A church in Pākaraka | Image via Phillip Capper
A little township near Whanganui has been in the process of having its original name reinstated. Following a long process of discussion between local Māori, regional authorities and people in the township, public submissions revealed 189 favoured the name change, from 255 responses received. The details have been getting finalised and the town of Maxwell will henceforth be called Pākaraka. Good job.
It’s not a new name. It always was Pākaraka. That is, until an event unworthy of commemoration took place in 1868. Patrolling colonial settler militiamen on horseback came across a group of Māori boys, the oldest about 10 years of age (unarmed of course) who happened to be hunting geese and pigs.
An unprovoked chase ensued, led by a Scotsman named Sergeant George Maxwell. With the children being pursued, shot at and attacked by “soldiers” wielding sabres on horseback, they stood little chance. The reported outcome varies – accounting for two being killed, with many others being injured, while others claim far worse – a massacre with one survivor.
The small township from that point on was then named Maxwelltown. In 1927 it became just Maxwell. Questions have been asked for decades by Ngāti Maika and other iwi of Taranaki, why a shameful event could be dignified by naming the town after the man responsible for a senseless attack on their ancestors. After years of process, a reversion of the town’s name back to its original Pākaraka, has been authorised. (‘Pa’ meaning home and ‘karaka’ for the trees that once proliferated locally.)
Learning the community is getting its proper (and nicer) name back is great. In January 2023, Waka Kotahi will supply new road signs which will support the effort to expunge Maxwell references in favour of ‘Pākaraka.’ With signs already disappearing, the change seems eagerly awaited.
’Pākaraka’ being reinstated as the town’s rightful name, somehow feels like redemption.
The story directs my thoughts to the meaning of the word, to ‘redeem’… to ‘restore’, buy back, or ‘reinstate’ for an original purpose. The triggering connotations of ‘Maxwell’ left some people resistant to considering its backstory. Similarly, acknowledging that the entire human race became corrupted, sold out to evil and rebellion, is a scenario many people don’t want to consider either.
But that’s the reality. I have wonderful kids who I’m proud of – but I remember marvelling as they were very little people growing up, at their instinct for naughty stuff. Nobody ever taught them that. Nobody taught me that either… those streaks of defiant wilfulness, selfishness, or any other propensity to wrong-doing, existed in us from birth like an inbuilt bias on a bowling ball.
We’ve all gone our own way, rejecting God. In spite of humanity abandoning His purpose and design, He’s nonetheless provided a plan for redemption – it’s found in accepting Christ’s death on the Cross which paid for our salvation, clearing the debt for every wrongdoing. It means forgiveness, reinstatement and transformation.
The Oxford Dictionary’s definition of redemption expresses it well… “Redemption is regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.”
