The People [i]

To appreciate the Kanaka point of view, and to be aware of the kind of responsibility that is put on the shoulders of administrative officers and missionaries—who must, if they are to initiate changes and a new way of life, first select what they consider to be wrong or mistaken, and then set about persuading their charges that they are wrong or mistaken, and finally accept the consequences of what they do—the problem of synthesis, of grasping new ideas, mastering new techniques, and working out organizational means, must be seen through the interpretative lens formed by their habits of daily life, and their own notions of leadership and social organization which are inevitably coloured by their relations with Europeans.