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The history of Christian missions in Canada has traditionally been
told only from the point of view of the missionaries, and not those
they were attempting to convert. In "I Will Fear No Evil" , Susan
Gray offers a new perspective on missionary-aboriginal encounters
between the Berens River Ojibwa and Methodist and Catholic
missionaries between 1875 and 1940. Supplementing her historical
research with conversations and interviews with Berens River
elders, Gray explores the ways in which Christian beliefs have
become incorporated into the traditional Ojibwa worldview. The
Ojibwa were active participants in these missionary encounters.
They accepted those missionaries who treated them with sensitivity
and respect and integrated Christian beliefs and practices into
their established belief system. Today, a blend of Christian and
Ojibwa ideas is still interwoven in the lives of Berens River
residents, with both traditions holding meaning and sincerity.
Their uniquely adaptive religion sheds new light on our
understanding of cultural contact and conversion, placing the
indigenous experience of these events at centre stage.
From 1930 to 1940, A. Irving Hallowell, a professor of anthropology
at the University of Pennsylvania, made repeated summer fieldwork
visits to Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, and to the Ojibwe community at
Berens River on the lake's east side. He traveled up the Berens
River several times to other Ojibwe communities as well, under the
guidance of William Berens, the treaty chief at Berens River from
1917 to 1947 and Hallowell's closest collaborator. "Contributions
to Ojibwe Studies" presents twenty-eight of Hallowell's writings
focusing on the Ojibwe people at Berens River.
This collection is the first time that the majority of Hallowell's
otherwise widely dispersed essays about the Ojibwe have been
gathered into a single volume, thus providing a focused, in-depth
view of his contributions to our knowledge and understanding of a
vital North American aboriginal people. This volume also
contributes to the history of North American anthropology, since
Hallowell's approaches to and analyses of his findings shed light
on his role in the shifting intellectual currents in anthropology
over four decades.
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