III. MARCO TEÓRICO:
1.6. Tipos de jurisdicción:
1.6.4. Jurisdicciones especiales:
these streams gathered into a river by each National Union, connecting with a great
world river, which is being stored in a reservoir of womanly power and influence.94
In 1 896- 1 897 the Otago/Southland PWMU appointed Jane Bannerman as 'Corresponding Secretary'. She became responsible for keeping links with Australian, British and North American women's Presbyterian missionary organisations.95 A clearly perceived sense of international partnership existed, expressed through the many references to 'sister Associations' and 'our Christian sisters all over the world',96 as well as through the frequent interchange of annual reports and periodical literature, and invitations to attend international conferences. Whilst there may have been a degree of colonial deference to the older British unions,97 the relationship was essentially viewed as a partnership of equals. By philosophically and theologically identifying with their international 'sisters' Presbyterian women understood that they were doing so in the company of the incarnational Christ, and saw themselves forming part of a great feminine 'girdle around the earth,.98 The PWMU was formally associated with a North
92
The FMC was obviously embarrassed by student deputation support for the Ramabai Mukti Mission in1 903- 1 904; the Revs George McNeur and WilIiam Mawson thought it necessary to defend the CIM to the FMC in 1 906; the Rev. William Hewitson was advised by a Church of Scotland representative to steer Presbyterians clear of the SUM in 1 9 1 2; and the FMC refused a request to fmancially support the work of the Zenana and Bible Medical Mission in 1 9 1 7. 1 3 January 1 904, 5 June 1 906 and 23 October 1 9 1 7, Minutes of the PCNZ FMC 1 90 1 - 1 9 1 3 and 1 9 14- 1 9 1 9, Series 1 , GAOOOl ; W. Stevenson to W. Hewitson, 22 November 1 9 1 2, Church of Scotland Records, 1 848- 1 93 1 , Micro MS Coli 20, M 1 554, WTU.
93
NZB, March 1 903, p. 46; ibid, October 1 909, p. 440; ibid, January 1 9 1 1 , p. 20; ODT, 17 January 1 903, p. 9 and 24 January 1 903, p. 9; ibid, 28 August 1 9 1 2, p. 6; Helen S. Dyer, Pandita Ramabai: A Great Life in Indian Missions, 2nd Impression, London: Pickering & Inglis, n.d., pp. 4 1 , 148, 1 62.94
'President's Address, 1 890', Reports and Minutes o/the New Zealand Women 's Christian Temperance Union, 1 886-1 894, Microfiche 1 78 . 1 NEW, Massey University Library.95
'PWMU Report, 1 897', PCSO PS, 1 897, pp. 87-88.96
For example in 'PWMU Report, 1 898', PCSO PS, 1 898, p. 1 1 1 ; ibid, 1 899, p. 73.97
In her 1 900 report Jane Bannerman referred to 'our elder sister Unions in Queensland' and remarked that 'it is good and very pleasant to be remembered by the Home [British] Unions, and to know that they have a motherly interest in their far-away daughters'. 'PWMU Report, 1 900', PCSO PS, 1 900, p. 75.98
'PWMU Report, 1 899', PCSO PS, 1 899, p. 74; 'PWMU Report, 1 900', PCSO PS, 1 900, p. 1 1 1 ; 'BWMU Report, 1 9 1 3 ', NZBU Baptist Handbook, 1 9 1 3-1 9 1 4, p. 1 0 1 . For a fuller feminist theologicalChapter Six - Contributory Streams, 1 868- 1 926
American Presbyterian women's missionary alliance that, in turn, had links with the
American based World's Missionary Committee of Christian Women formed in 1 888.99 The New Zealand women's missionary movement did not produce a systematic or unique body of missionary theology or, indeed, initiate ecumenical gatherings such as those held under the banner of the 1 9 1 0 American Women's Missionary Jubilee. Yet it did serve to align New Zealand women more directly with their international counterparts in the cause of world evangelisation, pre-dating the ecumenical sentiments of the Edinburgh Conference by at least a decade. Despite the disruption of war and the death of Jane Bannerman, who was a most enthusiastic exponent of international sisterhood, the PWMU continued to value its global sense of connection.
New Zealand women's groups and women missionaries did produce literature that: highlighted the role of women in the missionary movement, reinforced a stereotypical view of the non-Western world; and exemplified the overall importance of missionary literature in the shaping of a missionary mentalite. Women missionaries frequently featured as the authors of articles in the various religious periodicals. The PWMU and BWMU had regular designated columns or pages in their respective denominational periodicals. The PWMU was also unique in that the Harvest Field was an explicitly missionary magazine produced by women for women readers. New Zealand women did not produce a systematic set of missionary books equivalent to that produced by the American Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions (a project of the World's Missionary Committee of Christian Women), which published twenty-one study books between 1 90 1 and 1 92 1 , fourteen of which were written by women. 100 Yet there were New Zealand women authors who wrote one-off missionary study books, inspirational titles and biographies. Amongst these were Beatrice Harband (LMS India), Emma Beckingsale and Annie Driver (NZBMS), Alice Henderson (Presbyterian Punjab Mission), Maud Dinneen (NZCMS), and Lilian Hinton (ex-PIVM rnissionary).IOI
and sociological treatment of this subject see Yvonne Robertson, 'Girdle Round the Earth': New Zealand Presbyterian Women 's Ideal of Universal Sisterhood, 1878- 1918, Annual Lecture, Auckland 1 993,
Dunedin: Presbyterian Historical Society of New Zealand, 1 994.
99 See Beaver, All Loves Excelling, pp. 1 43 - 1 55; Robert, American Women in Mission, pp. 257-272. 100
Robert, American Women in Mission, p. 26 1 .
1 0 1
The titles associated with these authors were: Beatrice H arband, Under the Shadow of Durgamma ( 1 90 1 ), Daughters of Darkness in Sunny India ( 1 903), Pen ofBrahma, ( 1 906), Altar of Superstition (date unknown); Emma Beckingsale, The Gold of Tipperah ( 1 9 1 2); Annie Driver, Missionary Memories ( 1 930); Alice Henderson, The Golden Gate of India ( 1 922); Maud Dinneen, Not of Gennesareth ( 1 933),
Chapter Six - Contributory Streams, 1 868-1 926
Baptist and Presbyterian evidence suggests that these books were published in sizeable numbers and were widely read, thus educating and inspiring the readers and underscoring the notion that women's involvement in foreign missions was normative. Female role models also became accessible through face-to-face encounters during deputation tours, at youth missionary rallies and at Easter Bible class camps. Obituaries of missionaries like Rosalie Macgeorge and Hopestill Pillow (NZBMS), and N ellie MacDuff (CIM), served to further romanticise and idealise the missionary vocation, and to quasi-beatify (or at least sanctify) the woman missionary.
Recent surveys of late nineteenth and early twentieth century American and British missionary literature also reveal that women writers often tended to reinforce, rather than subvert, prevailing western stereotypes of the non-western world and to accentuate notions of racial superiority.1 02 loan Brumberg argues that such literature led to American women constructing a popular ethnological view of their non-western counterparts that was marked by three common themes - intellectual deprivation, domestic oppression, and sexual degradation. 103 This then served to feed back into the motivational mix for missionary fund raising and recruitment amongst women more generally. As noted for the New Zealand context, one of the dominant theological motifs was the great need of the non-Western world. Women's literature tended to feed this perception, and fitted into the thematic schema proposed by Brumberg. Edith Giesen (PIVM/Free Church of Scotland) and Helen MacGregor (United Free Church of Scotland), for example, typically related sad stories about Indian women and children to their Presbyterian constituency through the pages of the Harvest Field. 104
New Zealand women, in highlighting this motif, also emphasised one further thematic strand - the perceived spiritual barrenness and degradation of heathen religions. This was often aimed at Hinduism, but not exclusively. Perhaps typical was this reaction by Rita Dobson (CIM), on visiting a Chinese home: