Methodist missionaries in Britain were itinerant, travelling from
village to village and preaching outdoors. In Canada's West, their practices were similar.
They erected
few buildings, and those they did construct were modest and served only as temporary
residences. British Methodist missionaries such as Robert Rundle and
Thomas Woolsey came
without family and had no need for shelter other than that offered to them by their
hosts in camps or fur forts. Today, one finds little physical evidence of
their presence.
Wherever the missionary established a group of followers, they were
organized into "classes." These groups would set regular meetings for home
worship and study with a class leader in the absence of the
missionary. This autonomy from an ordained church leader was a basic tenet of Methodist practice, as was the development
of local leadership. Those visiting Aboriginal communities some 10 years after Rundle
had returned to England, reported with surprise on the established worship
practices in the Nakoda (Stoney) camps.
As the missionaries brought their families, they introduced western
style living: their house wares, tools and practices were an object of
great curiosity to indigenous people. Initial familiarization with western
culture was as much a matter of modeling as of teaching. As the busy
housewife prepared the noon-day meal or baked bread, the house suddenly
became darkened by a crowd of the natives peering in at the windows. The
native women laughed as the white woman made garments for her children. It
seemed strange to them that the cloth should be cut into so many pieces
and then sewed together again."
-John Maclean, Native Tribes of Canada
As practitioners of a "religion of the book," Christian communities
have regarded oral tradition as a lack of literacy. The teaching of
reading and writing was a key concern for the religious, whether in
medieval Europe or the many mission fields around the world. Literacy has become an
important tool for full participation in modern societies. With the spread of literacy,
aspects of oral
culture that are incompatible with literacy-a different way of
experiencing and living in the world-have been altered or lost.
With the help of the syllabic script developed by James Evans,
writing spread rapidly among Aboriginal peoples. The speed with
which this skill developed is surprising-within months, letters and notes
were relayed from forts to camps and back again. As a tool for
communicating over long distances, writing
came at an opportune time for Aboriginal peoples.
Many missionaries relied on writing to fill the
long days of isolation from colleagues and family. Journals, reports,
letters and treatises recorded observations of the land and people. Written
words from the hands of missionaries are part
of an important body of documents complementing those of the Hudson's
Bay Company, various government records and the oral and written
chronicles of
Aboriginal peoples.
Related Writings and Excerpts:
[« back]
|