# Pacific Baha'i Communities 1950-1964

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Graham Hassall, Pacific Baha'i Communities 1950-1964, Guam: University of Guam Press & Micronesian Area Research Center, 1992, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Pacific Bahá'í Communities 1950-1964
> 
> Graham Hassall
> published in Pacific History: Papers from the 8th Pacific History Association Conferenceed. Donald H. Rubinstein, pp. 73-95
> 
> Guam: University of Guam Press & Micronesian Area Research Center, 1992
> 
> The spread of Bahá'í
> communities throughout the Pacific islands may be too recent a
> phenomenon to yet warrant close historical consideration. Several
> factors combine, nonetheless, to suggest the usefulness of an
> initial survey of the Bahá'í contribution to contemporary
> Pacific religious history. Passing references to Bahá'í
> activities have appeared in secondary literature, with little
> supporting detail. Furthermore, these have in some cases suffered
> from errors of fact and interpretation that signal the need for a
> more substantial account. A more compelling motivation, beyond
> matters of historiography, lies in the usefulness for comparative
> purposes of the observation of a philosophy and practice of
> religion which combines some motivations shared with traditional
> Judeo-Christian systems of belief, with approaches to religious
> teaching and practice (and their expression in propagation and
> organisation) that originate outside Western traditions. Whether
> as mission history, as social history, or as a study in
> comparative religion, a survey of the emergence and consolidation
> of Bahá'í centres thus implies observance and recognition of
> alternative paradigms of action and belief in a manner that sheds
> light on other facets of these contemporary Pacific societies.
> Even though the admitted infancy of Pacific Bahá'í communities
> challenges the possibility of adequate historical construction,
> and no matter that the sources are uneven and uncollected, and
> patterns of community and individual action are as yet incomplete
> and underdeveloped, the attempt is made in this paper to identify
> the patterns of establishment of Bahá'í communities in the
> Pacific.
> 
> Origins and beliefs
> 
> The spread of the Bahá'í
> movement from the East to the Pacific was more direct than might
> have been imagined. The Prophet-founder of the Faith,
> Bahá'u'lláh (Mirza Husayn Ali, 1817-1892), born in Persia and
> subsequently exiled to the extremities of the Ottoman Empire at
> the urging of first Persian then Turkish religious authorities,
> had proclaimed a world-wide mandate for his teachings. He died in
> Palestine in 1892. But the pivotal doctrine of the "oneness
> of humanity" that lay at the centre of his pronouncements
> and writings required of his followers an imparting of his Faith
> to all corners of the globe.
> 
> Another central Bahá'í
> belief, and one having particular relevance to the study of
> Bahá'í approaches to Pacific religions, is the
> "progressive revelation" of religion to humanity from a
> common Divine source, through a series of messengers. By this
> belief Bahá'ís profess their recognition not only of
> Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism (to refer to
> the religious traditions whose originators are well known), but
> recognition also of the existence of other Prophets in the past,
> whose personality and detailed teachings are no longer known. The
> acceptance of a multiplicity of religious teachers in the gradual
> unfolding of the world's spiritual destiny allowed the Bahá'ís
> to admit the possibility of the divine origins of primal
> religions, and of other beliefs based on "custom". This
> acceptance in turn informed the Bahá'í approach to Pacific
> belief systems with an underlying sympathy that did not require a
> detailed knowledge of their specifics. It also removed from the
> Bahá'í position the possibility of fundamental hostility toward
> other religions, whether western or non-western.
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh's mission
> was taken up by his son, `Abdu'l-Bahá, named by him the
> "Centre" of his "Covenant". `Abdu'l-Bahá
> travelled through Europe and North America expounding on
> Bahá'u'lláh's teachings about the possibility of
> "Universal Peace". A series of letters addressed by
> `Abdu'l-Bahá to the Bahá'ís of North America during the period
> 1915-17 known as the Tablets of the Divine Plan, listed
> destinations to which his advanced age prevented him from
> proceeding: included were eighteen island groups in the South,
> North and Eastern Pacific Islands. In a sense this list
> established a program of mission.
> 
> By the time of
> `Abdu'l-Bahá's death in Palestine in November 1921 followers had
> reached Australia, the Society Islands and Hawaii - and through
> Hawaii, the countries of North-East Asia. Within several years
> there were Bahá'ís also in New Zealand and Fiji. Six decades
> after the Prophet's death his teachings had spread in some form
> to all the major Pacific Island groups.
> 
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá nominated
> his eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi Rabbani (1897-1957), as his
> chosen successor, and first "Guardian" of the Bahá'í
> Faith. During a thirty-six year ministry, Shoghi Effendi directed
> a program of Bahá'í expansion based on and supplementing the
> tasks first elaborated in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the
> Divine Plan. It was under Shoghi Effendi's leadership,
> particularly in the period from 1953 until his death in 1957,
> that Bahá'ís entered the Pacific Islands in a systematic way.
> Interpretation in questions of religion relies on the perspective
> of the observer: to some, the Bahá'ís were supporters of an
> "eastern" Faith; the Bahá'ís saw themselves, however,
> as members of a religious movement, admittedly small and new, but
> global in perspective, philosophy, and practical operation.
> 
> Administration
> 
> Before examining the
> movement of Bahá'ís to the Pacific, it is necessary to note the
> administrative structure established in the writings of
> Bahá'u'lláh, `Abdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi, and
> subsequently in operation in Bahá'í communities world-wide.
> Local and national Spiritual Assemblies are elected annually
> through secret ballot elections for which campaigning and
> nominations are completely disallowed. Ideally, Spiritual
> Assemblies comprise the "choicest and most varied and
> capable" members of the Bahá'í community". Local
> Assemblies are intended to operate at the "first level of
> human society", that is, at the grass roots, where the
> concerns are those of individuals and families. National
> Assemblies constitute a "second" level of government,
> and administer the affairs of Bahá'í communities at a broader
> level. Worldwide leadership is entrusted to the Universal House
> of Justice, a body elected at five-yearly intervals since 1963.
> Emphasis in decision-making is placed on consultation, and the
> rules for consultation discourage the dominance of any individual
> over the group.
> 
> This government by
> administrative bodies that are elected at local, national, and
> global levels is accompanied by a second branch of
> "appointed" individuals, who are empowered to give
> advice, but not to dictate or command. Within each country,
> Auxiliary Board Members are appointed to advise on the progress
> and well being of the community; Counsellors are appointed at
> continental level and work with National Assemblies. This
> administrative pattern is not viewed as an "end in
> itself", but as an instrument for the ordered application of
> spiritual teachings to individual and group life. Its brief
> description here, while diverging from our theme, assists in
> understanding the authority structure adhered to, and being
> established by, the Bahá'ís of the Pacific.
> 
> Pacific Presence before
> 1953
> 
> The first Bahá'ís to
> travel to foreign lands to spread their Faith regarded themselves
> as emissaries rather than missionaries: they did not travel under
> the instruction or subsidy of a mission board, and because
> support was moral rather than financial, their number was limited
> to the few who enjoyed some form of financial independence. Agnes
> Alexander, who in 1914 had taken the Bahá'í teachings from
> North America to her native Hawaii (where her Christian
> missionary family had established itself and attained some local
> prominence), subsequently settled in Japan, and was instrumental
> in Bahá'í expansion in North Asia.
> 
> Clara and Hyde Dunn
> relocated from California to Australia, and effectively
> established Bahá'í communities in Australia and New Zealand.
> Among their contacts in Auckland was Miss Nora Lee, an English
> woman who early in 1924 took work in Labasa, Fiji (as a
> "nanny" to the children of expatriate employees of the
> sugar industry). Miss Lee maintained contact with New Zealand
> Bahá'ís until at least 1927, but her subsequent movements and
> involvement remain unknown. Joseph Perdu, a Bahá'í of
> Persian/Indian background, who had been travelling in Australia,
> visited Fiji in July 1950, and converted some Islamic (Ahmadiyih)
> Fiji-Indians through his eloquent presentation of Bahá'í
> interpretations of Quranic verses and Islamic traditions. Some
> among these first converts faced life-threatening family
> persecution for remaining in their new faith.
> 
> The only other Bahá'ís
> to reside in the Pacific prior to the 1950s were John and Louise
> Bosch, who ventured from California to Tahiti for five months in
> 1920. A clergyman situated there is reported to have subsequently
> corresponded with Abdu'l-Bahá. There were several other
> respondents to the Bosch's message, included Miss Arianne
> Drollete (later Vermeesh), Ernest Marchel, and Mr and Mrs Georg
> Spitze.
> 
> American Bahá'í Loulie
> Mathews placed Bahá'í literature in public libraries during
> brief stops at Pacific Island ports during a world cruise. Some
> Australian and North American Bahá'ís in Papua and New Guinea
> or in the North Pacific, during World War Two. There is
> speculation that Americans distributed Bahá'í pamphlets while
> stationed on Malaita in the Solomon Islands. After the war,
> several Bahá'ís obtained work with the colonial administration
> in Port Moresby, but little progress appears to have been made.
> 
> The Global Crusade
> 
> By 1953 there were twelve
> ‘National’ Bahá'í communities worldwide, for each of
> which Shoghi Effendi devised a ten-year plan of action as part of
> a "Global Crusade". Seven of these twelve National
> communities were allocated tasks within the Pacific. Fifteen
> "virgin" territories (ie, areas where there were no
> Bahá'ís) were allocated among these seven "sending"
> communities: the United States was to open the Caroline Islands
> and Tonga; India, Pakistan and Burma to open Mariana Islands;
> Persia to open Solomon Islands; Canada to open Marquesas and
> Samoa; South America to open Cook Islands; Central America to
> open Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Marshall Islands and Tuamotu
> Archipelago; and Australia and New Zealand to open Admiralty
> Islands, Loyalty Islands, New Hebrides and Society Islands.
> Because the American Bahá'í community was regarded as the
> "chief executor" of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's "Divine
> Plan", its members were free to settle any territory they
> could enter.
> 
> There is no evident patten
> to the allocation of these territories among the various Bahá'í
> communities. Ties of language, culture, or government that linked
> Pacific territories with metropolitan powers were not replicated.
> The Mariana Islands were allocated to the National Assembly for
> India, Pakistan and Burma and not - as one might have expected -
> to that of the United States. Similarly, the Society Islands were
> allocated to Australia rather than to France, while Samoa
> (Western and American) was allocated to Canada rather than to
> Australia and New Zealand. The British Bahá'ís worked in Africa
> and Europe rather than the Pacific (and also had responsibility
> for Hong Kong). Such an allocation of tasks appears at first to
> have been inefficient or even illogical: it did not build on
> existing established cultural, economic and political ties, and
> required Bahá'í pioneers to enter societies with which they
> were completely unfamiliar. The eventual success of their
> efforts, on the other hand, in places where such success might
> not or could not have been imagined, was no doubt evidence of the
> "organic unity" that could be created between diverse
> cultural groups.
