Christian missionaries and Alaskan Indians

The Christian missionaries went above and beyond to convert as many American Indians as they could in any way possible. These people believed that because they were Christian everyone else around them should be also. They should educate the American Indians, even if the Indians did not want the help. When missionaries went to Alaska in the late 1800s they found a tribe of Alaskan Indians and built a church and a school to educate them about Christianity. These missionaries did not even think that these people may have had their own religion and ceremonies that they performed and did not need Christianity. “This promise will surely be fulfilled to these people, for they are hungering and thirsting for more light. It would be a great wrong for the Church to neglect these people longer.” (Mathisen) This kind of ignorance was the thought of many Christian missionaries.
In an article written in Natural History, it explains how religion has changed for Alaskan Indians because of the Christian missionaries. The ceremonies, such as masked dancing, had all but disappeared after the 1900s. The ceremonial masked dancing has started up again for some Alaskan tribes, but there is still much damage left by the Christian missionaries. Although the missionaries changed many things about Alaskan Indian religion, instead of the Indians completely forgetting their own religion, they adapted the Christian religion to their own. “When Christian missionaries began arriving in the 1840s, the term agayu was applied to the newly introduced religious ceremonies and came to mean prayer, worship, and participation in the new religion.” (Natural History) The Alaskan Indians adapted prayer to their own ceremonies.



Mathesin, Robert, R. Critical Issues in American Religious History: A Reader (2nd Revised Edition). Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006. Print.

“The Yup'ik way of making prayer." Natural History 105.8 (1996): 12. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO.