Henry Williams (missionary)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the American college football coach, see Henry L. Williams.

For the former Canadian Football League player, see Henry "Gizmo" Williams.

Henry Williams was one of the many European Missionaries who arrived in New Zealand in an attempt to bring Christianity to the Māori people.

On February 1840 he translated the Treaty of Waitangi into the Māori language, along with some help from his son Edward. They used a dialect known as "Missionary Māori", which was not traditional Māori, but had been made up by the missionaries. The Māori were thus confused by some of the wording.

An example of this in the Treaty is kawanatanga, a cognate word which Williams is believed to have transplanted from English. It appeared in the Māori language for the first time in the Treaty and hence, some argue, was an inappropriate choice.