> 
> Pioneers
> 
> Propagation of Bahá'í
> beliefs and values proceeded in at least four phases. The first
> required successful settlement of "pioneers" in each of
> the Pacific Island groups. This was followed by a period of
> contacts with individuals, which occasionally resulted in
> conversions. A third phase witnessed group conversions, generally
> within family groups, or clan-structures. Finally, when the
> numbers of Bahá'ís reached significant levels administrative
> bodies were established. Each of these phases will now be
> described in brief. Between October 1953 and October 1955 some 23
> Bahá'ís entered the virgin territories and a further six
> entered consolidation territories.
> 
> Pioneers were not clerics,
> and had no ascribed status in the Administrative Order. They had
> not undergone special training - whether theological or practical
> - and did not necessarily feel they had been "called"
> to their work. They mostly possessed middle-class backgrounds,
> were both retired and subsisting on accumulated funds, or else
> able to adapt themselves to the environment in which they found
> themselves. Some were bookkeepers, clerks, health workers, and
> teachers. A few took whichever itinerant jobs became available.
> Dulcie Dive, a bookkeeper, managed a store in Rarotonga. Bertha
> Dobbins, an Adelaide school teacher, established a school in Port
> Vila. Violet Hoehnke found employment as a nurse with the Health
> Department in Papua New Guinea. Irene Jackson obtained a
> secretarial position at the radio station in Suva. Pioneers to
> Micronesia were invariably associated with the armed services.
> Virginia Breaks was employed in the Caroline Islands with the
> government health department. In a few instances pioneers were
> artists, writers, or incorporated their period as a pioneer into
> their career path.
> 
> Several pioneers
> established trade stores and other businesses. Rodney Hancock, a
> New Zealander, established trade stores, an import-export
> business, and other ventures in Rabaul on New Britain in Papua
> New Guinea. Alvin Blum, the only American ex-serviceman to return
> to live in the Solomon Islands having served there during the
> Second World War, established a number of businesses in Honiara.
> Some individuals intended pioneering for fixed terms, and
> remained in the Pacific for periods ranging from several months
> to several years. Others moved more permanently.
> 
> The first settlement of
> pioneers was not easy to accomplish. The pioneers did not, or in
> some cases could not, obtain recognition as missionaries, and
> received no special status from colonial governments. In Western
> Samoa and Fiji laws provided that religious groups have at least
> 300 members before they could obtain visas for foreign religious
> teachers. Numerous religious bodies began entering the Pacific in
> the post-war period, and colonial governments monitored the
> progress of each movement closely. Access to the Trust Territory
> of the United States was made difficult by a law preventing
> employees from supporting particular religions, and, until 1962,
> by regulations permitting the entry of military personnel and
> their families only to the region. In Western Samoa, an
> application by an American Bahá'í to entry as a missionary was
> rejected by the government Secretary who seeking to ensure that
> "the comparative peace surrounding religious matters in
> Western Samoa" was "not disturbed by the formation of
> new or disruptive elements".
> 
> Aware of such
> sensitivities, the Bahá'ís themselves sought to enter new
> countries without unsettling established interests. The pioneers
> were advised to proceed with great caution, until officials and
> others became familiar with their reasonable manner of operation.
> They were to avoid publicity or newspaper coverage, and to avoid
> contacting public officials or political leaders until levels of
> trust and confidence with local officials and society had been
> established. For the first pioneers to the GEIC this relationship
> based on familiarity did not emerge. Roy Fernie, having arrived
> in the Gilbert Islands intending to study parapsychological
> phenomena in connection with Duke University, fell foul of local
> authorities, firstly through his enthusiasm as an amateur
> magician and subsequently through their scepticism at his offer
> to build a school. A charismatic figure who also played the piano
> and performed magic tricks, he thrilled curious locals with an
> impromptu show on his first day on the island, and within weeks
> attracted Sunday audiences of such magnitude as annoyed the
> resident Catholic priest. Fernie was most likely unaware of the
> fact that sorcery and magic were practiced widely in Gilbertese
> culture, but were being actively suppressed by the Catholic
> mission. Furthermore, Fernie's efforts to establish an English
> language school, and the fund-raising activities he organised in
> Turaubu to accomplish it, hindered the capacity of the Turaubu
> Catholics to raise funds to match those of their rival village,
> Koinawa.
> 
> Significantly, when former
> Catholic seminarian and mission teacher Peter Kanare Koru became
> the first Gilbertese Bahá'í, in Tarawa in 1954, Shoghi Effendi
> urged him in a letter of welcome be "very discreet in
> spreading this Message", explaining that the Bahá'ís did
> not wish to become a "source of discord, or arouse
> opposition". But events took their own course. It was
> commonly known that religious bodies required a minimum of 200
> members to acquire official recognition. Ieuti suggests that
> mission authorities pointed out to the British administration
> that the Fernies did not have this number of Bahá'í followers,
> and urged they be deported. The mission had on several occasions
> used its journal, Te Itoi nin Ngaina, to "warn"
> its members against examining this new religion - an action which
> had had the opposite effect. Consequently, some two hundred
> Abaiang residents announced their wish to become Bahá'ís. On 24
> September 1955 the government gave legal recognition to a
> Bahá'í institution, the Tuarabu Local Spiritual Assembly.
> 
> In an additional move,
> landowners on Abaiang who had leased land to the Bahá'ís now
> requested that they move. Abaiang Island Council, whose members
> had been working with the Fernies to establish a much-desired
> school, unexpectedly voted to expel the Americans and Peter
> Kanare from the island, and Resident Commissioner Bernacchi and
> District Commissioner Turbott refused to intervene in the matter.
> The final episode was tragic. The Resident Commissioner
> prohibited Kanare from remaining on either Tarawa or Abaiang.
> While waiting for transport to their home island of Tabiteuea,
> Kanare's wife, then in labour, was denied adequate medical
> treatment and died soon after childbirth. Roy Fernie was deported
> from the Colony in November 1955 while Elena Fernie remained on
> Abaiang until 1956 working with the new, 200-strong, Bahá'í
> community. Fernie held only good intentions. But on Abaiang he
> worked too hastily, and was most likely ignorant of the tension
> that had existed between church and state for nearly a decade on
> the question of state-run schools. Nowhere in the Pacific was the
> arrival of Bahá'í pioneers more bitterly opposed.
> 
> In hindsight, the level of
> ignorance among officials in some colonies appears comic: in 1956
> a bureaucrat in Papua New Guinea described Bahá'í as "a
> movement to be watched". It was thought to be expecting an
> imminent World War, and to be preparing to re-organise the world
> in the aftermath. "Secret files" containing (invariably
> inadequate) encyclopedia extracts about Bahá'í were passed over
> bureaucratic desks as incredulous officials looked for
> connections with Communism. In the Solomon Islands, officials
> pondered Alvin Blum's "real motives" for sponsoring
> into the Protectorate over-qualified Persians to assist with his
> business interests. More accurate information gradually filtered
> through official channels. In 1955, for instance, the High
> Commissioner for the Western Pacific reassured administrators in
> British colonies this was "not a militant or political
> religion and that as a religion there was no objection to
> it".
> 
> Entry to French
> territories was particularly difficult. French government policy
> denied non-French citizens long-term residency in French Overseas
> Territories, and both New Caledonia and the Society Islands had
> been assigned to the Australian Bahá'ís, none of whom were
> eligible for permanent residency. Consequently, pioneers to New
> Caledonia and French Polynesia were itinerant rather than
> domiciled, and travelled between colonies when their visas
> expired. Access to the Loyalty Islands was even more challenging,
> as at first the Australian Bahá'ís did not know they were
> designated off-limits to all Europeans, including French
> citizens.
> 
> International Support
> 
> Committees were
> established in the metropolitan countries for the purpose of
> coordinating the movement of pioneers in the Pacific, and to
> assist them to the extent possible. In Australia, the
> Adelaide-based "Asian Teaching Committee" corresponded
> with pioneers in the island groups allocated to Australian and
> New Zealand responsibility from 1954 until 1959, when the
> Regional Assembly for the Bahá'ís of the South Pacific was
> first elected. In an age prior to modern communications
> facilities, the Asian Teaching Committee's newsletter Koala
> News kept the Bahá'ís informed of developments throughout
> the region. Prominent American Bahá'í Mildred Mottahedeh
> visited the pioneers in Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, the New Hebrides and
> other islands in 1954 to encourage them, and to present a
> first-hand report of conditions.
> 
> The first Bahá'í
> Communities
> 
> Where the pioneers were
> successful, groups of nine or more Bahá'ís were able to form
> the basic unit of the Bahá'í administrative pattern, the Local
> Spiritual Assembly, which then provided the collective leadership
> of Bahá'í affairs at local level. By April 1957 there were 210
> Bahá'í centres in the Pacific. The first Local Assemblies were
> established in the metropolitan centres: in Suva in 1950,
> Rarotonga in 1956, Honiara and Apia in 1957, Nuku'alofa in 1958,
> Port Vila in 1960, and Noumea in 1962. An Assembly established in
> Papeete in 1958 was not sustained in the early years. Within each
> island group, additional Local Assemblies were subsequently
> established in outlying regions. In 1959 the Regional Spiritual
> Assembly of the South Pacific was established, with jurisdiction
> over 10 island groups. By 1963 there were thirty-six Local
> Assemblies, 127 localities, and some 1550 Bahá'ís in the South
> Pacific (800 of whom were in the Solomon Islands).
> 
> Table: Allocation of delegates to the Annual Convention of the Regional Spiritual
> Assembly of the South Pacific, 1959-1963
> 
> [Note: in converting this document to HTML, the table data below may have
> been mis-aligned. I.e., some data might be in the wrong columns. -J.W., 2011]
> 
> TerritoryLocal Assembly19591960196119621963
> 
> Cook IslandsRarotonga21111
> 
> FijiSuva12111
> 
> Solomon IslandsHoniara22121
> 
> HauHui..122
> 
> Roroni....1
> 
> Auki....1
> 
> TongaNuku'alofa22231
> 
> Mua..121
> 
> Houma....1
> 
> Kolonga....1
> 
> Vaini....1
> 
> SamoaApia22121
> 
> Nofoali'i..111
> 
> Fasito'outa..111
> 
> IliIli...11
> 
> Mata'uta....1
> 
> Lotoanu'u....1
> 
> Samatau....1
> 
> PagoPago....1
> 
> Magi....1
> 
> GEICBetio23131
> 
> Tuarubu85262
> 
> Kuria.2121
> 
> Tebero...11
> 
> Bouta..111
> 
> Eita..111
> 
> Tekaman..1.1
> 
> Taku...11
> 
> Utiroa....1
> 
> Terikiai....1
> 
> Makin....1
> 
> Bubuti....1
> 
> Aobike....1
> 
> Bikenibeu....1
> 
> New HebridesPort Vila..121
> 
> New CaledoniaNoumea....1
> 
> Total1919193838
> 
> In addition to
> establishing these new communities in the Pacific, and the
> establishment of local and national administrative bodies (in
> anticipation of the later establishment of the Universal Houses
> of Justice); specific tasks for the decade to 1963 included the
> translation and publication of literature; acquisition of local
> and national centres [Hazíratu'l-Quds], endowments and other
> sites for future Temples [= Houses of Worship, or "Mashriqu'l-Adhkárs"];
> and the securing of recognition in law of Bahá'í administrative
> institutions, properties, and Bahá'í Holy Days.
> 
> Perhaps unaware of this
> methodical and multi-national approach to mission, Charles Forman
> has considered the growth of Bahá'í communities in the Pacific
> "surprising":
> 
> Stemming from a
> reformist movement in Islam and appealing mostly to
> intellectuals in the West, with a message of
> interreligious unity and international, interracial
> harmony, they seemed poorly adapted to growth among
> vigorously Christian, practical peoples with little
> cosmopolitan experience. Yet a certain amount of response
> was forthcoming from some youths of wider experience and
> education and from some village folk among whom their
> missionaries settled. They had some noticeable response
> in Fiji, Kiribati, the Solomons, Tonga, Samoa, and
> Vanuatu. Probably their greatest single increase came in
> 1966 when they won the adherence of Tommy Kabu, leader of
> an important modernising movement in the Purari river
> area of Papua, along with many of his followers.
> 
> While true that some
> "Western intellectuals" had become Bahá'ís, it would
> not be correct to limit the Faith's appeal to such a group:
> "eastern intellectuals" also became Bahá'ís. Most
> importantly, to correct the impression being offered by Forman,
> the majority of the religion's adherents were - and still are -
> villagers and peasants living in rural environments, whether in
> Africa, Asia, Central and South America, or in the Pacific.
> 
> The lack of
> "cosmopolitan experience" among Islanders in the 1950s
> may have made more difficult the task the first Bahá'ís in the
> Pacific had in communicating the full implications of Bahá'í
> teachings - such as the unity of God and of His Prophets, the
> principle of independent and rational investigation in the
> pursuit of "truth", the elimination of all forms of
> superstition and prejudice, the equality of the sexes, compulsory
> education, abolition of extremes of poverty and wealth, and the
> adoption of an auxiliary international language. These and other
> principles, seen by Bahá'ís as necessary to the establishing of
> a "permanent and universal peace", and based on a
> conception of religion as providing the basis for order and
> progress in society, nevertheless remained at the core of the
> pioneers' message, no matter how remote the clan, village or
> island being addressed. Presuming that Forman's image of Bahá'í
> - both as religion and as community - reflects that held by the
> majority of writers on contemporary religion in the Pacific, an
> effort will be made in this paper to broaden it by taking into
> consideration additional evidence.
> 
> Propagation
> 
> The first Pacific
> Islander Bahá'ís
> 
> A second phase in the
> propagation process comprised a period of isolated contacts with
> individuals, and sporadic conversions. The techniques adopted by
> the Bahá'ís to spread their message were relatively
> straightforward. News that a new European was in town, who spoke
> of a religion that was in some ways similar to Christianity, but
> in other ways different, was sufficient to attract initial
> inquirers. The first islanders to adopt the new Faith, as Forman
> observed, were often educated young men, who encountered the
> pioneers in the colonial capitals. One such convert was Tommy
> Kabu (1922? -1969) from the I'ai tribe of the Papuan Gulf's
> Purari people. Intent on effecting cultural, social and economic
> development among the Purari, Kabu had embraced the Bahá'í
> Teachings as the vehicle for change, but had died before
> significant advances had been made.
> 
> A common theme in the
> conversion of the Papuan, Tommy Kabu, the New Irelander Apelis
> Mazakmat, the Malaitan Hamuel Hoahania, and the Gilbertese Peter
> Kanare Koru, was their attraction to the racial equality
> practiced by the pioneers, and their desire to implement such
> equality in their societies.
> 
> The first converts in
> Samoa and Tonga were well educated, and some had trained in
> theological colleges. Niuoleava Tuataga, born about 1941 into a
> family of planters at Talimatau in Western Samoa, and educated at
> a Catholic mission school and at the LMS Malua theological
> College, became a Bahá'í after meeting Suhayl Ala'i, a pioneer
> in Pago Pago, in 1958. Lisiata Maka, born in 1920, a costing
> clerk, licensed lawyer, and legal adviser in Tonga's lower court
> and supreme court, having become a Bahá'í 1957, completed
> substantial translations of Bahá'í Scriptures into Tongan, and
> later assisted in obtaining legal incorporation for Local
> Assemblies in Tonga, and for the Suva-based Regional Assembly. He
> was among the first Islanders elected to the Regional Assembly,
> and was later appointed to the Continental Board of Counsellors.
> 
> In the Solomon Islands a
> government dresser and former SSEM teacher/evangelist, Hamual
> Hoahania, was contemplating a return to custom religion when he
> encountered Alvin and Gertrude Blum in Honiara. A chief among the
> people of Hau Hui on Malaita, with a reputation as one of the
> most cooperative cocoa producers in the Protectorate, Hamual's
> conversion precipitated the first mass entry of Pacific Islanders
> into the Faith after the events in the GEIC in 1954-55.
> 
> It has been suggested that
> islanders who converted to newly arrived religions, including
> Bahá'í, did so on the basis of discontent with the established
> missions, and in some cases were the "malcontents" of
> their societies. While there is no doubt that this may have been
> so in particular cases, insufficient knowledge has been gathered
> to establish trends. Kirata suggests that those who accepted the
> Bahá'í Faith in Kiribati had been just "nominal
> Christians". The recollection of the Peter Kaltoli
> Napakaurana, of Irira Tenuku on Efate, has parallels with
> incidents in the Solomons, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere:
> 
> During 1953 there
> were many stories circulating in Port Vila, on Efate
> Island, and subsequently all over the New Hebrides, about
> the arrival of a woman missionary who had brought new
> teachings from God. This person was Mrs Bertha Dobbins.
> In 1954, I heard this news inside the Chief's nakamal
> on Ifira Tenuku (Fila Island), and decided that I should
> go and find out for myself the new Message. So one Sunday
> morning, I went to visit this woman missionary. She
> explained some of the sacred verses in the Bible, and I
> heard the name Bahá'u'lláh for the first time. I was
> very interested in her explanations. Some time later, I
> went back to Mrs Dobbins and told her that I wished to
> join the Bahá'í Faith.
> 
> The absence of a
> priesthood meant that the community was not divided into
> "clergy" and "laity". Furthermore, having no
> clergy, the Bahá'ís did not seek to recruit young men to be the
> equivalent of "catechists" or as candidates for
> training as clerics. Appreciation of the absence of such
> opportunities may even had discouraged a certain number of
> potential converts. This may or may not have contributed to the
> initial attraction to, then drift from, the Bahá'í community of
> such noted islanders as Bill Gina and Francis Kikolo in the
> Solomons. The British administration in the Solomons Islands felt
> the conversion of Bill Gina, the best educated Solomon Islander
> of his time, presented a "very real possibility" that
> the Bahá'ís would "expand at the expense of the Methodist
> Mission". Gina, however, returned to a secure position in
> the Methodist Mission. Francis Kikolo also withdrew his
> membership. In Papua New Guinea Elliot Elijah demonstrated
> considerable interest at the same time that Mazakmat joined; and
> in Fiji Ratu Meli Loki became a Bahá'í for a period.
> 
> As Bahá'í communities
> grew in size, pioneers ventured out of the towns to speak about
> the Faith, generally in villages where a link had been
> established, or from which they had received an invitation. In
> Papua New Guinea Apelis Mazakmat, who met Vi Hoehnke while
> teaching at a school on Manus, was attracted by the Bahá'í
> teaching of racial equality. To the European missionaries in the
> Nalik area, Mazakmat (1920-1986) epitomised the post-war
> "native trouble-maker". Of mixed Catholic/Methodist
> parentage, he clashed with a Catholic priest in 1949 who refused
> to wed him to a Methodist woman. He joined the movement early in
> 1956, after learning more about it from Rodney Hancock in Rabaul.
> Mazakmat took Hancock to some New Ireland villages, and
> introduced him to friends he thought would be interested in the
> Bahá'í teachings. Of the several villages Hancock spoke in, the
> response in Madina was the most immediate, and several people
> joined. The formation of a nine-member "Local Assembly"
> in Medina in 1957 was noted with curiosity.
> 
> Early expansion in the
> Solomon Islands similarly followed an invitation to the
> Bahá'ís. Hamuel Hoahania received overtures from the Takataka,
> a "custom" society which had never accepted
> Christianity, to learn more about the Bahá'í Faith. A Takataka
> chief, Waiparo, who had known Alvin Blum, had instructed them
> prior to his death to "look for the man who was to come with
> the Bahá'í Faith and to accept it". The situation was
> complex, as police intelligence felt Waiparo was looking for a
> religion through which he could avoid paying government taxes.
> Late in 1962 Gertrude Blum spent three weeks on Malaita during
> which time there were eighty declarations in four villages. Some
> 300 Malaitans subsequently became Bahá'ís, a success that
> prompted some SSEM mission workers who had been attempting to
> attract these people for a considerable period of time to spread
> false rumours about the Bahá'ís and the pioneers. By 1963 there
> were fifteen Bahá'í groups in the Solomon Islands, four of
> which had reached ‘Assembly’ status (Honiara and Roroni
> on Guadalcanal and Auki and Hau Hui on Malaita); nine of the
> eleven other localities were on Malaita.
> 
> An expedition to Tanna in
> the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) was less successful than the work on
> Malaita which had inspired it. A young American who had recently
> become a Bahá'í in Australia arrived in the New Hebrides early
> in 1962. Shortly after, he visited Tanna to teach the cargo
> community at Sulphur Bay known as John Frum. This people,
> through their interpretation of the American military presence on
> Tanna prior to and during the second World War, had developed
> expectations that Americans would at some future time deliver to
> them a large cache of Western goods, and sustained an ideology
> which rejected the Presbyterian Church on the island, and
> demonstrated ambivalent attitudes toward colonial authority and
> sovereignty. Despite the British administration's reservations
> about the American's impact on the cultists' expectations,
> Slaughter and New Hebridean Bahá'í Taumoe Kalsakau approached
> customary chiefs and cultists, as well as Catholic, Adventist and
> Presbyterian clergy to present Bahá'í literature.
> 
> The lack of clerical
> offices and the consequent lack of "career"
> opportunities within the Bahá'í structure has been noted. By
> having no clergy, the Bahá'ís presented a peculiar case to
> colonial bureaucracies. The Fijian government, in particular,
> refused to allow Bahá'í "travel teachers" to visit
> the Crown Colony", despite being acquainted with the fact
> that the Bahá'ís could not furnish clergy who may well have
> qualified for entry.
> 
> In some places the third
> phase of growth comprised family or sub-clan conversion. Rarely
> did an entire family, or an entire clan, choose to change
> religion, and this "fracturing" of social units, which
> remains prevalent in Pacific societies, was attributed to the
> actions of the Bahá'ís (or missionaries, in the case of other
> denominations), rather than attributed to the conscious and free
> actions of Pacific Islanders.
> 
> The converts on New
> Ireland in Papua New Guinea were drawn from several of Nalik's
> seven clans, and included the area's supreme malanggan
> carvers, Michael Homerang, (Mohokala clan) and Sinaila
> (Mohomaraba clan). Early in 1958 there were a further 10
> conversions, and some 30-40 over the next four years. According
> to Hancock, the Methodist mission had "given up" the
> Medina people, as many were "drunkards who had their own
> brews and stills", and many responded simply because he, by
> staying in village houses and eating off the same plates and with
> the same spoons as the villagers, broke with the traditional
> "missionary" habit of eating and sleeping separately.
> 
> Local Bahá'í
> Administration
> 
> In the fourth phase,
> converts established Local Assemblies, and began to administer
> their own affairs. Authority with the Bahá'í community is
> invested in groups, rather than in individuals, and decisions are
> made through consultation, rather than by decree. Whereas
> pioneers continued to liaise with their respective home Teaching
> Committees, and provided counsel to local, and inexperienced
> Bahá'í communities, responsibility for local matters was
> devolved to administrative institutions. Island teaching
> committees were established to plan propagation activities to
> outer islands and remoter villages and whenever the number of
> members in a local civil area reached nine or more a Local
> Assemblies were established.
> 
> In 1957 Regional
> Assemblies had been established in North East Asia and South East
> Asia, and similar regional bodies operated throughout Africa and
> Central and South America. In each case, delegates to an annual
> national convention were allocated among the Local Assemblies
> throughout the region, according to the size of their
> memberships. By 1959 there were sufficient local assemblies
> scattered across the Pacific to establish a Regional Assembly for
> the Pacific Islands. By virtue of its numerical strength in
> proportion to the other Assemblies, Tuarubu Assembly on Abaiang
> in the Gilbert Islands was eligible to send eight of the nineteen
> delegates to convention, yet because of its remoteness, the
> prospect of doing so was limited. This disproportionately large
> Bahá'í community, being in such a remote region, was
> potentially an administrative burden, and a cause for concern,
> since it was the task of the delegates to elect the Regional
> Assembly, yet none of the eight Gilbertese was able to attend
> convention to meet representatives of the other Bahá'í
> communities.
> 
> Some pioneers were
> apprehensive at how the lack of familiarity with the community's
> regional administrative affairs and personnel on the part of so
> many delegates might affect the composition of the Regional
> Assembly in its first years (and by implication, hinder its
> administrative effectiveness). The stipulation that Bahá'í
> elections be absolutely free of electioneering and nomination
> meant that the subject could not easily be broached.
> Nevertheless, although the Regional Assembly was elected in
> successive years under a variety of such hindrances, its
> administrative capacity was never questioned. Irene Jackson, the
> Assembly's founding secretary, was annually re-elected,
> facilitating the consolidation of its secretariat in Suva.
> 
> The Assembly faced several
> major obstacles to its effective functioning. The paucity of
> transport and communication facilities across vast distances made
> the election of delegates to an annual regional convention
> immensely difficult. Even where voting by mail was possible, the
> delegates in one location were poorly equipped to assess the
> merits of Bahá'ís living elsewhere. Further obstacles included
> lack of budget and manpower. The Regional Assembly's budget in
> its first year of existence was 1,295 pounds, including 25 pounds
> for propagation activities in each territory.
> 
> For each Bahá'í
> community the Regional Assembly developed a four-year plan of
> action (1959-1963) and appointed an "Island Teaching
> Committee", as well as committees with such diverse
> portfolios as a temple site, legal issues, a library, a
> newsletter, publishing, audio-visual, and child education. It
> also appointed a committee to overseas its Suva property
> (Headquarters = Hazíratu'l-Quds). The Assembly, in addition,
> decided on the printing of enrolment and registration cards; and
> adopted a budget. The Island Teaching Committees had the tasks of
> encouraging Bahá'í communities in their various activities with
> a view to establishing new Local Assemblies and increasing the
> number of Bahá'ís; making propagation plans in consultation
> with the Regional Assembly; providing regular reports to the
> Regional Assembly; preparing translations, and holding
> "summer schools".
> 
> Reports to the Regional
> Assembly were often in pencil, on pages torn from exercise books,
> in halting English. Throughout the Pacific the pattern of
> Bahá'í administration was learnt gradually: elections were not
> always held on 20 April (the prescribed date for the holding of
> Bahá'í elections - Ridvan); the distinctions between eligible
> (Bahá'ís, male and female, aged 21 or more) and ineligible
> voters (non-Bahá'ís, non-adults) in Bahá'í elections were not
> necessarily observed; the procedure for elections (secret,
> democratic voting without nominations or electioneering) was not
> always adhered to; and the notion of the equal participation by
> women in all facets of Bahá'í activities was not everywhere
> practiced. Where discrepancies occurred, efforts were made to
> rectify the practice at subsequent elections.
> 
> Despite such limitations,
> fourteen of twenty Local Assemblies in the region were totally
> run by islanders by July 1962. The formation of thirty-six Local
> Assemblies by 1963 meant that no less than 324 adult Bahá'ís,
> of both sexes, were directly involved in the administration of
> their local Bahá'í communities. While this rapid localisation
> was in some ways advantageous, it also brought difficulties. Few
> Islander Bahá'ís had a deep knowledge of Bahá'í
> administration, and within a few years there were many areas in
> which the numbers were adequate to form Local Assemblies, but the
> ability to do so was lacking. The administrative and leadership
> structure of this community had been localised at almost the same
> speed as it was propagated. Few Pacific Islanders, however, were
> elected to the Regional Assembly in the first five years.
> 
> Table: Regional Spiritual Assembly Membership 1959-1963
> 
> 19591960196119621963
> 
> A. BlumA. BlumA. BlumA. BlumA. Blum
> 
> I. JacksonI. JacksonI. JacksonI. JacksonI. Jackson
> 
> M. SneiderM. SneiderM. SneiderM. SneiderM. Sneider
> 
> S. Ala'iS. Ala'iS. Ala'iS. Ala'iS. Ala'i
> 
> D. DiveD. DiveD. DiveD. DiveL. Ala'i
> 
> G. BlumE. BlakelyE. BlakelyE. BlakelyE. Blakely
> 
> L. MakaJ. RussellTuakihekoloL. MakaTuakihekolo
> 
> S. PercivalW. KhanW. KhanS. PercivalS. Percival
> 
> W. KhanM. RowlingM. RowlingM. RowlingM. Rowling
> 
> With the establishment of
> Local Assemblies, Island Teaching Committees, and the Regional
> Assembly, the movement of Bahá'í teachers to outer regions
> became more closely coordinated. The major method in Bahá'í
> propagation in the Pacific was termed "travel
> teaching", in which individuals, communities or committees
> made a plan to travel to a particular location, to talk with
> receptive individuals or villages. Towards the end of the World
> Crusade (1963) there was a steady stream of Bahá'í visitors to
> the Pacific. Some were figures of international renown, able to
> conduct radio interviews, audiences with government leaders, and
> public meetings. Others filled humbler roles, visiting Bahá'í
> communities and encouraging them in their efforts. The difficulty
> in acquiring visas, however, continued to obstruct the movement
> of both Europeans and Islanders.
> 
> Social Change
> 
> The Bahá'í strategy for
> mission, to the extent that there was one, did not consist of
> acquiring land and building mission stations, and establishing
> educational and health facilities through which to minister the
> surrounding population. It comprised, rather the sharing of the
> Bahá'í principles with those willing to give a hearing, seeking
> their positive response, and incorporating them at the local
> level into the process of creating Bahá'í communities. If
> schools were to appear they would emerge from indigenous rather
> from imposed aspirations; if meeting houses were built, or
> conferences convened, the activities would have as their basis an
> attraction of hearts and minds, and have as their focus the
> discussion of human and social relationships.
> 
> Several items of
> correspondence exist indicating the manner in which Bahá'í
> Pacific Islanders approached inter-religious encounter. A travel
> teacher reported the process as used in Western Samoa in 1962:
> 
> At the beginning
> of our lectures, we read that law about the Sabbath Day
> from the Bible, adding the social laws of Moses, and then
> confined the talk about the confirmation of the laws from
> that time on until Bahá'u'lláh give us the new laws to
> suit the need of the people of this generation which will
> make them live in harmony, peace and justice. Five new
> believers enrolled after our lecture.
> 
> Exchanges concerning
> Christian doctrines, as well as the linkage between Christian
> belief and islander culture, were often at the heart of
> exchanges. Timeon Leaiti, reported his visit home to the Ellice
> Islands, having become a Bahá'í in the Gilbert Islands:
> 
> When I first
> arrived here, my family you know were all Christians and
> they tried to change my opinion. They said "you must
> turn back to the L.M.S. then you will get peace, but I
> said no, I am a Bahá'í Faith. A Christmas day came, and
> the head of the L.M.S. (old Beru men) in the Maneaba
> needed myself for talking about my Faith. I did, but
> their hearts were very hard..."
> 
> New Hebridean Bahá'ís
> who sought to "travel teach" on outer islands were
> subject to close inquiry by church members. On Tongoa in 1962
> Toaro Pakoa was called before a "session meeting" of
> the Presbyterian Church Council, who wanted to know how he could
> espouse another religion, having been baptised a Presbyterian.
> Travel teachers to Aneityum and Tanna received similar treatment.
> Consequently, it was not easy to find volunteers for such trips,
> and Bertha Dobbins assessment was:
> 
> "It would be
> better if the natives themselves were helped to carry the
> message to their waiting brothers and sisters in other
> islands. The whole of the teaching here has been held up
> on account of means to get to places and people must be
> prepared to stay for a while in each area."
> 
> Few pioneers appear to
> have made a study of the traditional culture of the peoples whom
> they now lived, contenting themselves with familiarity with the
> customs and habits of everyday life, and leaving to the islanders
> the task of interpreting what modifications were required in
> custom to satisfy the values and standards of their newly adopted
> Faith.
> 
> This placement of
> spiritual before material development precluded the premature
> evolution of Bahá'í schools, transport systems, and medical
> services, which many mission societies regarded as essential
> requisites to the task of church building. Occasionally Pacific
> Bahá'í communities were judged ineffective because such
> expectations were not met. The Solomon Islands colonial
> administration, for instance, anticipated a surge in membership
> in the Western Solomons following the conversion of Belshazzar
> Gina, providing that the Bahá'ís provided health and medical
> services equal to those run by the established mission societies.
> In similar vein, the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia warned the
> annual conference of the Melanesian Brotherhood in 1962 against
> "new sects" that had "no hospitals, no doctors or
> nurses, no schools and no teachers", and which were
> therefore "fruitless". Even census reports noted which
> religions were providing educational facilities.
> 
> Several Pacific Bahá'í
> communities persevered in the establishment of schools. Education
> was prized by all Islanders keen for their children to
> participate in the expanding possibilities beyond the village,
> and the Bahá'í writings emphasised the importance of education
> for both sexes. But this eagerness was frequently dampened by the
> lack of resources available within the Bahá'í community. On
> Malaita in the Solomon Islands, the Hau Hui Bahá'ís wanted a
> school, and were prepared to build it on land donated by Hamuel.
