
after edition of the Bible, besides giving them many other
educational and religious books in their own language;—blessed
work, in which, while I am writing these words, he and his gifted wife
are still honourably and fruitfully engaged in the holy autumn of
their days.
After these things, the London Missionary Society again and again
placed Samoan native teachers on one or other island of the New
Hebrides; but their unhealthiness, compared with their own happier
Samoa or Rarotonga, so afflicted them with the dreaded ague and
fever, besides what they endured from the inhospitable savages
themselves, that no effective mission work had been accomplished
there till at last the Presbyterian Missionaries were led to enter upon
the scene. Christianity had no foothold anywhere on the New
Hebrides, unless it were in the memory and the blood of the martyrs
of Erromanga.
The Rev. John Geddie and his wife, from Nova Scotia, were landed
on Aneityum, the most southerly island of the New Hebrides, in
1848; and the Rev. John Inglis and his wife, from Scotland, were
landed on the other side of the same island, in 1852. An agent for the
London Missionary Society, the Rev. T. Powell, accompanied Dr.
Geddie for about a year, to advise as to his settlement and to assist in
opening up the work. Marvellous as it may seem, the Natives on
Aneityum showed interest in the missionaries from the very first,
and listened to their teachings; so that in a few years Dr. Inglis and
Dr. Geddie saw about 3,500 savages throwing away their idols,
renouncing their heathen customs, and avowing themselves to be
worshippers of the true Jehovah God. Slowly, yet progressively, they
unlearned their Heathenism; surely and hopefully they learned
Christianity and civilization. In course of time a simple form of
family worship was introduced into and observed by every household
on the island; God’s blessing was asked on every meal; peace and
public order were secured; and property was perfectly safe under the
sanctifying and civilizing Gospel of Christ. And by-and-by these
Missionaries lived to see the whole Bible, which they and Mr.
Copeland had so painfully translated, placed in the hands of the
Aneityumese by the aid of the British and Foreign Bible Society—that
noblest handmaid of every Missionary enterprise. But how was this
accomplished? As a boon of charity? Listen!
These poor Aneityumese, having glimpses of this Word of God,
determined to have a Holy Bible in their own mother tongue,
wherein before no book or page ever had been written in the history
of their race. The consecrated brain and hand of their Missionaries
kept toiling day and night in translating the book of God; and the
willing hands and feet of the Natives kept toiling through fifteen long
but unwearying years, planting and preparing arrowroot to pay the
£1,200 required to be laid out in the printing and publishing of the
book. Year after year the arrowroot, too sacred to be used for their
daily food, was set apart as the Lord’s portion; the Missionaries sent
it to Australia and Scotland, where it was sold by private friends, and
the whole proceeds consecrated to this purpose. On the completion
of the great undertaking by the Bible Society, it was found that the
Natives had earned as much as to pay every penny of the outlay; and
their first Bibles went out to them, purchased with the consecrated
toils of fifteen years! Some of our friends may think that the sum was
large; but I know, from experience, that if such a difficult job had
been carried through the press and so bound by any other printing
establishment, the expense would have been greater far. One book of
Scripture, printed by me in Melbourne for the Aniwans, under the
auspices of the Bible Society too, cost eight shillings per leaf, and that
was the cheapest style; and this the Aniwans also paid for by
dedicating their arrowroot to God.
Let those who lightly esteem their Bibles think on these things.
Eight shillings for every leaf, or the labour and proceeds of fifteen
years for the Bible entire, did not appear to these poor converted
savages too much to pay for that Word of God, which had sent to
them the Missionaries, which had revealed to them the grace of God
in Christ, and which had opened their eyes to the wonders and
glories of redeeming love! They had felt, and we had observed, that
in all lands and amongst all branches of the human family, the Holy
Bible is, wheresoever received and obeyed, the power of God unto
salvation; it had lifted them out of savagery, and set them at the feet
of the Lord Jesus. Oh, that the pleasure-seeking men and women of
the world could only taste and feel the real joy of those who know
and love the true God—a heritage which the world and all that
pertains thereto cannot give to them, but which the poorest and
humblest followers of Jesus inherit and enjoy!
