Bringing Jesus to the Savages

Some years before sailing to the island, I read Herman Melville’s Typee. It was not my intention of putting in to the island. Rumors maintained about aggressive, cannibal tribes still inhabiting the island. Melville wrote about these savages sixty years ago, in 1846. I could not help but be curious. The descriptions of the beautiful people there, the tattoos adorning their splendid bodies, the innocent and loveliness of their women, their culture and the thousands of years of evidence that they had mastered survival in a paradise, complete with tribal wars, jealously and violently guarded territories, unusual polygamy (women having at least two husbands), and intriguing details of an idyllic tribal life.

Christians came and preached their gospel. They preached about original sin and how Jesus saved the sinners from roasting in hell. They gave Communion, saying, “This is my body and this is my blood, which appealed greatly to the savages of Typee.

Christians had raised by the donations of the faithful in America thousands of dollars to spread the Gospel to the heathen everywhere, and Typee became the recipient of this zealous missionary endeavor.

I was there when they arrived, the Christian missionaries. At first, they were taken in with a tenuous acceptance. Gradually, after several months, the savage priests took literally what the missionaries taught literally. One savage, Marnooninoo, caught on to English rapidly, having had contact with other English-speaking vessels in the past that had touched their shores. He questioned one of the several missionaries about the Christian meal, the bread and the wine, and was taught that the bread was truly the flesh of Jesus and the wine was truly the blood of Jesus. Marnooninoo watched the mouth of the missionary when saying these words and became excited about the new religion among them. It was clear to him that this new religion encouraged eating one another.

That is exactly what happened to the missionaries. They were faithfully eaten by these happy savages, and, in fact, in future times of eating strangers venturing into their midst, they used the refined, inviting Biblical words given them by those missionaries. Marnooninoo and other priests used these words when distributing the meat and drinking the blood of future strangers to Typee God works in strange and wondrous ways, indeed!Bringing Jesus to the Savages

By Chris Rubel 12/28/2010