> 
> The desire of the first
> Bahá'í pioneers to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands to establish
> a school showed the extent to which the school was a contested
> site. All Gilbertese were anxious that their children receive
> adequate schooling. For Bahá'í parents, the need was
> particularly felt since mission schools, although funded by the
> administration, frequently refused to teach the children of
> Bahá'ís. Government educational facilities were, moreover,
> inadequate to meet demand. The danger that one's children might
> not become educated influenced some Bahá'í parents to recant
> their faith, but there were sufficient numbers to continue. The
> first Bahá'í school, at Tuarubu on Abaiang, had two government
> registered teachers and approximately 30 students. But
> disillusionment set in once Elena Fernie left in 1956, and some
> parents returned their boys to the Island's Catholic secondary
> school.
> 
> Four schools were
> established about the beginning of 1961, and by 1963 there were
> eight Bahá'í primary schools - in Abaiang, Tuarabu, Tabiteuea,
> Eita, Utiroa, Taku, Tabetuea. But this hardly constituted an
> "education system": schoolteachers were paid in
> coconuts; Abaiang school was held in the teacher Taam's house. In
> 1962 some Gilbertese by-passed the Regional Assembly and
> petitioned the United States National Assembly for assistance in
> building a Bahá'í college. The North American Assembly was
> told, after consulting the South Pacific Regional Assembly, that
> Islanders in such remote places held the notion that Americans
> had the means to solve all their problems; no college was built.
> 
> Application of Bahá'í
> Laws
> 
> As noted at the outset,
> Bahá'í beliefs were not necessarily antagonistic to custom, and
> some of the largest concentrations of Bahá'ís have emerged on
> islands such as Tanna in Vanuatu and Malaita in the Solomon
> Islands, where custom has remained particularly strong. This is
> not to say, on the other hand, that customary laws were in
> complete accord with Bahá'í laws, and some accommodations of
> the former to the latter have had to be made, in the application
> of Bahá'í laws in the Pacific context.
> 
> In Bahá'í communities in
> Western societies, the application of Bahá'í laws concerning
> alcohol and drugs, marriage, and political involvements were
> already well established: in the Pacific, new interpretations had
> to be established. Whereas the consumption of alcohol and
> habit-forming drugs is forbidden (the smoking of tobacco is
> tolerated), many Pacific Bahá'ís, both islanders and in some
> instances Europeans, suffered alcohol dependency, and Assemblies
> at local and regional level spent considerable energy determining
> the limits after which counselling ceased and administrative
> sanctions were applied. Similarly, whereas Bahá'í law only
> condones marriages between one man and one woman, to which all
> living parents grant their consent, relationships in Pacific
> cultures varied widely - often involving "companionate
> marriage" prior to formalities in order to establish the
> fertility of the couple, and in other instances approving of
> concubinage, or the taking of several spouses. Bahá'í laws were
> applied compassionately: new converts were granted extended
> periods in which to align their personal status with Bahá'í
> standards, and polygamous marriages contracted prior to
> conversion were not disbanded (although additional partners could
> not be acquired).
> 
> Bahá'ís do not become
> involved in partisan politics, believing that such systems are
> premised on conflict and cannot ultimately achieve social unity.
> The question as to what constituted "partisan politics"
> in the Pacific, however, remained open to examination. Islanders
> who became Bahá'ís continued their chiefly roles, and
> participation in customary offices was practised freely. For
> Bahá'ís of high rank, such as Pa Ariki Terito (d.1995), one of
> Raratonga's six Ariki, the pressure from kin to participate in
> emerging western-style political parties was undoubtedly
> considerable. Across the Pacific, several ambitious Bahá'ís
> withdrew from the community to do so.
> 
> The Bahá'í Teaching that
> the rights of women are equal to those of men constituted a
> significant challenge to Pacific Bahá'í communities. Dulcie
> Dive, a part-Maori New Zealander who arrived in Rarotonga, Cook
> Islands, in October 1953, and remained there until shortly before
> her death in 1962, wrote: "religion here has always been
> taught by men. It was a man who brought Christianity to the Cook
> Islands, not a woman. The people here will take religion from a
> man. Probably if I had had a husband the Faith may have been
> further advanced than just half hearted as it is at
> present". Both Dulcie Dive, and Gretta Jankko - a Finnish
> Bahá'í who arrived in the Marquesas from Canada in March 1954 -
> survived the brutal attacks of deranged young men. Ms Jankko was
> subsequently advised to leave the Marquesas, and had returned to
> Finland by February 1955.
> 
> Growth 1963-1992
> 
> David Barrett's
> "World Religious Statistics" in the 1988 Britannica
> Book of the Year (1988, p.303), enumerated 59,000 Bahá'ís
> in Oceania, but the exact size of Pacific Island Bahá'í
> populations remains hard to establish. In Kiribati, for instance,
> the 1985 national census indicated that 1503 Gilbertese, 2.38% of
> the total population of 63,045 were Bahá'ís, while a Bahá'í
> source, suggests a figure, in 1987, of 17.9%. In Tonga the
> proportion of the national population that are Bahá'í rose from
> 3.9% in 1983 to 6.3% in 1987. In Tuvalu the Bahá'í population
> rose in this period from 3% to 5.8%, and in the Marshall Islands,
> from 2% to 11.5%. Similar growth rates are reported in other
> Pacific nations, although poor progress in the French Overseas
> Territories (New Caledonia, Loyalty Islands, French Polynesia and
> the Marquesas Islands) and the Cook Islands (a Polynesian nation
> in free association with New Zealand), is so far without easy
> explanation.
> 
> In absolute terms, the
> Papua New Guinea Bahá'í Community has the largest membership in
> the Pacific, approximately 30,000. In addition to being a rapidly
> growing community, it is geographically dispersed: by 1991 there
> were Bahá'í Communities in 87 of the country’s 88
> districts, at least 3 LSAs in each of its 19 provinces, and a
> total of 259 LSAs nation-wide. In recent years the press has
> covered such activities as National Convention, participation of
> Papua New Guinean Bahá'ís in the Centenary of the passing of
> Bahá'u'lláh in Haifa and Akka, and a seminar on "work
> ethics and productivity" sponsored by the Port Moresby LSA.
> 
> National Communities
> 
> The Regional Spiritual
> Assembly of the South Pacific Islands, established in 1959,
> provided the basis for the subsequent emergence in 1964 of two
> Regional authorities, one based in Honiara, for the South West
> Pacific Ocean (Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Loyalty Is, New
> Hebrides); the other continuing in Suva, administering the South
> Pacific Ocean (Fiji, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Samoa, Tonga,
> Cook Islands, Nauru). From these regional bodies individual
> national Assemblies emerged between 1967 and 1985. By 1988 there
> were 730 Local Assemblies in Australasia and a total of 2,866
> localities. In 1992 these futures had risen to 876 and 4,094.
> 
> In the years 1964-1973
> national Bahá'í communities in the Pacific conducted
> individualised plans of action which combined goals for numeric
> growth, administrative consolidation, and the acquisition of
> physical infrastructure. Properties were acquired for
> Hazirat'ul-Quds, future Mashriqu'l-Adhkár sites,
> and endowments. The Pacific Bahá'ís undertook responsibility
> for raising almost half of the expected cost of these properties,
> with the Australian and New Zealand communities raising the
> remainder.
> 
> Considerable progress was
> made in Western Samoa. Head of State Malieatoa Tanumafili II,
> having received a formal presentation of the Bahá'í Teachings
> in 1967, quietly became a believer, and made his profession
> public in 1973. Land for a future Mashriqu'l-Adhkár
> (Houses of Worship) had been purchased in Apia in 1965, and the
> domed Maota Tapua'i Bahá'í I Samoa was completed in
> 1984. Close relations between the royal families of Western Samoa
> and Tonga, and the high chiefs of Fiji, have resulted in members
> of these families either becoming Bahá'ís, or having intimate
> knowledge of the Bahá'í Teachings. Of particular significance
> have been the visits to other Polynesian royal and chiefly
> families by Princess Tosi Malietoa, daughter of the Western
> Samoan monarch. In 1993 Sir Julius Chan (then deputy Prime
> Minister and now Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea), reported to
> Parliament on his visit to the Bahá'í World Centre while in
> Israel on state business. Amata Kabua, President of the Marshall
> Islands, is another government leader who has a close
> relationship with Bahá'í institutions nationally and
> internationally.
> 
> The institutions of the
> Learned
> 
> In addition to expansion
> of elected administrative bodies, the institutions of the
> appointed, or "learned", also grew. A three-member
> Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia was first
> appointed in 1968. The eleven members appointed in 1995 included
> the first Papua New Guinean member (Erama Ugaia), a Western
> Samoan (Afemata Moli Chang), and a Marshallese (Betra Majmeto).
> Although the first two Auxiliary Board members for the Pacific
> Islands appointed in 1954, were Australians, indigenous members
> were filling such positions within a decade. Samoan Bahá'í Niu
> Tuataga was appointed an Auxiliary Board member in 1964, and a
> Tongan Bahá'í, Mosese Hokafonu, in 1968. By 1968 the
> Australasian Auxiliary Board had 9 members; by 1986 it comprised
> eighty-one.
> 
> Official Recognition
> 
> In the 1980s the Bahá'í
> Faith received increasing official recognition by governments and
> agencies in the Pacific. In May 1981 the Pacific Conference of
> Churches sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General expressing its
> concern at the treatment of Bahá'ís in Iran. Since 1978 the
> Bahá'í International Community has participated in conferences
> of the South Pacific Commission, an inter-governmental body that
> promotes the economic and social well being and advancement of
> the peoples of the Pacific islands. In 1985 The Promise of
> World Peace was presented directly or indirectly to the
> leaders of most Pacific territories, and in 1986 Pacific Bahá'í
> communities were active participants in the International Year of
> Peace. The 18th Guam Legislature passed resolution 214
> "Relative to recognising the International Year of Peace as
> designated for 1986 by the United Nations, the promise of world
> peace as exemplified by the Bahá'í Faith, and acknowledging the
> importance of world peace to everyone.
> 
> Social and Economic
> Development
> 
> In the 1990s the Pacific
> Bahá'í Communities are focusing on community development as
> much as on expansion. Some Pacific traditions privilege male
> roles over female, or one ethnic group over others; and some
> Pacific states continue to lack the infrastructure and public
> policy to adequately promote education. The Bahá'í Communities
> therefore face the challenge of entering into dialogue with these
> traditions for the purpose of promoting racial and gender
> equality, and explaining and demonstrating the value of education
> for all children and youth of both sexes. A number of schools
> have been established, some through individual initiative, such
> as one at Middle Bush on Santo in northern Vanuatu. Others, such
> as a high school in Kiribati, are a joint venture between the
> Australian and New Zealand National Assemblies. In the Marshall
> Islands the Bahá'ís operate state schools under contract with
> the government.
> 
> Conclusion
> 
> This chapter commenced by
> pointing out that literature on Pacific Bahá'í Communities
> remains scant, and that such literature as does exist errs for
> the most part in either the presentation of facts, or in the
> presentation of the Faith’s origins, modus operanti, and
> aspirations. In then sketching a brief history of the Bahá'í
> Faith in various Pacific Islands, the chapter presents a view of
> these communities which suggests they have a clarity of purpose,
> and a coherence in administrative form and spiritual mission, as
> might be desired by any religious community seeking to establish
> itself permanently amongst societies that take matters of faith
> so seriously.
