Singing the Slaying of a Martyr

By Harold Maesulia
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If only the gleeful sounds of a highland church choir could appear in a dream to the inhabitants of Nukapu in 1871, they could perhaps be merciful to Bishop John Coleridge Patteson.

 If only they could see us now, congregating happily every Sunday, singing our hearts out, they could have probably marveled at the joy we have inside. Instead of sweating our guts out feeding pigs, which would later be offered in worship of ancestral spirits, Christian faith has made us forfeit those practices, which in the past, only a selected few would at the end of the day part take of the meat, ripping the sweats of women who kicked all over the place to fetch food to feed the animals. A revelation about these insights perhaps could have rung a bell somewhere up their brains not to stop “THE MEN OF GOD” from performing their duties.



Bishop John Coleridge Patteson

Not until the 1800s, the Islands of Solomons were untouched by Christianity. There appeared to be a rush hour around that era when different churches with head offices in countries like New Zealand and Australia tasked some of their men to sail the seas for the islands. The prime aim then was to plant the gospel seed on the various Pacific islands. The urge was high to send brave men who would go and farm the untouched Pacific with the word of God.

Known for its cannibalism, our Solomon Islands became a hostile ground for some of these missionaries. Some died trying to show the light to the heathen islanders.

One of them, whom Anglicans around the world remembered as a Christian Martyr, was Bishop John Coleridge Patteson-the first bishop of Melanesia.

He landed on Nukapu , a tiny island in Temotu Province, on the 20th of September 1871(also his day of death which Anglicans regard as Bishop Patteson’s Day). In 1855, Bishop George Selwyn of New Zealand uttered a call for volunteers to go to the South Pacific to preach the Gospel. John Coleridge Patteson, originally from England, responded to the call and set sail for the islands with the goal of Christianizing the islanders.

I was adamant to dig the details of what Bishop Patteson’s Day is. That’s not because I’m not interested in historical events, but I thought it’ll be quite hectic trying to run around for information about someone like that whom Anglican devotees set aside the 20th of September each year to remember his death.

The bit that fascinates me was how he actually died. When my friend told me that he was found dead in a canoe on an island in the Solomon Islands, I broke free from my adamant mind, thinking to myself that it’d surely make a good find if I opted to dig out some more information.

Bishop Patteson’s mission to the islands was barricaded by a wall-the existence of so many languages. One has no choice but to learn and master the local vocabulary. Because that’s the only means by which the islanders could receive their salvation message.

With his new job, came an aim. And the aim for Bishop Patteson was to get the local boys and send them overseas to be educated in Western Christian cultures. The purpose was to nourish more seeds so that they’ll get to grow the gospel in the islands, but probably it hit the wrong button on the islanders’ side. Some probably misread the movement for kidnapping. But the initial aim was to arm them with the gospel knowledge so that upon their return, which they later did, they’d help spread the gospel. That made the task of learning the local languages a must for him.

He made it his goal to learn as many languages as he could. And he succeeded. He became fluent in twenty three languages that were spoken in both Melanesia and Polynesia.

It appeared as if the islanders failed to see the good work that Bishop Patteson was preparing their boys for. They probably failed to read the splendid task he would get them to do at Norfolk Island-learning to read and write, the arts which would later prove vital in their pastoral work in their various islands.

But who would blame them? The inhuman treatment suffered by some of these islanders was still fresh when he (Bishop Patteson) was around sailing on his mission. The stealing of islanders for distant labor, known to us as the Blackbirding days, was so inhuman that so many died while they were struggled into the boats.

Some historians believed that the Nukapuans took the duty of slaying Bishop Patteson in revenge for the abduction of some natives by these illegal labor recruiters.

In the Chapel of Merton College in Oxford, Thomas Woolner made a memorial to honor Bishop Patteson. The memorial depicts his portrait surrounded by fronds, beneath which he is shown lying in the canoe. It stands as a remembrance to a person who was slain while on duty spreading the word of God to the unreached.

While many of us would not probably get to see it in person, what we have today of what these missionaries had laid long ago should be enough to remind us of the loyalty they had towards the task of converting our forefathers to Christianity.

When the voices in a Sago palm thatched church erupted in a spirited choir, we ought to stop and thank God for people like Bishop John Coleridge Patteson. Indeed, it was through their sacrifice that good news found its way to our beautiful islands. That good news did turn our war-minded men into different kind of soldiers. The kind of soldiers who no longer wage war against other tribes’ men, but soldiers who stand alongside their wives to raise their kids in the way of the Almighty one, winning others into the church with their new found attitudes.

When someone smiles and offers you food or a place to sleep, why not stop and thank God for people like Bishop John Coleridge Patteson? Indeed, their aim of planting the seed of salvation in the hearts of our people had bore fruits. Some people have instilled in them a place where the love of God thrives.

I joined my Solomon friends in Suva a couple of weeks back to mark Bishop Patteson’s Day. I went to observe how the day was celebrated, but when I saw my Malaitan wantoks ( nicely defined by Danica Newton) entering the church in their traditional attires, I stared in admiration. As they danced the Mao (a Malaitan dance) along to the sounds of Melanesian hymns, I could not help but envy the spirit they’ve put into the preparations for the day. It might not look spiritual, but to me, it portrays a celebration by a people who have gratitude in their hearts for the great work done by the pioneers of gospel on their islands.

Sing along friends! Sing to celebrate the arrival of salvation on our isles. Since the first day it landed on these shores, salvation hasn’t failed a bit to find happy hearts. Gloriously, it did encode in those hearts a song. That song can be heard everywhere you go in the Solomons. It is heard loudest in the hills and valleys where people, who call the heavenly God their father, live.