My first house on Tanna was on the old site occupied by Turner
and Nisbet, near the shore for obvious reasons, and only a few feet
above tide-mark. So was that of Mr. Mathieson, handy for materials
and goods being landed, and close to the healthy breezes of the sea.
Alas! we had to learn by sad experience, like our brethren in all
untried Mission fields. The sites proved to be hot-beds for Fever and
Ague, mine especially; and much of this might have been escaped by
building on the higher ground, and in the sweep of the refreshing
trade winds. For all this, however, no one was to blame; everything
was done for the best, according to the knowledge then possessed.
Our house was sheltered behind by an abrupt hill from three to four
hundred feet high, which gave the site a feeling of cosiness. It was
surrounded, and much shaded, by beautiful bread-fruit trees, and
very large cocoa-nut trees; too largely beautiful, indeed, for they shut
out many a healthy breeze that we sorely needed! There was a long
swamp all round the head of the bay, and, the ground at the other
end on which our house stood being scarcely raised perceptibly
higher, the malaria almost constantly enveloped us. Once, after a
smart attack of the fever, an intelligent Chief said to me,—
“Missi, if you stay here, you will soon die! No Tannaman sleeps so
low down as you do, in this damp weather, or he too would die. We
sleep on the high ground, and the trade-wind keeps us well. You
must go and sleep on the hill, and then you will have better health.”
I at once resolved to remove my house to higher ground, at the
earliest practicable moment; heavy though the undertaking would
necessarily be, it seemed my only hope of being able to live on the
island.
My dear young wife, Mary Ann Robson, and I were landed on
Tanna on the 5th November, 1858, in excellent health and full of all
tender and holy hopes. On the 12th February, 1859, she was confined
of a son; for two days or so both mother and child seemed to prosper,
and our island-exile thrilled with joy! But the greatest of sorrows was
treading hard upon the heels of that joy! My darling’s strength
showed no signs of rallying. She had an attack of ague and fever, a
few days before her confinement; on the third day or so thereafter, it
returned, and attacked her every second day with increasing severity
for a fortnight. Diarrhœa ensued, and symptoms of pneumonia, with
slight delirium at intervals; and then in a moment, altogether
unexpectedly, she died on the 3rd March. To crown my sorrows, and
complete my loneliness, the dear babyboy, whom we had named
after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one
week’s sickness, on the 20th March. Let those who have ever passed
through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me; as for all
others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows!
I knew then, when too late, that our work had been entered on too
near the beginning of the Rainy Season. We were both, however,
healthy and hearty; and I daily pushed on with the house, making
things hourly more comfortable, in the hope that long lives were
before us both, to be spent for Jesus in seeking the salvation of the
perishing Heathen. Oh, the vain yet bitter regrets, that my dear wife
had not been left on Aneityum till after the unhealthy Rainy Season!
But no one advised this course; and she, high-spirited, full of
buoyant hope, and afraid of being left behind me, or of me being left
without her on Tanna, refused to allow the thing to be suggested. In
our mutual inexperience, and with our hearts aglow for the work of
our lives, we incurred this risk which should never have been
incurred; and I only refer to the matter thus, in the hope that others
may take warning.
Stunned by that dreadful loss, in entering upon this field of labour
to which the Lord had Himself so evidently led me, my reason
seemed for a time almost to give way. Ague and fever, too, laid a
depressing and weakening hand upon me, continuously recurring,
and reaching oftentimes the very height of its worst burning stages.
But I was never altogether forsaken. The ever-merciful Lord
sustained me, to lay the precious dust of my beloved Ones in the
same quiet grave, dug for them close by at the end of the house; in all
of which last offices my own hands, despite breaking heart, had to
take the principal share! I built the grave round and round with coral
blocks, and covered the top with beautiful white coral, broken small
as gravel; and that spot became my sacred and much-frequented
shrine, during all the following months and years when I laboured on
for the salvation of these savage Islanders amidst difficulties,
dangers, and deaths. Whensoever Tanna turns to the Lord, and is
won for Christ, men in after-days will find the memory of that spot
still green,—where with ceaseless prayers and tears I claimed that
land for God in which I had “buried my dead” with faith and hope.
But for Jesus, and the fellowship He vouchsafed me there, I must
have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave.
The organ of the Church to which we belonged, The Reformed
Presbyterian Magazine, published the following words of
condolence:—“In regard to the death of Mrs. Paton, one feeling of
grief and regret will fill the hearts of all who knew her. To add a
sentence to the singularly just and graceful tribute Mr. Inglis pays to
the memory of the deceased, would only mar its pathos and effect.
Such language, from one accustomed to weigh carefully every word
he pens, bespeaks at once the rare excellences of her that is gone, as
well as the heavy loss our Mission and our Church have sustained in
her death. Her parents, who gave her by a double baptism to the
Lord, have this consolation, that her death may exert a more
elevating and sanctifying influence for good, than the longest life of
many ordinary Christians. Deep sympathy with Mr. Paton will
pervade the Church, in the sore trial with which he has been visited.”
Dr. Inglis, my brother Missionary on Aneityum, wrote to the same
Magazine:—“I trust all those who shed tears of sorrow on account of
her early death will be enabled in the exercise of faith and
resignation to say, ‘The Will of the Lord be done; the Lord gave and
the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord!’ I need
not say how deeply we sympathise with her bereaved parents, as well
as with her sorrowing husband. By her death the Mission has
sustained a heavy loss. We were greatly pleased with Mrs. Paton,
during the period of our short intercourse with her. Her mind,
naturally vigorous, had been cultivated by a superior education. She
was full of Missionary spirit, and took a deep interest in the native
women. This was seen further, when she went to Tanna, where, in
less than three months, she had collected a class of eight females,
who came regularly to her to receive instruction. There was about her
a maturity of thought, a solidity of character, a loftiness of aim and
purpose rarely found in one so young. Trained up in the fear of the
Lord from childhood, like another Mary she had evidently chosen
that good part, which is never taken away from those possessed of it.
When she left this island, she had to all human appearance a long
career of usefulness and happiness on Earth before her, but the Lord
has appointed otherwise. She has gone, as we trust, to her rest and
her reward. The Lord has said to her, as He said to David, ‘Thou
didst well in that it was in thine heart to build a House for My Name.’
Let us watch and pray, for our Lord cometh as a thief in the night.”
The Mission Synod at Tanna, on April 27th, 1859, passed the
following resolution:—“That this meeting deeply and sincerely
sympathises with Mr. Paton in the heavy and trying bereavement
with which the Lord has seen meet to visit him in the death of his
beloved wife and child; and the Missionaries record their sense of the
loss this Mission has sustained, in the early, sudden, and unexpected
death of Mrs. Paton. Her earnest Christian character, her devoted
Missionary spirit, her excellent education, her kind and obliging
disposition, and the influence she was fast acquiring over the Natives
excited expectations of great future usefulness. That they express
their heart-felt sympathy with the parents and other relatives of the
deceased; that they recommend Mr. Paton to pay a visit to Aneityum
for the benefit of his health; that they commend him to the tender
mercies of Him who was sent to comfort all who mourn; and that
they regard this striking dispensation of God’s providence as a loud
call to themselves, to be more in earnest in attending to the state of
their own souls, and more diligent in pressing the concerns of
Eternity on the minds of others.”
Soon after her death, the good Bishop Selwyn called at Port
Resolution, Tanna, in his Mission ship. He came on shore to visit me,
accompanied by the Rev. J. C. Patteson. They had met Mrs. Paton on
Aneityum in the previous year soon after our arrival, and, as she was
then the picture of perfect health, they also felt her loss very keenly.
Standing with me beside the grave of mother and child, I weeping
aloud on his one hand, and Patteson—afterwards the Martyr Bishop
of Nakupu—sobbing silently on the other, the godly Bishop Selwyn
poured out his heart to God amidst sobs and tears, during which he
laid his hands on my head, and invoked Heaven’s richest
consolations and blessings on me and my trying labours. The virtue
of that kind of Episcopal consecration I did and do most warmly
appreciate! They urged me by many appeals to take a trip with them
round the Islands, as my life was daily in great danger from the
savages; they generously offered to convey me direct to Aneityum, or