Cheerful pragmatists:Anglican Missionaries among the Maisin of Collingwood Bay, Northeastern Papua, 1898–1920.∗

Abstract

tions and evangelizing tactics available to individual missionaries within a sin gle mission. Between 1898 and 1920 five Anglican missionaries in succession laboured hard to bring Christianity to Maisin villages along the shores of Col lingwood Bay in northeastern Papua. They were directed by the first two bishops of the mission, each of whom articulated ideals of evangelism which were, for the time, remarkably tolerant of the indigenous culture. Yet the individual mis sionary's style and ability proved very important in a mission possessing no gener al strategy of evangelization. Anglicans in Australia had expressed casual interest in starting a mission in New Guinea, but it was not until Governor William MacGregor invited them to begin work that they considered the idea seriously.1 In 1890 the Rev. Albert Maclaren arrived in Port Moresby to negotiate a comity agreement, under Mac Gregor's auspices, with representatives of other missions.2 Maclaren pledged the Anglicans to evangelize 480 kilometres of north coast from Cape Ducie to the border of German New Guinea. The following year he led a small party to the high plateau of Dogura, overlooking Bartle Bay. The mission suffered many setbacks. Maclaren died of fever within a few months, leaving the mission disorganized, dispirited and starved of funds. Mac Gregor watched the lack of progress with increasing impatience: he supported the missions in principle, and he depended upon them to maintain order and to initiate education and 'civilization'. His thinly veiled threat to invite Roman Catholics into the area provoked a flurry of activity among the Australian sponsors of the venture. In January 1898 they reorganized the mission as a diocese, and elected Montagu John Stone-Wigg its first bishop.