> 
> The Pacific Bahá'í
> Communities have emerged rapidly since the years of the World
> Crusade and have indigenised their institutions rapidly. They
> have expanded numerically despite resistance from some
> missionaries and petty colonial officialdom, and now represent
> the largest of the newer religious communities in a number of
> Pacific Island countries. Most significantly, they now constitute
> a strong moral force, capable of forming partnerships with other
> progressive Pacific communities that aspire to the preparation of
> these island nations for the challenges of the coming
> ‘Pacific century’.
> 
> Endnotes
> 
> Note: footnote numbers have been lost in this online version.
> 
> This paper was researched in the following government, mission,
> and Bahá'í archives: Papua New Guinea - PNG; Solomon
> Islands National Archives - SI; Church of Melanesia
> Archives, Solomon Islands National Archives - CM; Kiribati
> National Archives - KI; and New Zealand National Archives
> - NZ. Bahá'í Archives referred to are: Australia - ABA;
> Fiji - FBA; Kiribati - KBA; Samoa - SBA; and
> Vanuatu - VBA. Early sections of this paper adapt material
> presented in my "Pacific Bahá'í Communities
> 1950-1964", in Donald H. Rubinstein (ed), Pacific
> History: Papers from the 8th Pacific History Association
> Conference (Guam, 1992) 73-95. For additional material I am
> most grateful to the National Assemblies of the Bahá'ís of the
> Cook Islands, Kiribati, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands,
> Tonga, and Vanuatu.
> 
> See, eg, Leslie Newbigin, "The Great Encounter", Missionary
> Review August 1960, 11; Matthew Cooper, "Langalanga
> Religion", Oceania, xlii (1972) 2, 113; F.W.
> Coaldrake, Floodtide in the Pacific (Sydney, 1963);
> William L. Cook Pacific People Sing Out Strong (New York,
> 1982); Cliff D. Wright, Christ and Kiribati Cultures, Report
> of Workshop on Traditional Kiribati Culture and Christian Faith
> (Tarawa, 1981); Laumua Kofe, "Palagi and Pastors", in Tuvalu:
> A History (Suva, 1983), 120; Asasela Ravuvu, Vaka i
> Taukei: The Fijian Way of Life (Suva, 1983), 94; Baranite
> Kirata, "Spiritual Beliefs", in Kiribati: A Changing
> Atoll Culture (Suva, 1985); 83-84; Darrell Whiteman, Melanesians
> and Missionaries (Pasadena, California, 1983); Charles
> Forman, Island Churches of the South Pacific ( , ); Kunei
> Etekiera, "Te Aro, The New Religion", in Talu Alaima
> et al, Kiribati: Aspects of History, 43; H.P.
> Lundsgaarde, ‘Post-contact changes in Gilbertese maneaba
> organisation’, in W. N. Gunson (ed) The Changing Pacific:
> Essays in Honour of H.E. Maude (Melbourne, 1978), 75, and
> Howard van Trease (ed), Atoll Politics: The Republic of
> Kiribati (Suva, 1993). In 1975 Crocombe suggested mentioned
> Bahá'í missionaries in his list of "foreigners" whose
> activities in the Pacific Islands required considerable analysis:
> Ron Crocombe, Missionaries: sacred and secular, Association for
> Social Anthropology in Oceania, Symposium on mission activities
> in Oceania, March 1975 (University of the South Pacific Library).
> More detailed accounts appear in Irene Williams, "The
> Bahá'í Faith", in E. Afeaki (et al), Religious
> Co-operation in the Pacific Islands (Suva, 1983); and Teeruro
> Ieuti, The Kiribati Protestant Church and the New Religious
> Movements 1860-1985 (Suva, 1992). Most recent statistics
> appear in Manfred Ernst, Winds of Change: Rapidly Growing
> Religious Groups in the Pacific Islands (Suva, 1994).
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh's chief doctrines centre on the imperative of
> achieving world peace. He articulated religious values and social
> and political mechanisms conducive to the rehabilitation of the
> fortunes of what he termed the prevailing "lamentably
> defective" world order. He claimed that all religious
> revelation has had one common, divine source; that the evolution
> of human society through successive stages of social and
> political complexity has necessitated a progressive unfoldment of
> such divine guidance; and that the Judaic, Christian, Islamic,
> and even Buddhist and Hindu epochs are complementary, rather than
> conflicting, components of Divine Revelation. Bahá'u'lláh's
> texts have been printed individually in English translation, as
> well as in compilations, eg, Writings of Bahá'u'lláh: a
> compilation, (New Delhi, 1986), 717pp. His epistles to
> European leaders are collected in The Proclamation of
> Bahá'u'lláh (Haifa, 1972).
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh's "Covenant" with his followers is the
> fundamental source of unity within the Bahá'í community. It
> requires obedience to the written word of Bahá'u'lláh, and this
> implies recognition of the authority he conferred on
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá in his Will and Testament. This same authority
> 'Abdu'l-Bahá subsequently conferred on Shoghi Effendi, whom he
> named "Guardian" of the Bahá'í Faith. When the
> hereditary institution of Guardianship ceased (Shoghi Effendi and
> his Canadian-born wife Mary Maxwell [Ruhiyyih Khanum] had no
> children), authority over the Bahá'í community transferred to
> the Universal House of Justice, an elected body of nine members
> residing in Haifa, Israel, which was first elected in 1963. As
> this transfer of authority was explicitly anticipated in the
> texts of Bahá'u'lláh, and since attempts to usurp it are deemed
> illegitimate in advance, the unity of the world-wide community is
> assured.
> 
> Letter from the Guardian to an individual Bahá'í, August 11,
> 1933, in Helen Hornby (comp.), Lights of Guidance (New
> Delhi, 1983), 8.
> 
> Message from the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá'ís of
> the World, Naw-Rúz 1974, in Helen Hornby (comp.), Lights of
> Guidance (New Delhi, 1983), 4.
> 
> See Graham Hassall, "Outpost of a World Religion: the
> Bahá'í Faith in Australia 1920-1947", Journal of
> Religious History, 16 (1991) 3, 315-338.
> 
> Idris Hussein, of Islamic Ahmadiyah background, narrowly escaped
> with his life when he became a Bahá'í in 1956: "Now my
> father-in-law, backed up by others, planned to kill me. This was
> well planned. The secret of this planning was brought to my
> attention by a remarkable youth named Shyam Nand, who later
> joined the Faith. It was at his home that this darksome deed was
> devised." Letter to the author 31 December 1986. Z Khan The
> Early History of the Bahá'í Faith in Fiji (n.d.) and Idris
> H. & I. Williams, History of the Bahá'í Faith in Fiji -
> the Family of Zaitoon Bibi, "Suva", FBA. Nur
> Ali, the first Bahá'í in Fiji, was a well known and respected
> public servant in Suva. He died in January 1962 and had the first
> Bahá'í funeral in Fiji. His obituary appeared in the Fiji
> Times, 27 January 1962.
> 
> Star
> of the West 11:9, Spring (August) 1920, 152.
> 
> Bahá'í
> World 1946-50, 492.
> 
> Ms Drollette lived with the Boschs in California between 1922 and
> 1924; her father visited the Bahá'ís in San Francisco: Star
> of the West 15:6, September 1924, 178.
> 
> Loulie A. Mathews, The Outposts of a World Religion, n.p.
> n.d. (after 1935), 11pp.
> 
> In the Mariana Islands, Bahá'ís in the U.S. armed forces were
> stationed on Saipan (Joseph F. Peter, of Chicago), Tinian (Paul
> Pettit, of Bucyrus, Ohio) and Jo Tierno, of New York; Ernest A.
> Thayer, of Chicago, visited Eniwetok then Guam in April-May 1945:
> Bahá'í World 1944-46,.455-6.
> 
> There is evidence that a Sergeant Wall of the US Marines had
> given a Bahá'í pamphlet known as the "No 9 pamphlet"
> to some Malaitans (communication from Bruce Saunders, 7 March
> 1993.) A Malaitan Bahá'í, Shebuel Mauala, wrote to Gertrude
> Blum on 1 May 1960: "I want to ask you about one book call
> the Bahá'í World Faith. Big one because I meet a man who [is] a
> teacher for the SSEM a big teacher but he said he see this book
> from Mr Grifas [Griffiths] a white man about 20 years ago or 30
> years." ("ITC 1960" - Honiara).
> 
> Excerpt of letter from NSA of the United States, 24 July 1953.
> "ATC Corresp. with NSAs and ATCs 1953-1959", ABA
> 0141/0038.
> 
> In some instances these plans were changed to meet
> practicalities. In one case, an Australian, Lilian Wyss, whose
> contract to work in the Solomon Islands was cancelled when her
> prospective employers saw a sensationalised press article about
> her plans, moved instead to Western Samoa. At the same the
> Iranian and Australian Bahá'ís swapped responsibilities for the
> Solomon Islands and Mentawai Islands respectively, when Persian
> Bahá'ís were unable to enter the former but obtained visas for
> the latter destination: a Persian doctor and his wife entered
> Indonesia, while an American couple who had been living in New
> Zealand moved to Honiara. Lilian Wyss reported "Alvin Blum
> said I should to the newspaper interview, and if something went
> wrong, he and Gertrude would go to the Solomons in my place. The
> Blums then left for the Delhi Conference, I had the interview,
> and a day after it came out in the newspaper, I had my job
> cancelled, with two months wages in lieu of cancellation. I
> cabled the Blums that the Solomons were waiting for them!".
> Lillian Ala'i (nee Wyss), Interview, Sydney, 6 March 1984.
> 
> Territories to which no Bahá'ís had previously travelled were
> called "virgin", and territories in which Bahá'í
> communities previously or presently exist were called
> "consolidation" areas. Of the first 29 pioneers, 18
> were female, twelve were without spouses. There were five married
> couples. Of the 19 single pioneers, three married while in the
> Pacific. This first group of 29 included nine Australians, eight
> North Americans, four New Zealanders, four Europeans (Norway,
> Holland and France), two Indians of Persian descent, and two
> Central Americans (from North America). Shoghi Effendi gave all
> pioneers who arrived at "virgin" goals between April
> 1953 and April 1954 the title "Knight of
> Bahá'u'lláh", in recognition of their service. This title
> was also subsequently given to the first pioneers to reach virgin
> goals after April 1954. By 1963 21 Knights of Bahá'u'lláh had
> been named for Pacific territories.
> 
> In reply to a survey concerning pioneering undertaken in 1962
> Irene Jackson observed: "The pioneers in the region had no
> special training, and had simply answered Shoghi Effendi's call.
> Their first task had been to learn the lifestyle of the people
> among whom they settled", Regional Assembly to Bill Maxwell,
> 29 July 1962, "Regional Spiritual Assembly", FBA.
