MANUSCRIPT XLI: Papeiha, E tuatua no te taeanga mai o te tuatua na te atua ki Rarotonga nei (An Account of the Coming of the Word of God to Rarotonga), c. 1830

Papeiha’s manuscript, which Mata Tumu-Makara introduces, translates, and annotates, is a historically important example of a very early Indigenous Pacific voice in a region where Christianity remains an intensely lived experience for most people. Makara’s work contributes to an understanding of the divergent meanings of ‘mission’ and ‘missionary’ by identifying a critical moment in the contemporary history of evangelism in the Pacific when Maeliau’s prophetic movement challenged established evangelical practices. Although the Deep Sea Canoe has not yet been relaunched from the Cook Islands, Makara’s work makes a major contribution to the focus on the history of Cook Islander missionaries and their families, a theme of the CICC bicentenary celebrations that is celebrated in this special issue of JPH, the CICC Newsletter and the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), Special Collections, blog series, Cook Islander missionaries: recovering hidden histories from missionary archives.