Religion and Proto-Nationalism:
Apelis Mazakmat and 'traces of mild sectarian strife' in New Ireland

by Graham Hassall

      When, in January 1950, a young acting district officer reported "traces of mild sectarian strife" in the Nalik and Noatsi tribal areas of New Ireland, he was partly correct: the trouble was secular, as much as sectarian, in nature.[1-3] Forces of social and political change were being felt on the island, and the status-quo was endangered. European missionaries who had for a generation exerted their authority at village level in matters of education, leadership, transport, communications, religion and morals, were being challenged by semi-literate, and vaguely discontent New Irelanders, who, having seen a wider world during the years of World War II, knew what they opposed, even if they could not always articulate in English their world-view and aspirations. Colonial administrators, for their part, held differing views on how best to guide and control the processes of social and political development. This paper examines the quest of missionaries, administrators, and New Irelanders, for power and influence in the affairs of Madina village, New Ireland, during a period of rapid social change that saw the decline of hegemonic colonial interests, and the emergence of the desire for self-rule by an indigenous, proto-nationalist class.

      Religious strife was not new to New Ireland. Separate Christian communities had developed in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Methodists established their first stations on New Britain and New Ireland in 1875, and Catholic stations were established soon after, in 1881 and 1901.[4] Rivalry between the missions was so intense that the German administration (1899-1914) had attempted to "zone" mission activity on New Britain, and on New Ireland it prevented Catholic settlement at Kavieng, the only port for the island, until 1912.[5] In 1949 New Ireland's population of 33,274 was almost equally distributed in Catholic and Methodist membership, except for the St Matthias population of several thousand Seventh Day Adventists.[6] In the 1950s, five of the eleven villages in the Nalik census division had only Catholic adherents, and six had only Methodist.[7] Thus, just like other areas of Melanesia, missionary societies had developed potentially "theocratic" environments, in which belief was prescribed by location, and correct allegiance secured access to such mission facilities as schools, clinics, and wage labour on mission plantations.[8]

      This arrangement suited the Australian administration. According to Hasluck, minister for External Territories, the government preferred that missionary work be carried out

      with the backing of recognized churches or well-established missionary societies, which have the resources and the organization to ensure that the mission work will be continuous and well-supported, and that it will be carried out by qualified and experienced staff,

and that it cater for

      the material welfare of the people by conducting schools, clinics, gardens or similar activities, as well as preaching the Gospel to them...[9]

      The larger, well-established Catholic and Protestant mission societies executed this government policy effectively. At Lemakot, the Catholic mission had schools, medical facilities, a nursing school, primary school and vocational and technical training (male and female), and a trade store. In addition the mission sold fuel and sawn timber, and employed trained nurses, drivers, storekeepers, and general labourers.[10] At Noatsi, the Catholic station consisted of the Priest's house, a church, trade store, copra drier, and lighting plant, which provided village street lighting.[11] Mission plantations employed more labour in Nalik division than did commercial plantations.[12]

      Medical facilities were provided by the Catholics at Lemakot, and by the Methodists at Kimidan, and both missions provided welfare clinics which toured the villages.[13] The Catholic education system on New Ireland included nine expatriate staff and two hundred and twenty five indigenous teachers. Students who showed promise at village schools went to Vunapope on New Britain for further training. Similarly, the Methodists employed four expatriate and eighty indigenous teachers, and their best students graduated to area schools at Liga or Kimidan.[14] Without the missions on New Ireland, the burden of providing such services in Kara District, according to one Patrol Officer, would have been 'intolerable'.[15]

      Government education facilities on New Ireland at that time were minimal. The District School (Utu) at Kavieng had fifty boarders, and four Area Schools (including one at Madina) schooled approximately two-hundred day students and boarders: government school facilities for just 250 students was indeed meagre infrastructure for the island's population of some thirty-five thousand people.[16]

      With the administration so dependent on mission schooling, colonial officials generally co-operated with the numerous mission societies, and listened sympathetically to complaints by missionaries about interference in their work. Thus, when discontent appeared in Nalik division, patrol officer Downs was commended for dealing with "sectarian strife" by supporting the "official group of each mission" and maintaining the "status quo".[17] But whereas the Australian administration recognized the inevitability of sectarian episodes, it refrained from establishing "zones", or spheres of influence for missions to work in. It intended that missionary influence be pervasive but not absolute: it knew that the religious rivalry led to the expansion, through competition, of mission-sponsored educational and medical facilities, and that rivalry also helped to erode the "theocratic" atmosphere that had prevailed in some regions of Papua New Guinea since the beginning of the twentieth century.

      To the European missionaries in the Nalik area, Apelis Mazakmat (1920-1986) epitomized the post-war "native trouble-maker". Neither Ben Chenoweth, at the Methodist station at Liga, near Kavieng, nor Kevin Fleming, one of six Irish priests who arrived in the Territory in July 1947, recently posted to the Catholic station at Logagon, could claim control over Mazakmat, head teacher at the government's area school at Madina: he had a Catholic mother, Bolames, and a Methodist father, Minisaup, and had relatives in both Logagon and Munawai villages. After education at Utu Intermediate School at Kavieng, 1932-38, and teacher training at Malaguna 1939-40, Mazakmat taught at Madang Government School, 1941-42. At the outbreak of World War II he joined a group of soldiers and missionaries who escaped the Japanese by trekking for six months from Bogia to Mt Hagen. He then joined the Police Force, and was a clerk-in-charge of an ANGAU stores and supplies branch at Goroka, 1943-June 1944.[18]

      Following the war, Mazakmat had further teacher training under ANGAU's education program at Sogeri, 1944-46, and again (under the new Department of Education) in 1948. In that year he proved his ability by being one of the few students to achieve top marks in a clerk's test at Sogeri.[19] While in the colonial capital he also attended lectures on local government by John Black, whose role as Director of Policy Planning and Research included acquainting "emergent native leaders" with the administration's welfare and development policies. Although a "nationalist" consciousness had not yet surfaced among Melanesians - arguably, even the most educated struggled at that time to identify with their fellow Papuans or New Guineans, much less with the population of both Territories - there existed a kind of "proto-nationalism", a "nativism", which included an increasing sense of individualism, and a strong desire to retain tradition while stripping from it laws and customs that hindered social and economic advancement. Mazakmat was most probably introduced to Black by Advent Tarossi, whose role, as Black's assistant, was to convey to such people as Mazakmat innovative plans in such areas as local government, the establishment of co-operatives, small businesses, cash cropping, and facilities for expanded educational activities.[20]

      Mazakmat returned to teach at Kavieng, 1947-48, with knowledge of a wider world, and an enthusiasm for development and change. With the aid of the booklet Notes and Instructions of Native Local Administration in the British Solomon Islands, given him by Black, Mazakmat introduced the idea of local government to the Nalik speaking villages of Munawai, Laraslaba, Logagun and Madina. He also reported to Black, in December 1947, such village-level improvements as decreased levels of gambling, more knowledge of how to bank, and to use money, and more obedience to government officials, especially paramount luluais, tultuls, and village headmen.[21] Black believed that Mazakmat, if given the right advice, and the right environment, had the same leadership potential as Tarosi, and continued contact with him. Other New Irelanders felt similarly, and voted Mazakmat first president of the Tikana Local Government Council. But not before Mazakmat's disputes with first the Catholic, then Methodist, missionaries, resulted in a period of virtual "exile" in Rabaul, Lae, and on Manus, an island to the north west.