> 
> Mrs Dobbins established Nur School in August 1954. It had over 30
> pupils and full co-operation from the British Education Office
> and successive Resident Commissioners, although most families
> were too poor to pay student fees: see Bahá'í News,
> November 1959. Forman is incorrect in stating that "Bahá'í
> started a school in Vila about 1960": Charles W. Forman,
> "Missionaries and Colonialism: the case of the New Hebrides
> in the Twentieth Century," Journal of Church and State
> 14 (1972) 1, 77.
> 
> Vi Hoehnke subsequently lived for periods in Port Moresby,
> Samarai, Rabaul, Wewak, and Goroka before retiring in the
> mid-1970s at Mt Hagen in the Western Highlands. After many years
> in Rabaul, Hancock moved to Kimbe, further south on New Britain.
> ‘Memoirs of Knight of Bahá'u'lláh Vi Hoehnke’, mss,
> n.d. (possession of the author).
> 
> These included the town's first bakery, dry cleaner, soft drink
> bottler, ice cream manufacturer, and movie house - in addition to
> a taxi service, motel, among other enterprises on Guadalcanal and
> later on Malaita. Blum's success on Malaita was noted by Ross:
> "In 1967 a Bahá'í businessman opened a store in Auki, the
> Malaita district administrative center, as the nucleus of a
> development that has expanded to include a cinema and small
> hotel", Harold M. Ross, "Competition for Baegu Souls:
> Mission Rivalry on Malaita, Solomon Islands", in James
> Boutilier (et al, eds), Mission, Church, and Sect in Oceania,
> (Ann Arbor, Michigan 1978) 165.
> 
> National Bahá'í communities charged with sending pioneers to
> Pacific goals established committees to co-ordinate their
> placement, and to screen prospective pioneers: The United States
> National Assembly established an International Teaching Committee
> in addition to an "Asia Teaching Committee"
> (newsletter: Newsgram); Canada established a "New
> Territories Committee" (Round Robin); Australia and New
> Zealand established an "Asian Teaching Committee"
> (Koala News); South America established an "Asia Committee
> of South America"; India, Pakistan and Burma established an
> "Asia Teaching Committee"; Iran established an
> "Asia and Pacific Committee of Iran". Candidates whose
> health appeared deficient, or whose means of material support
> appeared meagre, were not encouraged to proceed, although since
> pioneering was voluntary, and no-one was under contract or under
> obligation to remain for any set period, such screening was not
> binding. A "Continental Pioneer Committee" for
> Australasia was first appointed in 1965.
> 
> RSA secretary to RSA members 7 June 1962, "Percival", SBA.
> 
> Marcia Atwater, an American school teacher, entered in August
> 1954, but had little contact with the Marshallese before she left
> in March 1955. Betty Llaas was present March 1956 to July 1959,
> then Murial Snay from August 1957 to June 1959. In 1960, no
> Bahá'ís remained: NSA of the United States to RSA, 17 July
> 1960, "NSA of USA", FBA.
> 
> Secretary, Government of Western Samoa to Secretary, Department
> of Island Territories, Wellington, 18 September 1953. Island
> Territories series 1/69/63. File LMN 1/10. NZ. Edith
> Danielson, unable to enter Western Samoa, later settled in the
> Cook Islands. Ironically, the head of state of Western Samoa,
> Malieatoa Tanumafilii II, was later to become the first reigning
> monarch in any part of the world to become a Bahá'í.
> 
> International Teaching Centre to all pioneers, 7 December, 1953.
> possession Vi Hoehnke.
> 
> On 29 March 1949 the District Officer, Gilbert Islands District,
> reported to the Secretary to Government the efforts of Bishop
> Terrienne to suppress Catholic involvement in maneaba activities
> "His Lordship was asked, recently, the reasons for his more
> latterly change of attitude towards these traditional Gilbertese
> dances [batere, ruoia, kamei] and he replied that, although
> batere in itself may not be a pagan practice there is a tendency
> for natives to undergo certain magic rites in order that they
> might perform well at the dance and so attract the attention of a
> member of the opposite sex....His Lordship has announced that
> maneaba are places of evil and that converts to Roman Catholicism
> should not frequent them. KI, 41/2.
> 
> 14 December 1954, in Graham Hassall (ed), Messages to the
> Antipodes: Communications from Shoghi Effendi to Australasia
> (Mona Vale, forthcoming).
> 
> Teeruro Ieuti, The Kiribati Protestant Church and the New
> Religious Movements 1860-1985, (Suva, 1992), 101. For detail
> see chap. 3: "The Bahá'í World Faith".
> 
> The
> Bahá'í World, 1954-63, 612, 1109, cited in Ieuti, 101.
> 
> At a record of discussion held at Honiara on 22 April 1953, for
> instance, concerning education in the GEIC, attended by the High
> Commissioner of the Western Pacific, the Resident Commissioner of
> the GEIC, and other colonial officials, the High Commissioner
> "expressed the hope that the Colony Government would be able
> to persuade the Sacred Heart Mission to accept responsibility for
> the establishment of island type schools in predominantly Roman
> Catholic Islands, rather than compete with Government in the
> establishment of Island Schools elsewhere: KI, 42/6/3.
> 
> Gordon W. Groves, Biography of Peter Kanere Koru, mss, June 1983
> (Possession Ben Ayala, Hawaii). Lundsgaarde has suggested that,
> in the case of the Gilbert Islands, the arrival of Seventh Day
> Adventists, the Church of God of South Carolina, the Bahá'ís,
> and Methodists, had "to some extent resulted in lessening of
> negative feelings between adherents of the two principal
> missions", but that in the 1960s most Gilbertese Protestants
> and Catholics continued to regard these groups as
> "pagan": Henry P. Lundsgaarde, Social Change in the
> Southern Gilbert Islands: 1938-1964, mss. Dept. of Anthropology,
> University of Oregon, 41.
> 
> D. Clifton-Bassett to the Assistant Administrator, Port Moresby
> 14 July 1956. 53 - 68/12/2. PNG.
> 
> Confidential Minutes of District Commissioners' Conference 27th
> to 29th July 1955. 12/1/16. BSIP Records, SI.
> 
> In October 1953 Australians Gladys Parke and Gretta Lamprill
> arrived in Papeete, Tahiti, on visas valid for three months and
> renewable for a further five, but not renewable for more than
> eight months in any one year. Neither spoke fluent French, and
> had vague plans to move on to the Tuamotu Archipelago once their
> visas expired. They returned to Tahiti four times. Efforts to
> remain in New Caledonia were as difficult: Margaret Rowling, an
> Australian, resided in Noumea from April to November 1954.
> Another Australian, Bill Washington, sought to establish a
> photographic business in Noumea in 1955 but his visa was not
> renewed and he was obliged to leave. A Persian family was among
> the pioneers who later settled for a more extended period in New
> Caledonia: Shahpur Sohaili, "Pioneering In New Caledonia
> During the Ten Year Crusade", mss, 1993, possession of the
> author.
> 
> Consequently it was a French Tahitian of recent commitment and
> poor instruction, Daniel Haumont, who won the honour of being the
> first Bahá'í to visit the Loyalty Islands - although in less
> than saintly circumstances. Having himself become a Bahá'í in
> Tahiti in 1953, Haumont stayed on one of the Loyalty Islands for
> two weeks from 11 October 1953, before declaring he could not
> "make his life there" and returning to Tahiti and on to
> the West Indies. Solomon Islands Bahá'í John Mills visited the
> island briefly in August 1957 to learn that Haumont had not
> mentioned his religion to anyone.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi, Messages to the Bahá'í World, 106.
> 
> Comprising the Bahá'ís of Muri and Arorangi villages.
> 
> Charles Forman, Island Churches of the South Pacific, 200.
> 
> Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, (Wilmette,
> 1938), XI-XII.
> 
> Acceptance of the Bahá'í Faith is not accompanied by ritual or
> ceremony, individuals simply "declare" their belief in
> Bahá'u'lláh and their willingness to observe Bahá'í law, and
> sign an administrative card. There is no set procedure to prepare
> initiates, and essential concepts are usually acquired through
> participation in the community's activities prior to joining.
> Study of Bahá'í history, teachings and philosophy are integral
> parts of the calendar of Bahá'í communities worldwide,
> irrespective of culture.
> 
> "The need in the
> Caroline Islands is hampered by the government code which
> prevents its employees supporting any particular religion. Yet
> the natives say "when will you send us pioneers?"
> Single male pioneers should go there and live among the natives
> in patience. Guam is the center of education for natives in the
> entire area. If taught there, they will return
> to their homes with the message...", Bahá'í News
> 328:12, June 1958.
> 
> See Graham Hassall, "The Failure of the Tommy Kabu Movement:
> a reassessment of the evidence", Pacific Studies,
> 14:2, March, 1991. Kabu's conversion is noted by J.K. Parratt,
> "Religious Change in Port Moresby", Oceania, XLI
> (1970) 2.
> 
> From conversation with Suhayl Ala'i, Suva, 9 July 1986.
> 
> Tippett has suggested that the theme of "unity of the human
> race" was crucial to Hoahania's conversion: Alan Tippett, Solomon
> Islands Christianity, 98.
> 
> "The Bahá'í Faith became operative in these islands at the
> beginning of the 1960s. Since then, the Bahá'í have worked most
> successfully among those who were only nominal Christians,
> converting them to the Bahá'í faith. When Christianity was
> first brought to the islands, some opposition was presented by
> the islanders, probably influenced to some extent by European
> traders who had long been established in the area. The Bahá'í
> faith when it was introduced to the islands encountered a similar
> suspicion, but this time it was not opposition from the traders
> but from the Christian churches which had already become
> successfully rooted in the Kiribati culture." Baranite
> Kirata, "Spiritual Beliefs", in Kiribati: A Changing
> Atoll Culture (Suva, 1985) 83.
> 
> Peter Kaltoli Napakaurana, ‘Testimonies of Pacific Islanders
> as to how they heard of the Faith’, National Spiritual
> Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Vanuatu, 3 December 1993, Vila,
> Vanuatu.
> 
> Review of Politico-Religious Trends in the British Solomon
> Islands Protectorate" (March 1959), BSIP FSC 3, vol 1. List
> 21.IX. SI.
> 
> Gina was educated in New Zealand under the sponsorship of John
> Goldie, chairman of the Western Solomon Islands Western District.
> His mobilisation of Solomon Islanders in support of better work
> conditions in the 1950s antagonised the paternalistic British
> administration: Colin Alen, District Commissioner, Western
> Solomons, 19 March 1947, 11/SG/47 BSIP List 4. C91 SI. For
> one version of events see G. C. Carter, Yours in His Service:
> A Reflection on the Life and Times of Reverend Belshazzar Gina of
> Solomon Islands (Honiara, 1990), 76.
> 
> Another well known Fijian religious figure, Ratu Emosi, hosted
> the Bahá'ís who visited Suva in April 1959 for the formation of
> the Regional Spiritual Assembly. Emosi, who was then studying
> Bible prophecy, and who translated a Bahá'í pamphlet
> "Prophecy Fulfilled" into Fijian, later gained
> notoriety for his religious practices, and eventually died in a
> mental asylum.
