Abstract:
This thesis began as a study of the East Coast Maoris, through the letters and journals of William Williams. On reading Williams' papers a number of questions came to mind. What follows is a discussion of those questions. Primarily a history of the
East Coast Maoris during the years when the Turanga (Poverty Bay) Mission was in operation. the thesis is also a study of the ways in which Williams affected, and was affected by, the Maoris. The Turanga mission existed from 1840 until 1865. At either end of this time scale occurred two major,
and seemingly contradictory, events. The first was an overwhelmingly rapid and widespread conversion to Christianity, the second an equally startling conversion to Pai Marire. These two events suggest a question which is one of the major themes running through this thesis what happened on the East Coast between 1840 and 1865 to make thousands of Maoris accept and then, apparently, reject the Christian religion, en masse? In order to answer this question
it has been necessary to study the nature of the Maori conversion to both Christianity and Pai Marire. In doing so it became clear that Christianity was never understood by the East Coast Maoris in the way the
missionaries understood it. Rather it was adapted to the framework of Maori spirituality. What developed was a distinctly Maori form of Christianity. In
many ways Pai Marire differed little from this Maori Christianity. The gap between the Christianity practised by the East Coast Maoris and Pai Marire was not as great as Williams imagined.
