[MAORI LANGUAGE] Ko te tuarua o nga pukapuka waki; hei wakakite atu i nga henga a te Hahi o Roma.

Hopataone [Hobart Town] : He mea ta i te Perehi o te Watahaoha ratou ko nga teina [printed by R. S. Waterhouse and Brothers], 1840. Small octavo (180 x 110 mm), recent stitched marbled wrappers; pp. 24; text in Māori; first leaf with small perforation to top margin, a lightly creased top corner and some mild staining, otherwise clean and sound throughout; housed in a morocco and cloth clamshell box with gilt lettering and decoration to spine.

William Colenso (1811-1899) was an early missionary for the Church Missionary Society and pioneer printer in New Zealand. His Māori language translation of the New Testament, printed by him in 1837, was the first book printed in New Zealand and the first indigenous language translation of the Bible published in the southern hemisphere.

The present pamphlet contains three anti-Catholic dialogues attacking the Church of Rome written by Colenso, translated by the author into Māori and published in Hobart Town under his pseudonym Te Aroha Pono (“True Love”), which is the name by which he signs himself at the foot of the last page of text. The pamphlet was printed by the firm of R. S. Waterhouse & Brothers (i.e. Rowland Skipsey, William, and Jabez Bunting Waterhouse, the sons of Wesleyan missionary Rev. John Waterhouse, the first Superintendent of Wesleyan Methodist Missions in Australasia and Polynesia). During 1840 the Waterhouse brothers were advertising themselves as General Printers and Bookbinders in Elizabeth Street, Hobart Town, at what was formerly Andrew Bent’s printing office; the following year they would go into partnership with fellow Wesleyan William Pratt as Waterhouse & Pratt. A Sydney imprint of this pamphlet is also known.

Scarce.

Williams, 63; Ferguson, 3055b