UPSTAIRS / DOWNSTAIRS
Part 3
The Marist Brothers in the Life
of the
French Catholic Mission
This paper was delivered by Brother Bryan Stanaway on behalf of its author, Brother Edward Clisby, to the Symposium organised by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust on “The French Place in the Bay of Islands” held in Russell in January 2004.
Following Emery’s occupations is almost to follow the development of the procure. In the beginning he worked on the building as a mason and a maker of pise. Then with the need to have gardens to provide them with the necessities of life, he became a gardener. With the completion of the storehouse, he was put in charge of that and getting things packed for the stations. When he had time and material he worked at his trade as tailor. Like Basile, he was dependent on the financial state of the mission and sometimes had to take drastic steps to help clothe the missionaries. Nor were his services limited to the missionaries. One of Claude-Marie’s complaints was about what happened to the religious costume he was no longer allowed to wear: Do you know what they did with that poor habit of Mary’s, the habit I longed for so ardently when I was a novice and which I found a pleasure to wear once I had permission? It was torn up to make cloaks and trousers for the natives, according to dear Brother Colomb. Sometimes, as in July 1842, Emery spent some weeks at the nearest stations of Whangaroa and Hokianga mending clothes. Once the printery was in full operation, he was assigned to help Yvert and Luc with the printing and binding of books. Writing to Colin at the beginning of 1843, he claimed he found the work of the mission painful: I don’t work much at tailoring. I have to work in the garden, go to the forest or go out in the boat. Some days are very trying when one goes out in the boat because one has to struggle for days at a time against the wind. Now I am working in the printery and for about a fortnight I have been at work through the night. All these labours have reduced me to skin and bone. At the end of the year, however, he has something to show for his labours. We have already produced two books in octavo, he writes to Francois, the first of 16 pages and 2000 copies, and the second of 98 pages and 3,200 copies, as well as 8 separate pages on the sacraments of penance and the eucharist, and also 2 pages for the school, 3000 copies of each. There are only two of us for the printing and one for typesetting…I am compelled to let our Fathers and Brothers go about in rags because printing takes up a lot of time and there is no other Brother to replace me. The ideal tailor at the procure, he thought, would be a cripple unable to do anything but sew, since otherwise he would find himself employed at all other sorts of work as well.
With the amount of work they had to do, it is not surprising that the brothers at the procure had little opportunity to follow their vocation as catechists. Although there was a school for Maori, the brothers assigned there as teachers in 1844, albeit briefly, Elie-Regis and Claude-Marie, were both from other stations. There were always Maori coming for instruction, for services, or simply to visit. Indeed, by 1843 the Marists had built two big huts near their house to accommodate those staying for instruction and not only were they almost always full, but the catechumens sometimes overflowed into the printery and the residences. Even so it was not a good learning environment for the brothers. Emery expresses his frustration to Colin at the beginning of the year: I have a great desire to learn their language but I cannot do so because our occupations at the mother house are so numerous that they don’t allow us time to study or talk with the natives. I suffer a lot when I find myself among them, when they speak and I cannot answer them, and I want so much to be able to instruct them . However, in conjunction with the printing, he did learn to read the language, and this was a cause of consolation. I have been a few times on visits to the tribes, he informs Colin in a later letter. How happy I am to be among them. I teach them to make the sign of the cross, to sing, to read; I do the prayers and sing at Mass when it is said, for I can read it well enough. By March 1845 he was also a fluent enough speaker to act as interpreter for a fellow Frenchman.
Detail of a drawing of the southern end of
Kororareka by T.M. Jones c.1850. It shows the buildings of the Catholic
Mission compound including the printery, rising above the lower buildings
closer to the shore.
(Alexander Turnbull Library)