Tarore was a little Maori girl who lived in the Waikato part of New Zealand back in the times when there were only a very few white people living there. The Maori people still hadn’t got European clothes to wear, nor did they have proper houses to live in. Things were still very primitive in their villages. Tarore didn’t really know much about the white people. She lived in the village with her parents and her little brother.
She often heard her father talking with the other warriors about things like battles and utu (revenge) and she knew there were often wars going on between the different tribes near where they were living. If anyone was killed, even if it was an accident, one of that person’s relatives would have to kill another person to get even.
Tarore knew that white people had books that they could read, and there came this longing into her mind, that she wanted to learn to read. If only she could get to where the white missionary lady lived, she might teach her to read, she thought. She told her father (Ngakuku) one day about this, and how much she wanted to be able to read. “What good will that do you?”, he asked, “It won’t help you to get food to eat!”
But nothing put Tarore off. Every now and then, she would ask her father to let her go and see the white lady. At last, he said “Yes”, and Tarore was so pleased. She could hardly wait to leave and go. She trudged along the forest trails and over the high hills between their village and the new town on the coast where the missionaries lived. When she arrived at the house where the missionaries (Mr. and Mrs. Brown) lived, she was almost too afraid to walk up the path and knock on the door. But she got enough courage to do this. Mrs. Brown came to the door and saw this little Maori girl standing there in her flax skirt holding her little kit-bag with a few things in it. Mrs. Brown knew enough of the Maori language to understand what Tarore was saying. “Of course we will teach you how to read”, she said kindly, “But you will have to live with us here in the house and learn our ways first”. Tarore was overjoyed and soon learned how to wear the strange sort of clothes that Mrs. Brown gave her. She also had to learn how to sit at a table and eat her food off a plate with a knife and fork. She found this very strange at first….it was so much easier and quicker to eat with one’s fingers! But because she couldn’t wait to begin her reading lessons, she quickly did as she was told. She had other things to learn too. How to sleep in a proper bed instead of on the floor, and then how to make it the next morning. How to have a bath and keep her hair tidy and clean. Everything was so different!
At last the day came when she could begin to learn to read. She picked it up very quickly, but also had to learn how to spell words out and how to write them too. She also learned about the Bible and how it was God’s book for everyone to read. She was so pleased that she would be able to learn to read from this book. The part of the Bible that Mrs. Brown used to teach Tarore to read from, was the part called the book of Luke (in the Maori language it was Ruka). Mrs. Brown taught her in the Maori language from a Maori translation of the Bible. After some months, Mrs. Brown told Tarore she had learned enough to go home and read to the whanau (family). Mrs. Brown prayed as she watched Tarore trot off wearing her green dress and carrying her little kit-bag with her precious copy of Luke in it, “Please dear God, keep her safe and help her to be able to tell her own people about You”.
Tarore made her way home and was so happy to be able to read to her family as they sat around the fire at night. At first her father, Ngakuku refused to listen. “That’s just stuff for women and children” he said. But after some weeks, he began to listen and one day, he said, “Those are the words of truth from the One True God”.
Shortly after this, he and some of his men made a journey off through the bush, taking Tarore and her little brother with them. Tarore took her precious copy of the book of Luke with her, and at night she would read it before lying down and then put it under her head as she went to sleep.
(This story will be continued next week)