Yesterday we received an interesting comment prompted by an old New Mandala post about the Young family and their lives among the Lahu of northern Thailand and Burma.
It got me thinking.
Students of mainland Southeast Asia cannot ignore the long history of well-documented Christian missionary activity in the region.
And it is a genuinely long history. Trawling through an annotated bibliography I have been putting together over the past few years I came across this quotation from a volume published in 1911. It provides a useful window into a particular historical moment in the missionary encounter in the region. An extract reads:
Kachins - These people inhabit the mountains in the north of Burma on the frontier of Assam. They are a warlike people, and now that they have been prevented from invading their neighbours’ territory by the British Government, they gratify their warlike instinct by quarrelling amongst themselves. Part of their territory is still not directly under British rule, and the Government prohibits Europeans from travelling these parts lest they should be killed and the expense of a punitive expedition should have to be incurred.
The Kachin language has been reduced to writing by Mr. Hanson of the American Baptist Mission. Mr. Hanson has also prepared a Kachin-English dictionary, and Kachin reading-books for schools, which have been published at the expense of the Government.
Extracted from: W. C. B. Purser and A. M. Knight (1911). Christian Missions in Burma. Westminster: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. p.23.
Today the majority, and perhaps even the vast majority, of the Kachin in Burma identify as Christian. This is, by any measure, a recent change and one that was only brought about by generations of missionary effort.
As a part of that history of evangelisation, Ola Hanson (”Mr. Hanson” in the 1911 book) remains a figure of considerable renown throughout the Kachin State. He is, of course, most famous as the primary translator of the Jinghpaw-language Bible. In the Kachin State the translation of the Bible is linked to the year 1895 when Ola Hanson presented a version to the Kachin in their own vernacular. Among the hundreds of Westerners who have tried to get to know the people who live in the hills and valleys of northern Burma it is Hanson that arguably made the most long-lasting impact. His reputation - as a linguist, translator and scholar - now only seems to grow as the years tick by.
Readers who want to share reflections on the history of Christian missionary work in Southeast Asia are more than welcome to weigh in here.
In the rush to understand the many other complexities of life in the region, sometimes (secular) scholars ignore the histories of interaction and change that fall outside our immediate experience. But in many parts of Southeast Asia it is very sensible to remain aware of the profound changes brought about by long decades of missionary toil.
And the writen materials left behind by missionaries - in the shape of dictionaries, grammars, translations, biographies, memoirs and all the rest - are, in so many cases, a wonderful resource. Reading between the lines of this historical material can, in my experience, be a very useful academic exercise.
14 responses so far ↓
1 aiontay // Jun 9, 2008 at 2:20 am
I think it is also important to note the missionaries had an important secular role as well. I remember a Kachin friend telling me how shocked he was to learn that the missionaries, at the request of the British colonial officials, included Burmese in the instruction at mission schools. He told me he was mad at the missionaries since they had been involved in “Burmanizing” the Kachins.
I’d also suggest that if you really want to read between the lines, you should also look in to the activities of indigenous Christian communities. The first offical Baptist missionaries to the Karens in Thailand arrived in the 1950s, but the first Karen Baptist church was founded in the 1880s around Chiang Rai, I believe. One of the first acts of the missionaries to Thai Karens was to attend a 50th anniversary of a Karen church around Mae Sarieng.
In fact the Thai public school in that town was originally a private school started by Karen Christians (but open to all Thai, Karen, and Burmese in the area) which taught Karen, Burmese and Thai. The initial Thai instructor was a Karen who only spoke Northern Thai, so they replaced him with someone who spoke the Central Thai dialect. The Japanese took the school over during WWII and gave it to the government.