      In about 1949, the priest at Logagon, Hoffmann, refused to allow Mazakmat to marry a Catholic woman, unless he became Catholic. This was, to the New Irelander, "truely against" custom, and evidence that the Catholic mission had "overpowered the native people" to the extent that "...the true ways of native marriages [had been] muddled up".[22] Angered by this episode, Mazakmat evidently commenced a campaign against the Catholic mission. He claimed that the mission had not paid for the land it occupied, but was proven wrong. He then asserted that if all the Europeans had to leave, the mission land would be his. He stated that the early departure of all Europeans was desirable, and was possible, if demanded, and supported this argument with his knowledge of the recent attainment of independence by the Indonesians from the Dutch.[23]

      Several years previously, Mazakmat had written to Black of his concern at the reception he received when visiting Logagon:

      The Catholic people have no feeling whenever they meet or talk with me...The black and white missionaries of the Roman Catholic mission are starting to impress the young natives to hate other kinds of religions (the Protestants). How do [sic] we going to abridge the native belief of different religions to one common point when this sort of idea is happening?[24]

The island certainly had a history of antagonistic relations between Methodist and Catholic adherents, and a series of incidents that began late in 1949 rekindled simmering animosities. A meeting of the Madina School Council was disrupted by "disorder arising out of sectarian strife", and a pulpit in the Methodist church at Munawai was demolished.[25] Publication by the Catholic mission of its catechism in Pidgin, in which other religions were referred to as "Lotu Gamon", had not helped.[26] Downs identified "discontent within the Methodist congregation ...at one or two villages ...said to be based on lack of service by the mission",[27] and further nominated a group of men from Madina village who were the "most able natives in the tribe", but who had been expelled from the Methodist Mission, and were now "both anti-Catholic and anti-Methodist".[28]

Of these, Mazakmat was identified as the prime malcontent. Chenoweth and Fleming asserted that the recent troubles had arisen only after Pelis Mazakmat's arrival in the area, and were directly attributable to him. He was, reported Downs, a man of overwhelming personal ambition who exploited his position for his own advancement:

      ...his bad influences in the Nalik area are deep and profound. He has a personal hatred for Father Fleming associated with a mixed marriage affair dating back over twelve months...Much of his attitude stems from his conviction that he has a destiny as a nationalist leader and he seems to draw a great deal of this misplaced zeal from an association with Mr John Black when that person was in a position of some authority in Port Moresby... Local imprisonment for spreading false reports giving rise to trouble would not have any strong result. He only fears corporal punishment along the lines of Japanese Imperialism...[29]

      Why did the patrol officer complete his report by recommending that Mazakmat - New Ireland's "prime promoter of sectarian strife" - be removed to another island? Did the events at Madina require imprisonment, or deportation? Finally, were Mazakmat's "bad influences" in his home district in fact "deep and profound"? Analysis of colonial records and missionary correspondence suggests that, far from sponsoring pre-meditated attacks on entrenched missionary interests, Mazakmat was by chance positioned at the centre of far-reaching social changes that were beyond the control of any one individual. His "misdemeanor" was to identify them, and voice his concerns. But there were several actors in the piece, principally Ben Chenoweth, who supplied an inexperienced and zealous patrol officer with "evidence" of Mazakmat's "sectarian activities" to divert the administration's attention from its newly established area school at Madina; and Ian Downs, who used the Methodist missionary's intrigues against Mazakmat to mask his own feud with officials of the Education Department - an island of discontent was simmering before Mazakmat returned from his war-time travels on the mainland.

      For the Methodist mission, recovery from the war remained incomplete and a general "post-war restlessness" that appeared in its Nalik villages concerned both the mission and the administration. Not only was the "weakness of the grip" of the Methodist mission on its adherents considered "a dangerous factor in the Nalik villages":[30] the high level of alcohol consumption was a particular problem;[31] and the size of the district to be covered by the Methodist missionary at Kavieng another.[32] Ben Chenoweth, whose service with the mission dated to 1923, and who was described by Bill Groves, Director of Education, (perhaps unkindly), as "distinctly limited, his tendency being to pay rather too much attention to other people and their fields of work rather than to concentrate upon his own",[33] was credited with helping re-establish war-ravaged church properties, and communities; and for initiating meetings with village headmen to answer their questions about post-war developments. Yet he epitomised the pre-war missionary style, and, capable of an occasionally patronizing temperament, was unable to adapt to the social changes and new attitudes of the post-war period.[34]

