Missionaries Or Anthropologists
pp. 68-70 · Read in the full issue
Who Best Understands the Needs of Primitive Races?
Letter to the Editor.
YOUR September leader “Uncoordinated Mission Effort,” evidently inspired by and based on a misleading statement re cently made in Sydney by Mr. W. Groves, B.A., a former teacher in the native school near Rabaul, was read with regret by many missionaries in the Mandated Ter ritory, not because of the matter treated but because of the manner of treatment.
The tone of the article, in my opinion, tends to create the impression that mission aries are weakening and destroying useful native habits and customs to the detriment of the native races. Yet, although only three mission bodies of any magnitude are operating in the Territory to-day, no at tempt has been made to state who these missionaries referred to are, the place or places where they carry on their mischiev ous work, or what the habits or customs consist of.
One would naturally have expected that Mr. Groves, who was so liberally and gra tuitously helped in his educational and scientific work in the Territory by the Mis sions, would have discussed what he con sidered to be weaknesses in missionary activity with the missionaries themselves, before leaving the Territory, instead of making statements tending to create an erroneous estimate after departing from the Islands—that is, if he has been correctly reported. When a person em barks on the enterprise of analysing or criticising the methods of an organisation or institution, reason and justice combine in requiring that he should possess, if not a deep and comprehensive, at least an accu rate knowledge of his subject. Failure to observe this simple rule has led to count less blunders in passing judgment on what mission methods really are.
It is probably not exaggerating one iota to say that not two per cent, of those who accuse missionaries of interfering with native customs have the ability or training to know what a native custom is. How could matters be otherwise? Missionaries living among the people have found that
years of close observation and study are required for an adequate understanding of native psychology. Yet people, entire foreigners to any native language, presume to teach and express opinions on native cul ture and customs after a few months spent camping near a native village.
The Catholic Mission, with its three mis sionary societies—the Marists in the North Solomon Islands, the Sacred Heart Society in New Britain and adjacent islands, and the Society of the Divine Word in New Guinea—is the largest and most extensive Mission in the Mandated Territory to-day.
In dealing with native customs and habits, the Catholic Mission has a clear and well defined policy which is uniformly followed all over the world by Catholic missionaries.
Entering upon his self-imposed work, the Catholic Missionary has before him an abundance of information collected by his predecessors—languages, customs, laws, habits and, in fact, everything calculated to interest or assist him. With a mind trained already in acquiring languages, a Catholic missionary can very readily adapt himself to his new surroundings by giving his whole time and attention to his work.
As regards native customs, some are good, others bad, while others again are indifferent, considered in their bearing on life, health and morality. The uniform practice of the Catholic missionary is to do nothing until he has acquired a thor ough knowledge of what a peculiar habit or custom really is. Then when he is satis fied he has the whole truth he encourages and fosters what is good; what is indiffer ent is left as it was; while what is clearly inimical to life, health or morality is grad ually weakened or destroyed. Can anyone —official, anthropologist, trader or planter —point to a single good or indifferent cus tom or habit that has been interfered with or destroyed by a Catholic missionary?
Then, if not, why these stupid aspersions cast upon missions and missionaries as a whole, which should be reserved for a few isolated fanatics ?
Leaving completely on one side the utterances of that small but rowdy section of Europeans who, without religion, morality or patriot ism, consistently oppose every ef fort to uplift or improve native races, from time to time a person holding a re sponsible position is reported to have made alarming statements about missionaries or their work, not in the place where they could be met and answered, but to some interested but entirely uninformed body of people in one of the Australian States.
When challenged to substantiate the charges, the invariable practice has been to lay the blame on some press reporter for misquotation. Anxious as missionaries are to avail themselves of whatever will assist them in the prosecution of their calling— honest and constructive criticism of their methods —they naturally resent misrepre sentation from untrustworthy or unreli able sources.
Who, for instance, besides the mission ary, can give anything like a complete ac count of what the Fire Dance practised by Bainings natives consists of? Shocking as many aspects of it are, it has a certain weird spectacular effect. Numbers of
deaths from poisoning have followed each dance, yet I have known Europeans, after long residence in the Territory, strongly urging the natives to repeat the Fire Dance for the amusement of a few visitors. Again, how many have the slightest notions of the barbarous practices that have been con demned in the Duk-Duk and Tubuan cus toms —which also have a really fine spec tacular aspect, and which are so common here during the month of May each year?
In my opinion the native has to-day more songs and dances than ever before, European songs have been translated into native languages and as for dances, the native now moves about from village to village and takes part not only in local amusements but in those of villages far apart. Question the old natives who are now disappearing. Listen to their views of life, with its terrifying aspects, before the coming of missionary and civil admin istration broke down the barriers that separated adjacent villages. I have never yet met natives who would exchange the freedom, joy and protection that obtain to-day for the old regime that has happily disappeared.
It is not correct to say that Christianity is a substitute for or displaces any useful or indifferent social practices in village life. Rather, Christianity perfects and re fines all that is good and useful in native customs. On Matupit Island, for instance.
the native custom was for a mother to kill one of twins soon after birth. Naturally, the Christian ideal weakened and destroyed that barbarous custom.
It is, moreover, well known that natives are disappearing rapidly, precisely in those places where there are no missionaries, such as Aua, Ninigo, and Matthias Islands, as well as in the Southern and Western portions of New Ireland; and increasing when under missionary influence.
In an excellent report on the affairs of the Mandated Territory, Colonel Ains worth said the missionaries were the only people who had any useful knowledge of the natives. He was only stating the bare truth, for the simple reason that they are the only people who have really studied the natives in the villages through the native languages.
What useful or reliable knowledge can the student of anthropology, without the slightest knowledge of a native language or even of the “pidgin,” gain by living for twelve or eighteen months close to a native village. Yet many depart with a quantity of information, after spending shorter periods in the Islands. And where does the information come from ? In most cases whatever is really useful has been adopted and adapted from the patient researches of the real anthropologist—the missionary.
I am, etc.,
A Catholic Missionary.
Rabaul, N.G.
Oct., 1934.
EDITORIAL NOTE: We are glad to publish this moderately-phrased, well-reasoned article. But “A Catholic Missionary” and others make a mis take in assuming that the writers whom they challenge have attacked missionaries and mission work. That is not so. Emphatically, Christian missions have a definite place in the Pacific Is lands, and an important work to do, and they are entitled to all the support that can be given to them. They are an essential part of the organisa tion which has “Europeanised” the Pacific peoples.
Criticism comes from another angle. Some an thropologists are of opinion that it would be pos sible to improve vastly the methods of imparting religious teaching to these primitive peoples.
Others, who are not necessarily scientists, argue that it is not desirable that missionaries should go among primitive peoples who are entirely un touched by European civilisation—that there is no call upon missionaries, or anyone else, to save the natives until they have to be saved from the demoralising effect of contact with Europeans.