2 Leif Jonsson // Jun 9, 2008 at 7:31 am
This is good stuff, and it is nice to get a breeze from beyond high-society Bangkok intrigues. Both remarks point to ways of thinking past some ideological certainties about missionaries and missionary encounters. There is good reason to come back to Southeast Asia as a problem, and to rethink its many starting points and intersections. Western missionaries came to the Yao in Nan, Phrae, and thereabouts in the early 1900s. They brought a sciopticon and showed Jesus-photos (I needed help to find out what the projector was like). They spoke some Chinese and had Chinese-lang Bibles, and some of the Yao were really keen on hiring them to teach their kids Chinese. There was an interesting back and forth between the missionaries, the Yao leader, and some of the villagers, that went on for years. This is recorded in Laos News, a missionary publication from that time that was aimed at supporters in the USA. Only in the 1950s did Yao start to convert to Christianity, and that played into local factionalisms that are still alive. Missionaries also went over to Laos during the war, made a few converts, and much more in the refugee camps by the mid 70s. They made songs in Mien, and worked on a romanized script. Both the script and Christianity are key to some Mien community building in Thailand and the US (former refugees from Laos), and it turns into something local and creative (and divisions between those using the Thai script and the romanized script for the good word in the Mien language). It also generates the desire to convert Mien “left behind”, in Laos, Vietnam, and southern China, which is an unexpected form of transnational connections. Missionary records and photos are interesting, missionaries can be as blind to the context of their actions as the rest of us. While I agree with the remark about how missionaries can play (unwittingly, sometimes) to the priorities of nation-building, they also contribute (sometimes) to an ethnic defense against it, and in the process they conjure up new possibilities for ethnicizing social life. While there have long been ethnic identities, how people become ethnic at any point in time is also worth some examination. But on this touchy topic, my favorite story is of a Buddhist missionary (Thammajarik) monk in northern Thailand (another nation building project) who came to a Mien village and was hoping for alms (food in particular). Some Mien guy came out of his house. After a while they came to some basis for communication, and the Mien man proceeded to offer money for the monk’s begging bowl, it would be useful in the kitchen. This story is in Kamala Tiyavanich’s Forest Recollections. This nearly transgressive moment (monks can’t handle money, without his bowl the monk cannot connect to ordinary society) is very funny, though KT is not trading in humor in this book or The Buddha in the Jungle, which is also worth checking out.
3 aiontay // Jun 9, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I think Leif’s point on how different societies have used Christianity to both resist larger national agendas and to create transnational connections certainly is important. The converts certainaly were not passive “Rice Christians”.
One other aspect to consider is the larger context in which these conversions took/take place. In mainland SE Asia they take place in a larger, dominant Buddhist context, which is a different dynamic than what happened in North America and Australia. Certainly in North America at least, Christianity was used by some tribal groups to resist national agendas, but in a much more constrained situation.
4 Stephen // Jun 9, 2008 at 12:59 pm
“I’d also suggest that if you really want to read between the lines, you should also look in to the activities of indigenous Christian communities.”
I do find it quite amazing how in some cases indigenous Christian communities have internalized facets 0f western missionary culture that don’t seem to be part of Christianity as such. Visibly, for example, in the male Chin ‘national dress’ being black slacks, a long sleeve button up white shirt, belt and a tie. But this covers a lot more than clothing and seems to include the rejection of ‘heathen’ practices and beliefs that could, with a bit of reworking, have possibly been incorporated into a culturally-tied Christianity had western missionaries not been so eager to expunge them.
Or, more problematic, the adoption of questionable historical and demographic claims that marginalize non-Christian members. Like the old claim that the Karen descend from Mesopotamia when “their forebears left Babylon when the town of Babel collapsed“. Reworking history in this way places Christianity (or at least middle-eastern-derived monotheism) as a more culturally legitimate religion than Buddhism or the various natural religions of the Karen despite the fact that the latter preceded Christianity amongst the Karen (barring the alternative theory that Christianity amongst the Karen came from Nestorian Christians in western China). Along these lines are Ashley South’s article “Karen Nationalist Communities: the ‘Problem’ of Diversity and Paul Keenan’s article “Faith at a Crossroads”.
Relatedly, an ethnic Karen missionary with whom I spoke recently told me that most Karen were Christian (they’re not; I think the figures are something like 25-35% Christian). He also told me that many Buddhist Karen, including most members of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army were in fact “really Christian in their hearts” and only professed Buddhism to get ahead given the SPDC’s pro-Buddhist bias or prior Burman domination over the Karen in pre-colonial Burma. Now, I recognize that the SPDC’s or monarchical Burma’s Buddhist favoritism may have influenced some individuals in their choice of religious adherence, but to suggest that this is the only reason for Buddhist faith amongst the Karen (or other ethnic nationalities of Burma) seems to me to be quite insulting to most non-Christian Karen who have strong beliefs in non-Christian religions; whether traditional natural religions, Buddhism or Islam (the latter being a small but important segment of the Karen).