      Perhaps the most important factor in Chenoweth's apprehension about the Madina school was the rumoured placement there of Gil Platten. Referred to by Downs as "a former Methodist missionary in New Ireland" Platten was in fact the former chairman of the Methodist district, whose service with the mission dated back to 1927.[35] His resignation from the mission in September 1949, just one month after the opening of the Madina school, and his immediate employment with the department of education, (but not necessarily to Madina school) amounted to no less than a startling defection. The mission was concerned at the dangerous precedent set by Platten. Gribble, secretary of the Methodist Overseas Mission, commented to Chenoweth that it was "not a helpful thing with the present mood of the people as it is to know that the leader of our church has turned to the government, chiefly because of the higher emolument".[36] As it was, Chenoweth felt that government was too involved in education, and believed that its recent "outrageous philanthropy" had adversely affected the district.[37] Lewis, Platten's successor as district chairman, shared this view, and resented government grants to the mission, and the ties to the colonial state which he believed came with them. "If the village schools are not in mission hands", Lewis warned Gribble, "then in less than a generation there would be little or no Christianity among the young people".[38]

      Here was the heart of the matter: the Methodist mission relied on its network of village schools to confirm the young in their faith. With the introduction of the government schools, villagers in various parts of New Ireland were torn between loyalty to their mission, whose education syllabus was designed before the war,[39] - essentially to meet the needs of the church; and the attractions of a more secular education in English rather than in the vernacular. Thus, it was important for the mission to continue its school system, lest the familiarity of young Methodists with the mission's lingua franca, Kuanuna, be jeopardized.[40] It remained the case, in the 1950s, that few of the church's leaders, apart from Saimon Gaius and Eliuda Laen, who were sent to Australia for further training, were fluent in English.[41] Because Methodist village schools provided education in locations where government schools had not been established, and played a vital role in the recruitment of the young, the establishment of English-language government schools came as a blow to the mission's educational interests. Consequently, failure by the Education Department to consult with the mission as to the timing and location of new government schools created considerable tension, and led to instances of competition for student bodies.[42]

      In this context, the events surrounding the opening of the government area school at Madina in August 1949 signified to Ben Chenoweth his fading authority in the district, and prompted him to action. When Downs shared with Chenoweth a draft report titled "Sectarian Strife, Nalik Area", dated 19 December 1949, the missionary reconnoitred the villages Munawai, Madina and Lauapul on 21 and 22 December and reported back to Downs in a letter dated 29 December. It was on the basis of this letter that Downs wrote his despatch of 8 January 1950, requesting Mazakmat's deportation.

      Although Chenoweth had supplied Downs with the "evidence" of Mazakmat's sectarian activities, and of the rumours surrounding the expected return by Gil Platten, the evidence of the district officer and the missionary differed on several vital points. Whereas Downs suggested the Catholic and Methodist missionaries were "helping each other with common sense", and that both "blame the native school teacher Mazakmat for the trouble", Chenoweth wrote a day later to his general-secretary:

      the recently appointed Roman Catholic priest to Lugagon some three miles from Madina is a young man very ignorant of Protestantism and especially so of Methodism. He has said a few upsetting things and has been considerably upset himself. The R.C. "katekisms" in Pidgin English really began the disturbance recently reported to the D.O.[43]

      On other vital points Downs was also shown to be misinformed. The Department of Education had no plans to employ Gil Platten, a former Methodist missionary, at the newly established Madina area school. Religious education in schools, far from being a Methodist intrusion into the government school system, (as asserted by Downs) was to follow a syllabus of "Ethics and Morals" called for by the missions themselves in their Port Moresby conferences with the administration.[44]

      For several reasons, the recommendation that Mazakmat be exiled to the Western District of Papua was, after careful consideration by the Directors of the Departments of District Services and Native Affairs, Planning and Development, and of the Government Secretary, not implemented. Evidently, the heat of clashing personalities on New Ireland did not reach the Directors' offices in the Territory's capital, and factors believed important at district level were tempered by the assessment of diplomatic and legal perspectives.

      Firstly, the danger that deportation might transform Mazakmat into a "minor martyr" was recognized[45] -especially as Hasluck, Minister for External Territories, had instructed the administration to ensure that malcontents were given no cause to petition the Visiting Mission of the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations, which was due in the colony in May 1950.[46] Significantly, Lonergan, the Government Secretary, saw no evidence that Mazakmat had incited the sectarian trouble, and interpreted the events as "a series of misunderstandings of the intentions of the administration" which banishment would not have corrected,[47] and the Secretary of Planning and Development, who agreed that there was not enough evidence to administer exile, suggested Mazakmat "be made aware of the limitations of his duties as a teacher and the undesirability of any actions on his part ... against the peace and good order of the area."[48]

      Eventually, an experienced officer was despatched to New Ireland to conduct a full investigation.[49] The report, filed in April 1950 by then acting director of District Services and Native Affairs Ivan Champion, similarly found no evidence supporting charges of sectarian strife, and identified clearly a feud between the two government departments - Education, and District Services and Native Affairs. Champion recommended that the troubles surrounding Mazakmat be allowed to "die a natural death": the people in Madina denied that Mazakmat was causing any trouble, and Mazakmat was advised to confine himself to matters of education rather than religion.[50]

      On balance, Champions' report favoured Downs' position rather than Groves. Champion shared Downs' "mild contempt" for the Education officer Gibson; and questioned Groves' initial decision to allow Mazakmat into Madina "against his better judgement". In an illiterate country, he felt the task of the Education Department was to teach the three "R's", but noted that in this case, it seemed more concerned with social development. The concept of area education centres, Champion felt, might work in about fifteen years hence, "when the native peoples would be in a better position to appreciate them".[51]

      Initially unsuccessful, Downs second opportunity to remove Mazakmat came after renewed clashes with the Catholic priest at Logagon, Browne, who had replaced Fleming in March 1950. The issues were land, and race relations. Browne reported his confrontation with Solomon, the teacher from Madina, to the District Office:

He told me that I had no claim to this place and no right to be here, and assured me that I would not be here much longer. He intends to get rid of me - by what means I do not know. He is of the opinion that the natives are sufficiently educated now to manage their own affairs. Our services are no longer necessary.[52]

Concerning the same incident Gibson, the education officer, filed with the district office his own report:

      Solomon was then asked to come and was informed of the accusations of Father Browne against him. Solomon said that he came to the Mission on the evening of Thursday 18th May, 1950, and said to Father Browne quite pleasantly "Good evening Father". "What is your name?" asked Father Browne, gruffly. Solomon replied, "Solomon, I am a teacher at the school". "Get away, it is my property", said the Father. Solomon said that he then became angry because the Father spoke to him sharply. "It's not", replied Solomon. "This place belongs to the Kavieng people and not to you and me".[53] Father Browne said that he was annoyed with Solomon because he was whispering with another native outside the house and that he did not approve of that kind of thing. He desired natives to come to him and to state their business, not to be whispering together outside his house. A native called Bruno said that he had heard Solomon say to the Father that this was not his land and that after a while he must leave. Solomon said that he meant that white men would leave this country later when the native people had received sufficient education. His statement was a general one applying to some time in the future."[54]

      A further charge followed. Browne complained that Solomon forcibly removed a student from his school. In separate investigations Downs and Gibson found that Solomon had retrieved the student from Logagon at Mazakmat's request. When Gibson, angered by the affair, attempted to transfer Mazakmat away from Madina, the teacher resigned his post. Neither backed down, and Mazakmat's resignation was accepted the same day, 3 June 1950.[55]

      Twelve days after resigning his teaching post at Madina, Mazakmat applied for work at Downs' office, Kavieng. He was accepted for employment as a post-office clerk, so that Downs could "keep watch on him".[56] Mazakmat later worked at Kerevat Lowlands Experimental Station, on the Gazelle Peninsula (November 1950-November 1951); then as a labourer for B.P. at Rabaul from then until June 1952; before returning to Munawai, his home village, to plant cocoa, and act as clerk to the newly elected thirty-eight-member Nalik Area Council. He taught once more for the Education Department in Lae in 1953-54, and in Manus, 1955.[57]

      The European missionaries and government officers were right, in one sense, in considering Mazakmat to be the source of discontent in the area. He had written of himself to Groves, "I, being one of the tongue-less parrots, have determined to give a voice."[58] Undoubtedly, the issues he raised, particularly land ownership and preservation of traditional culture, were genuine concerns of New Ireland societies, and therefore continuing concerns of the administration and missions.

