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3 - Adopting the Missionary

Messages, Commodities, Technologies (1894–1908)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2023

Kyle Jackson
Affiliation:
Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver
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Summary

This chapter offers a different take on the standard teleological story of Christianization in the Lushai Hills by focusing on what the missionaries themselves deemed an utter failure: their first decade of mission work. It views the earliest foreign missionaries to the Lushai Hills as uplanders did: first, as ‘sap vakvai’ - strange and insignificant wanderers; and, later, as ‘zosap’ - usable and incorporable newcomers, asking not what foreign missionaries wanted from highland people, but what highland people wanted from missionaries. The weakness and vulnerabilities of foreign missionaries opened up space for a first generation of young people with sensibilities spanning the Lushai Hills District and the globe. Upland populations became interested in Christianity - a new yet combinable spiritual power - as well as the knowledge dispensed on the mission compound because they were completely and inherently involved in its interpretation and dissemination. Everyday technologies, the studies and movements of students, regional meetings of nascent Christian groups, and ‘celebrations’ of empire began synchronizing time and both connecting and circumscribing space, all with profoundly far-reaching and unpredictable effects. Maps, schools, and the harmonization of space and time would help spark ideas about a wider, more integrated ‘Mizo’ identity. Children, adolescents, and youth were not only critical partners but also often operated in networks completely unmediated by the white missionaries, in channels of circulations that generated important redefinitions of space, time, and ethnicity in the uplands.

Type
Chapter
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The Mizo Discovery of the British Raj
Empire and Religion in Northeast India, 1890–1920
, pp. 104 - 146
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Adopting the Missionary
  • Kyle Jackson, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver
  • Book: The Mizo Discovery of the British Raj
  • Online publication: 12 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009267359.004
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  • Adopting the Missionary
  • Kyle Jackson, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver
  • Book: The Mizo Discovery of the British Raj
  • Online publication: 12 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009267359.004
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Adopting the Missionary
  • Kyle Jackson, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver
  • Book: The Mizo Discovery of the British Raj
  • Online publication: 12 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009267359.004
Available formats
×