The problem of Kachin claims to be a solely Christian ethnic group are challenged by the existence of Buddhist ethnic Kachin in north-eastern India (I forgot what the local name is, maybe simply called Jingpaw). This is discussed in Mandy Sadan’s article on the Kachin in Exploring ethnic diversity in Burma.
5 aiontay // Jun 9, 2008 at 8:10 pm
It seems to me the Kachins are a pretty good example of “heathen” beliefs incorporated in to a culturally-based Christianity. Christian Kachins from Burma and Buddhist Kachins (Singhpo) from Assam both participate in the Manau, an animist ceremony that pre-dates conversion to either Christianity or Buddhism.
I’d also point out that the Karen re-working of history might not just marginalize the non-Christian elements, but also the missionaries. I’m not saying that is the intent, but it is a possible interpretation. Can the missionaries trace their ancestory back to the Tower of Babel?
6 Nicholas Farrelly // Jun 9, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Thanks Aiontay, Leif and Stephen,
Great conversation! And, not wanting to get it off track, as a point of clarification the “Kachin” Stephen refers to are usually called Singpho. And, yes, they are mostly Theravada Buddhists and they have, as I understand it, mostly been quite recently converted (i.e. in the past 150 years or so). The stories I have heard focus on Burmese and Shan (and maybe “Kachin”) monks from across the border who walked to the Singpho areas. I was up in those areas of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam earlier in the year and a few of these New Mandala posts may be of interest to anyone wanting to learn more.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
7 Stephen // Jun 10, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Where nation-building refers to that of the Burman-dominated independent State, I agree there seems plenty of evidence to suggest that Christianity and Christian missionaries led to tension and resistance against it and encouraged separate identities amongst non-Burman Christians. But where it refers to British Burma, I don’t think there’s really that much evidence of Christian resistance to the colonial state. I’m not so familiar with ethnic nationality Christian figures who partook in the independence struggle against the British or, more interestingly, who did so alongside Buddhist Burmans towards the creation of a united independent Burma. I’m thinking of a Christian version of someone like the Muslim, U Razak. If someone does know of some cases, I would be interested to hear them. Instead, we have people like San C. Po calling for the continuation of British rule in Burma.
8 aiontay // Jun 10, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Didn’t San C. Po propose a Karen State?
9 Stephen // Jun 11, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Aiontay, yes that’s correct, but prior to his 1945 request to the British governor of Burma at the time for a separate Karen State, he did travel to London in 1928 to petition the British against self-rule for Burma, arguing that the country wasn’t ready.
10 jonfernquest // Jun 11, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I’ve never seen anything on the history of Catholic missions in the Eastern Shan States in Kengtung. Most of the Akhas from Kengtung seem to be Catholic. The Akha Catholic priest who used to help me with my Burmese, even told me about Akha priests who went for graduate study at the Vatican and one who did a dissertation on localising Catholicism, adapting it to local Akha beliefs. It would be interesting to study contrasts and differences in the approach taken by missionaries in the Catholic and Protestant communities of Akhas. When I lived in Yangon, got to know some Chin folk singers and it was interesting how they identified with some very specific American pastors who founded their church. Like they asked me if I knew who this rather obscure guy was, as if someone from America would know him for sure, highlighting the pastor’s importance in their mind. Living in Maesai I also met several very intelligent Burmese nationals, one from a sub-group of “Kachin,” who had studied in US bible colleges with the goal of bible translation in their dialect. (BTW There is a citation to an academic paper in Lieberman’s “Strange Parallels” that discusses hilltribe conversion to Christianity as a response to the majority Buddhism.) I taught in a very remote Karen village on the Moei River with a KNU official and a Karen-Thai headman, the population split between many Christian town Karen from inside Burma and also many hill Karen (non-Christian) from the local Thai area who didn’t seem to be connected into markets at all. There was even a sort of loyalty to Great Britain. I remember the nurse in the village saying she’d like to go visit the queen. Interesting discussion with interesting questions raised. Soon to appear in English:
PRISONERS OF A WHITE GOD
Lao People’s Democratic Republic exercises development programs which implement relocations of whole villages from mountain areas to the lowlands or along the roads. These activities are supposed to lead to abatement of swidden agriculture and opium production and also to the concentration and integration of village inhabitants into the majority of Lao society. Akhas are among the most affected.