      Throughout Melanesia, the number of disputes concerning alienated land, including land occupied by missions and commercial plantations, quite apart from disputes over traditional land ownership, had rapidly multiplied in the post-war years. In the 1960s, and 1970s, claimants to alienated land on New Ireland pressed the government for recognition of their claims. In 1952 and 1962 the colonial government in Papua New Guinea established legislation to record customary ownership of land, and under the 1962 act, the entire colony was divided into five hundred "adjudication areas", to which Demarcation Committees were appointed.[59]

      Although mission-held lands were less extensive than those of other European interests, they were expanding in some districts in the Territory at a rate that alarmed the administration. In 1952 the chairman of the Methodist New Britain District, of which New Ireland was a part, informed the Missions' general secretary that identifying titles to mission lands, in preparation for the requirements of the Native Land Registration Bill soon to go before the Legislative Council, would be a full-time position. Subsequent investigation showed that titles to at least one hundred and twenty free-hold blocks had to be secured.[60] In 1962, Nusalawa plantation in the Tigak Islands was returned to local owners[61] and, in 1968, the people of Logagon and Panafaua contested ownership of three separate areas of the Mongop and Touias Catholic stations. Two of the claims were invalid, but Bishop Stemper agreed that the third area be returned to the claimants.[62] In the Nalik division, a movement to reclaim parts of mission and European plantations continued into the 1970s.[63]      

      Apart from land issues, difficulties with marriage regulations were widespread on New Ireland. Complaints that Catholic priests refused to recognise divorces were reported to Patrol Officers from New Hanover in the north, to the Nalik District on New Ireland in the south. In November 1952 villagers from Madina and Larasaliba complained to Patrol Officer Fitzgerald about the Catholic priest at Logagon:

      The people said that they could not understand the Government attitude to divorce. They said that if they were married by church law they had great difficulty in obtaining a divorce, whereas if they were married by native custom it was much easier to get a divorce.[64]

      Similarly, the suppression of cultural practices, and the contribution this was believed to be making to the slow rate of population growth, was a third issue of widespread concern. Since at least the 1930s, Methodist missionaries had attributed low morale in the circuit to the "gradual, but nonetheless obvious decline in population".[65] Groves had long expressed his concern at the missions' attempts to suppress the malanggan, a cycle of ceremonials which bound New Ireland societies together and replenished the membership of clans depleted by death.[66] He considered that neither the administration nor the missions had provided any satisfactory constructive substitute for the custom, having studied the subject extensively as a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology with the Australian National Research Council during the period 1931-33.

      Groves felt that the possibility of Malanggan's extinction had "a melancholy significance",[67] and that the people of Madina, who were attempting to preserve it, were the only community ready for guided development who were still conscious of their cultural status. Far from taking a neutral attitude toward this struggle to retain Malanggan, Groves suggested that the Administration keep

      a close and sympathetic watch on developments with a view to preserving the ethos and social self-esteem of the people who have the guts to stand up for themselves.[68]

      Countering depopulation was the first topic discussed at the initial meeting of the Nalik Area Council, established in 1952. Tomasetti reported that, following preliminaries

      ...pride of place was taken by depopulation (on which all villages had already been addressed). One member (MAGAWONG of LAUAPUL) saw a connection between depopulation and the cessation, under Government and Mission disapproval, of the conventional periods of ritualised feasting and sexual licence which, he averred, really took place and were responsible for enough births to maintain the population at a satisfactory level...MAGAWONG went on to ask what was the legal position and to suggest a return for one year to the old custom described above. The writer [Tomasetti] asked the meeting to consider what would be the reaction of the Missions to such a step. The matter then lapsed.[69]

      Although missionary influence on New Ireland at that time remained strong, some changes were occurring. The challenge facing Chenoweth in his later years of service with the Methodist mission was the appearance of several smaller religious movements into a society familiar only with Methodism and Catholicism. Migrating plantation workers, Europeans, and educated New Irelanders introduced the beliefs of Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Bahá'ís, and the Four Square Gospel, to New Ireland. Far from the village, and the protective watch of the village pastor, the Melanesian away from home became the principal agent of religious change.

