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William Gilbert Puckey (5 May 1805 - 27 March 1878), born in Penryn, England, was a prominent missionary in New Zealand. He accompanied his parents to New Zealand at the age of 14 and quickly learned the Māori language, speaking it fluently by age 16, and becoming widely regarded as one of the best interpreters of Māori in the fledging mission. He was able to form relationships of trust with many influential Māori from a young age, and in particular, with Nopera Panakareao, of Te Rarawa iwi at Kaitaia. The night before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at Kaitaia, Panakareao called for Puckey and spent a long time discussing and questioning the meaning, translation, and significance of the term "kawanatanga" which Henry Williams had used in the Treaty. In Panakareo's speech to assembled chiefs, (translated by Puckey and recorded by Richard Taylor at the time), he endorsed the Treaty. He said he understood the words of the Treaty to mean that "the shadow of the land was passing to the Queen, while the substance remained with Māori", a view he perceptively and presciently reversed a year later in light of increasingly bitter practical experience in subsequent dealings with Pākehā authorities, when he stated that he saw that the substance of the land had passed to the Queen, and that the shadow had remained with Maori. File:W_G_puckey_sig.jpg|Signature of WG Puckey on Treaty of Waitangi Puckey's fluency and empathy in te reo Māori helped him establish effective relationships and understandings with Māori in Northland. Few other Pākehā in the early years of contact could communicate as effectively between races. Puckey often referred to himself and his wife in his Journals as mere 'labourers in the vineyard', and though he was both modest and humble, the actual effect of his labours may have been under-rated, in his lifetime by Bishop Selwyn, who refused to consider him as a candidate for ordination, ostensibly because of his lack of Greek and Latin, (ignoring his well recognised ability to provide accurate translations of Maori), and by subsequent historians. == Beginnings == Puckey was born in Penryn, Cornwall, and christened there on 5 June 1805.〔(The Family Research of Monique Jones )〕 His parents were William Puckey and his wife, Margery (née Gilbert). He left England in 1815 with his parents, who had become lay missionaries with the Church Missionary Society (CMS). William ( William Gilbert's father) had been in the original party, with his brother, James Puckey that attempted to establish a CMS mission in Tahiti, but when that mission failed, went on to Paramatta, Australia. William returned to England about 1802, and married, had children, and the family re-embarked for Australia in 1815. William Gilbert and his sister Elizabeth, (later to marry Gilbert Mair) came with their parents to Kerikeri, New Zealand in November, 1819 on one of Samuel Marsden's Missions. His father had been a boatbuilder, mariner and carpenter in Cornwall, and probably made a significant contribution to the establishment of these skills in New Zealand, as a sawyer, carpenter, and boat builder, being involved in the sawing of planks, and making of joinery for the Kemp House, and the building of the 55 foot schooner, the 'Herald' for the CMS mission. Unfortunately William, and especially his wife Margery succumbed to alcoholism 〔http://www.enzb.auckland.ac.nz/document?wid=1154&page=0&action=null〕 under the conditions of life in early New Zealand, and both died after an extended bout of drinking following the marriage of their daughter, after they had returned to Sydney, in 1827.〔The Monitor (Sydney, NSW : Monday 12 November 1827)〕 William Gilbert Puckey joined the CMS mission in his own right in 1821, and after accompanying his father back to Sydney in 1826, returned to New Zealand in 1827, and stayed for the rest of his life. This background, of growing up in his formative years in close contact with Maori communities, and witnessing the vicissitudes of the early Mission settlements, was highly significant to his later development of strong and effective bonds with Māori around the mission stations he worked in, at Kerikeri, Paihia, Waimate, and the station he helped found and then stayed at Kaitaia. At Waimate North on 11 October 1831 Puckey married Matilda Davis (who was then aged 17), second daughter of Rev. Richard Davis, thus becoming the first European couple recorded to be married in New Zealand. Their first child was born in early January 1833, but only survived for seven weeks. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「William Gilbert Puckey」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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