CZ, 2008, 52 min.
Inspired by Tomas Ryska
Written and directed by Steve L. Lichtag
Music by Pavel Kotzian
IFF Envirofilm 2008 - Slovakia, Special Award
http://www.lichtag.com/filmy_en.htm
11 aiontay // Jun 11, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Given the current situation of the Karens in Burma, San C. Po may have been on to something. I don’t recall a whole lot of Shan or Palaung Buddhists calling for a united Burma independent of Britian, and elements of the Mon community joined the Karens in rebellion against U Nu’s government, so is the issue really Christianity or ethnicity?
Jon, I think just about any comparison of the Catholics and Protestants would be interesting; what would also be interesting is comparing the ethnographic material produced by both groups. For example a comparison of Tegenfeldt’s “A Century of Growth”, which deals with the Kachin Baptist church with a comparable Catholic study.
12 Kate G. // Jun 18, 2008 at 8:04 am
Interesting discussion. I’m sorry to have come so late to it.
Re: the use of missionary literature. Long, long ago, when I was writing my B.A. honors thesis at the University of Iowa on millennial/revitalization movements in SE Asia, my most useful sources came from the full set of the American Baptist Mission records at the University Library. Most of these missions were to Karen in Burma. They were full of ‘field reports’ from missionaries (husbands and wives), loaded with details of everyday life. One of their great joys was how rapidly they were able to convert Karen; one of their great sorrows was the constant rise of millennial movements of one kind or another that took people from what the American Baptists saw as the true path.
There were, of course, also millennial movements among the Buddhist Karen. I surmised that these movements were an expression of desires for cultural and political autonomy (I was working from Peter Worsley, seeing religious movements as inherently political).
For a little about Catholic Missions in Yunnan, see the following:
Gros, Stéphane
1996a Terres de Confins, Terres de Colonisation: Essay sur les Marches Sino-Tibétaines Due Yunnan À Travers l’Implantation de la Mission Du Tibet. Péninsule 33(2):147-211.
2001a-b Ritual and Politics: Missionary Encounters in Local Culture in Northwest Yunnan. In Legacies and Social Memory: Missionaries and Scholars in the Ethnic Southwest. Eric S. Diehl, chair. Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL, March
22-25.
Magnus Fiskejo also tells me that the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago has got some great information on Lisu and other Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples in SW China in their archives, again from the mission work of people such as Isobel Kuhn and, of course, James Fraser, author of Handbook of the Lisu (Yawyin) Language.
13 aiontay // Jun 19, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Kate G. ,
That BA thesis sounds very interesting; if you would care to go in to more detail about it, it could very well help expand this discussion. Martin Smith in “Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity” has an appendix on millenarianism, and mentions several Karen millennial sects that were influenced by Christianity. It certainly be interesting to hear the missionary description of the Karen millennial movements.
Of course, those millennial movements cut both ways. Harold Young, the missionary patriarch of Young family, was helped in his conversions among the Lahus by Lahu prophecies (see pg 304 of McCoy’s “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia”). As McCoy writes “Although investigators councluded that Reverand Young was pandering to pagan myths, Baptist congregations in the the United States were impressed by his statistical success and had already started sending large contributions to ‘gather in the harvest’ “.
Martin Smith notes that the Lahu rebellion in Burma began in 1972 headed by Pu Kyaung Long, a traditional Lahu spiritual leader ( the same type of spiritual leader Young was when he was “pandering to pagan myths), and that his followers included Christian Lahus from Thailand. I had lunch with one of his sons in the company of 3 Lahu Baptist pastors in a Lahu village on the Thai side of the border in the early 1990s. I didn’t know who he was until after lunch when one of the pastors informed me of who his father was. Despite the fact he wasn’t Christian, they all seemed to have known each other quite well and were on good terms.
14 Ola Hanson from the archive on vocabulary size // Jun 25, 2008 at 2:50 am
[...] quote follows an earlier archival posting that highlighted religious change in the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia. As a missionary linguist Ola Hanson was a major [...]
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