      Concern at the entry of so many religions to the territory was expressed by the mainline missions to the administration, and at ecumenical mission conferences, and other church and mission meetings.[70] The missions were not, however, to be satisfied in their quest to limit the entry of the new groups. Whereas individual government officers may have had denominational affiliations (Groves, for example, was an Anglican), and even though there may have been instances of partisan rulings, the colonial administration, in its stated policy, was impartial in matters of religion.

The colonial state withheld such action on three grounds. Legally, the Territory of Papua New Guinea upheld freedom of religion, whether Christian or traditional. Furthermore, freedom of entry for missions was upheld by the terms of Australian Trusteeship:

      No restrictions are imposed on missions or missionary authorities, other than the right of the Administering Authority to exercise such control as may be necessary, for the maintenance of peace, order and good government, the entry into restricted areas, and for the educational advancement of the inhabitants.[71]

      As various small religious groups applied to enter the territory, the administration felt unable to refuse. Once a certain number had gained entry, to ban others could be interpreted as religious discrimination.[72] Politically, the administration wished to remain in good standing with the international community, while a final consideration was entirely pragmatic: mission societies brought to the colony much needed personnel and resources. Since the administration judged mission societies in terms of resources, rather than theology, it tolerated religious rivalry so long as the result was greater social development. The social cost of sectarianism, Administrator Murray stated several times, was less than the material gains.

      Downs' prediction that Mazakmat would promote either athiesm or a new religious movement was fulfilled when the New Irelander became the first Papua New Guinean Bahá'í.[73] While teaching at Bumai school, South Manus, in 1955, Mazakmat met Vi Hoehnke, Matron at Nonga Base Hospital, and one of two Bahá'ís who entered the territory in 1954. Elliot Elijah, who worked for the administration's cooperatives section, was similarly interested, but did not join. Mazakmat was attracted by the Bahá'í teaching of racial equality, and joined the movement early in 1956, after learning more about it from Rodney Hancock, a New Zealander, and businessman 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, site of the "sectarian strife" of several years before, was the most immediate, and several people joined the new religion.

      Although the converts were drawn from several of Nalik's seven clans, they included, significantly, the area's supreme malanggan carvers, Michael Homerang, (Mohokala clan) and Sinaila (Mohomaraba clan).[74] Early in 1958 there were a further 10 conversions, and some 30-40 over the next four years.[75] 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.[76]

      When Chenoweth learnt from Newman, (district education officer following Gibson) early in 1957, that some administration teachers had accepted the Bahá'í movement, he enquired as to its nature (from mission secretary Gribble). In May 1958 he visited Madina to conduct services, and to assess the impact of the Bahá'ís on the Methodist congregation. Concluding that the movement would "not take on" and hoping that the rumour that "the Bahá'í boys were anti-European", could be proven,[77] Chenoweth reported to Gribble that three administration teachers and their wives had become Bahá'ís, and submitted an article on his patrol to his mission's journal.[78]

      While Newman felt that the teachers involved were merely finding out what the Bahá'í teachings were, and "what tangible benefits it could offer", Chenoweth planned a revival to "off-set the invasion of the other religions",[79] and increased his patrols to Government schools.[80] Government officers had long noted the endurance of traditional belief within mission congregations,[81] and when new religions entered the Territory, Chenoweth claimed, bitterly, that they took "little or no trouble over the matter".[82]

      In fact, 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",[83] and patrol reports monitored the impact of the new religion.[84] Later reports observed that only Methodist villages in both the Nalik and Kara divisions had been affected by the new groups.[85] Unlike the Christian mission practice of placing European missionaries amongst local converts, the Madina Bahá'ís elected their own leadership, a nine-member "Local Assembly", in 1957. Hancock visited periodically from Rabaul, and other Australian Bahá'ís made intermittent visits.