> 
> The Methodist District missionary, Ben Chenoweth, complained that
> the administration took "little or no trouble over the
> matter": Chenoweth to Lutton, 1 July 1958, op. cit. His
> article on the matter appeared as "Another Sect in New
> Guinea: Bahá'ís and their teachings", The Missionary
> Review, December 1958. According to Mazakmat the District
> Education Officer, Brashford, discouraged involvement in a new
> religion but a New Patrol Officer, Collins, encouraged him.
> Newman, the Education Officer at Kavieng, informed Mazakmat that
> the United Nations allowed "freedom of worship" and
> consequently that "...no-one should stop you from believing
> in what you want." Interview, 1986.
> 
> Patrol officers watched the impact of Bahá'í closely. An
> excerpt on the Bahá'ís from the District of New Ireland's half
> yearly report, (October 1958), was placed in a "Native
> Thought File", T.G. Aitchison, "Native Thought
> File", 18 February 1959. New Ireland District. 13913 -
> 51/1/9. TPNG records, PNG.
> 
> Irene Jackson to RSA members, 1962, "Percival", FBA.
> 
> A
> Police report of 30 July 1958 noted a letter from Alvin Blum to
> Waeparo, which had been intercepted by government headman
> Puhanikeni, who had "seen that Mr Blum wants to bring the
> Bahá'í to Takataka. The people thinking that this religion will
> help them for some reason as tax. The people at Takataka were
> waiting for this religion", Police Patrol Report, 15 July
> 1958, CF/DA/13/5. BSIP List 12/III. SI.
> 
> Gertrude Blum reported that this had the opposite effect, as SSEM
> members were themselves becoming dis-enchanted with inter-mission
> squabbling. Hau Hui LSA wrote "eating with Mrs Blum they are
> very glad because for many years the European can't eat with any
> native person. So that is why they are very glad to see the Faith
> of Bahá'u'lláh for this new age on our island Malaita. Some
> want the Faith and some want to break the Faith but it is very
> hard for them because this is the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh...last
> month two Europeans from Christian Faith talk against the Faith
> and they say the Bahá'í Faith is not in many countries - just
> only Holy Land, America, India, Australia and Fiji...Hau Hui
> Local Assembly 8 October 1962 in letter to Regional Assembly
> Members 7 June 1963(?), "Percival", FBA.
> 
> The British administration expressed to pioneer Bertha Dobbins
> its surprise that a young, inexperienced, and American, member,
> would be allowed to visit such an unpredictable environment: Paul
> Slaughter to RSA 16 June 1962, "Percival", FBA.
> 
> NSA South Pacific to NSA Australia, 17 January 1966. 0045/0012.
> 
> Koala
> News 24 April 1956, 2; 62:April 1959, 3; Australian
> Bahá'í Bulletin May 1956, 4; July 1958, 2; May 1959, 2;
> September 1959, 9.
> 
> Interview, Kimbe, New Britain, 12 December 1986.
> 
> The difficulties of inter-island travel, for instance, meant that
> few Islander delegates attended. The return trip from GEIC took
> three months in 1959 and Gilbertese delegates who attended the
> 1962 convention spent two weeks on a small vessel on each leg of
> the journey, in addition to two months spent in Suva after
> convention waiting for the boat.
> 
> "Regional Spiritual Assembly", FBA.
> 
> Regional Assembly to Hands of the Cause, 12 May 1959, "World
> Centre of the Faith - General Correspondence", FBA.
> 
> Thus concern in the early years of the nine year plan for
> additional pioneers who could assist in the formation of local
> assemblies, in preparation for the establishment of more National
> bodies: NSA South Pacific to NSA Australia, 4 February 1966.
> 0045/0012.
> 
> Dulcie Dive died in 1962. Nui Tuataga replaced her on the
> Regional Assembly through a bi-election.
> 
> V. Lee to ITC Samoa, 19 November 1962. "ITC File 1962",
> SBA.
> 
> 23 June 1962, folder (no title), KBA.
> 
> New Hebrides ITC to RSA 1 April 1961, ITC Minute Book 1960-61, VBA.
> 
> "Inter-Island Teaching Conference 19022 July 1962", ITC
> Minute Book 1960, "RSA of the Bahá'ís of the South
> Pacific", VBA.
> 
> Irene Williams wrote " I had no idea of the work expected of
> me, or how long I had to stay, what the situation was like in
> Fiji, and whether I would be able to cope, or would I be like the
> other white people working there and consider myself superior and
> keep aloof. I had the ideals, but what about the practice of them
> in my own life? These were my fears and thoughts as I flew
> overnight by flying boat via Noumea and then on to Laucala Bay,
> Suva. The Guardian had written that he wanted the pioneers to be
> at their posts by 21st March, 1954. I arrived at 4pm on that very
> day", mss, 1985.
> 
> "Review of Politico-Religious Trends", (March 1959),
> BSIP FSC 3, vol 1. List 21.IX. SI.
> 
> F2.1. Bishop's Correspondence, Melanesian Brotherhood 1958-64, CM.
> 
> For instance, a report on "Religion" in the 1978
> Kiribati census notes of the newer groups "...beginning with
> the Seventh Day Adventist Mission in 1947, other churches
> established centres in the Gilberts: the Church of God in the
> Gilbert Islands (1957), the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís
> (1967), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
> (1975) were registered, and in 1978 claimed between them the
> adherence of a little under 5% of the population. All except the
> Bahá'ís are also involved in providing some formal education to
> children in Kiribati": Eric E. Bailey, Republic of
> Kiribati. Report on the 1978 census of Population and Housing,
> vol. III, Ministry of Home Affairs and Decentralization,
> Bairiki, Tarawa, 1983, p.97-98.
> 
> Kiribati:
> A Changing Atoll Culture (Suva, 1985), p83, is incorrect in
> stating that the "Bahá'í Faith became operative in these
> islands at the beginning of the 1960s".
> 
> NSA South Pacific to the Universal House of Justice, 16 July
> 1966. 0045/0012. ABA
> 
> Mabel Sneider complained of some Gilbertese Bahá'ís that
> "they do not know enough to want to suffer for the
> Faith", ITC of the GEIC to RSA 15 July 1962,
> "Percival", FBA.
> 
> Regional Assembly to the United States National Assembly,
> "NSA OF RSA"; Regional Assembly to Bill Maxwell,
> "Regional Spiritual Assembly", FBA.
> 
> RSA To Hands of the Cause, 28 July 1961, "World Centre of
> the Faith - General Correspondence"; ITC GEIC to RSA 13 July
> 1962, "Percival", FBA.
> 
> Regional Assembly to United States National Assembly, 31 May
> 1962, "NSA of USA", FBA. According to Ieuto,
> "The Bahá'ís could not continue these schools as they did
> not get approval from the Universal House of Justice, and in the
> late 1950s they were closed down": The Kiribati
> Protestant Church, 101. This statement is not correct: the
> Universal House of Justice was only formed in 1963. Furthermore,
> as has been shown, the schools continued into the 1960s: another
> explanation for their closure must be sought.
> 
> When asked about the application of Bahá'í marriage laws, the
> Hands of the Cause in the Holy Land replied that, in the case of
> African Bahá'ís, the Guardian had decided that "actions
> taken prior to a person becoming a Bahá'í, contrary to the ways
> of Bahá'í life, need not be changed...we have no right to
> request any change in the situation surrounding common law
> marriage. Hands to RSA 1 January 1961, "World Centre of the
> Faith", FBA.
> 
> Cook Islands News 16 June 1964 listed all 6 Rarotongan Ariki as
> being on the newly formed Cook Islands Party Central Committee:
> David Stone, Self-Rule in the Cook Islands: The Government and
> Politics of a New Micro-State, PhD, Australian National
> University, 1971, 39-40.
> 
> D. Dive to S Percival 5 May 1962, "Percival", SBA.
> 
> Kiribati, Statistics
> Office, Ministry of Finance, Bulletin No. 3/85, 1985 Population
> Census, 25 September 1985.
> 
> Bahá'í News, July
> 87, 4.
> 
> Times of Papua New
> Guinea 7 May, 1992, p5.
> 
> Times of Papua New
> Guinea 28 May, 1992, p 19; 18 June 1992, p22.
> 
> Post Courier, 11
> July 1995; 19 July, 1995.
> 
> The South-West Pacific Assembly devolved into the National
> Spiritual Assemblies of the Solomon Islands (1971), New Caledonia
> and Loyalty Islands (1977), and New Hebrides (1977); and the
> South Pacific Assembly devolved into the National Spiritual
> Assemblies of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (1967), Fiji (1970),
> Samoa (1970), Tonga and Cook Islands (1970), and finally, the
> Cook Islands (1985). The National Spiritual Assembly of Papua New
> Guinea was established in 1969. In the North Pacific, National
> Spiritual Assemblies were established in the Marshall Islands
> (1977), Mariana Islands (1978), Western Caroline Islands (Yap
> & Belau - 1985) and Eastern Caroline Islands (Truk, Pohnpei,
> Kosrae - 1985).
> 
> Universal House of
> Justice, The Six Year Plan 1986-1992: Summary of Achievements
> (Haifa, 1993, 114.
> 
> NSA South Pacific to NSA Australia, 22 October 1964. (0045/0012)
> 
> Michael Day, "A Beacon of Unity", Tusitala,
> Autumn, 1985, 32-33.
> 
> Hansard, 11 August
> 1993. Sir Julius said ‘I feel that, as a Christian nation,
> we need to have closer ties with the roots of our religion. My
> delegation also visited the Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa,
> Israel’s third largest city, where I also held talks with
> members of the Universal House of Justice, the supreme decision
> making body of the world Bahá'í community.’ Following this
> visit the Universal House of Justice cabled: ‘Delighted
> inform friends visit Bahá'í World Centre 12 June 1993 Sir
> Julius Chan Deputy Prime Minister Papua New Guinea accompanied by
> Lady Chan during course official visit Israel highly significant
> that Universal House of Justice met with Sir Julius Chan in
> response to his request for consultation on future role Papua New
> Guinea as emerging nation and on destiny Pacific nations set
> example unity mutual cooperation Sir Julius expressed
> appreciation achievements Bahá'í community and admiration
> Bahá'í approach personal social transformation meeting with Sir
> Julius Chan following earlier meetings Prime Minister Cook
> Islands and President Marshall islands further evidence
> remarkable response Pacific leaders principles Bahá'í Faith
> harbinger future application by world statesmen prescription
> divine physician healing manifold ills humanity.
> 
> These Board Members, appointed by Clara Dunn, were Collis
> Featherstone and Thelma Perks.
> 
> Between 1973 and 1986 the Propagation Board expanded from 36 to
> 45, and the Protection Board from 27 to 36.
> 
> Eighteenth Guam Legislature, 1985 ((first) Regular Session.
> Resolution No. 214 (LS), 29 November 1985.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views49342 views since posted 2000-01; last edit 2025-01-20 16:36 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../hassall_bahai_pacific;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
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> — *Pacific Baha'i Communities 1950-1964 (Used by permission of the curator)*