T. W. Ratana and the Ratana Church photos by Ans Westra This photograph shows the most important event in the year for the Ratana Church: the service in the Temple, held annually on January 25th, which commemorates the day of birth of T. W. Ratana, the founder of the Ratana Faith. ‘Te Ao Hou’ is very grateful to Mrs Puhi Ratahi, the President of the Ratana Church, for allowing us to take this picture and to publish it. We are told that we are the first people ever to be permitted to photograph the interior of the Temple, and we feel that this is a notable example of the special regard and affection which Maoris have for ‘Te Ao Hou’. We publish here accounts of two meetings held last January; of the Ratana meeting on the 25th January, and, in a following article, of the Ringatu ceremony on 1st January, which is the most important event of the year for the Ringatu Church. Over the year in ‘Te Ao Hou’ we have published articles and news items concerning many different Maori organisations, including nearly all the different religious denominations and movements to be found amongst the Maori people. Religion is so integral a part of Maori life, so closely bound up with all other aspects of social

existence, that it would be quite impossible not to include it in a Maori magazine. ‘Te Ao Hou's’ policy is to report on all matters of interest to our readers, except that we do not concern ourselves with politics. This is too complex and contentious a subject, and one too closely bound up with personalities, for a quarterly magazine such as this, with limited space at its disposal, to concern itself with. We do not, therefore, discuss the political aspects of the Ratana Movement here. But we feel that many of our readers, especially those people who do not belong to the Movement, and to whom some of the facts may be unfamiliar, would be interested in a brief account of the history of the early years of the Ratana Church. In times of uncertainty and unhappiness there are always leaders who arise with a message for the people, and to act as their mouth-piece. And very often, since religion is an expression of men's deepest emotions, these leaders preach a new version of the old religion: that is, they are prophets. It is not only among Maoris that prophets have appeared; they are to be found wherever a society is faced with the break-up of its old customs, and with a sudden and confusing period of adjustment to new, alien ways of life. They were and still are very common in Africa, for instance, and they were to be found throughout the Pacific.