      Although Mazakmat had been the first Bahá'í, he did not lead the converts, and maintained a low profile amongst them. For one thing, he was resident in Munawai, and the Local Assembly was based in Madina. It is not clear the extent to which he subsequently engaged in local politics, rather than in religious activities. Certainly, his relations with the colonial state were alternately productive, and punitive. In 1957 Groves supported his application for entry to the auxiliary division of the public service, and described the teacher as "a man of strong personality with marked qualities of leadership" whose intellect and attainment merited his appointment.[86] However, such qualities did not protect him later that year when, in ignorance of a law preventing the accommodation of single European females in villages, he gave hospitality to Thelma Perks, an Australian Bahá'í travelling on New Ireland. Despite the innocence of the visit, Mazakmat was temporarily jailed in Kavieng, and was advised to not organize such visits.

      Mazakmat's fortunes were more severely reversed after visiting Canberra as part of a Public Service Association delegation in 1962. When convicted in 1964 for misappropriating £41 from funds he had collected to pay for activities at Lemeris Primary School, Mazakmat maintained that other villagers had intrigued against him, through jealousy.[87] Undoubtedly, a degree of culpability remained, because of his inability to keep accurate financial records.

      Although Mazakmat had the patronage of Johnson, Director of Education following Groves, just as he had enjoyed that of Groves previously, there is no indication that he contemplated candidature for the House of Assembly, first elected in 1964. The non-political nature of his Bahá'í commitment may have been a factor, and his consequent lack of mission patronage another. The election of fellow New Irelander Nicholas Brokam of Lokon to the Legislative Council in 1961, with the assistance of "vigorous, but perfectly legal", support from Kelleher, the Catholic priest at Karu, had no doubt pointed to men such as Mazakmat the worth of mission patronage.[88]

      In this analysis of sectarianism on New Ireland several ironies of the colonial period emerge. First, one strategy to cope with change involved suppression of emergent leaders by more powerful, yet quite transient, Europeans. Whereas Mazakmat remained on New Ireland until his death in 1986, many European missionaries and administrators came and went. In March 1950 Fleming was replaced by Browne, and the Catholic mission was moved from Logagon. Downs left New Ireland in August 1950 to move upward in the Territory's administration.[89] In November 1950 Gibson, the District Education Officer left the island. Chenoweth returned to Australia in 1960.

      Whereas Mazakmat had been characterized as a trouble-maker, he made his career in administrative departments, and within the emerging local government system. He was not involved in such movements as the TIA or TKA,[90] and initiated projects to develop copra and cattle through the appropriate government departments. At the time of his retirement from teaching in 1970, he was described as "the only intelligent man in the area with a wide knowledge of the world around him".[91] In the 1950s, when Mazakmat began to speak his mind, administrators and missionaries alike held a negative view of nationalism. Downs had perceived a "premature nationalism" in Mazakmat's personality,[92] which amounted to 'misplaced zeal', a result of his earlier contact with administration officer John Black.[93] Yet all that had been unusual in Mazakmat's approach was his boldness in expressing his concern at the "lack of proper education" among the "poor natives" of New Ireland:

      A man is born white and he is well of[f]. Although he realizes what a native is, but he does not feel much of the differences. I bet, if one well experienced white man were a native of birth, he would feel much of the great differences and definitely he ought to be a nuisance just as much as any New Guinea Native."[94]

      Like so many Papua New Guineans, Apelis Mazakmat struggled to come to terms with entrenched attitudes of racial superiority, and (pre-Vatican II) religious intolerance. Although a man of promise and ability, the colonial apparatus limited his career to school teacher, and peasant. His struggle for recognition typified the proto-Nationalist phase of colonialism in Papua New Guinea.